What Is Lighting the Candle?

Everlasting candle means the truly awakened mind; candle refers to the brightness of the self-gnostic enlightenment.

Therefore, one who is looking for complete liberation should think of his body as the base of the candleholder and his mind as candleholders; faith as a wick, the incense of the precept at wax or oil,20 and the lighting of wisdom as candle-light.21

You should burn this bright candle(destroyer of darkness) all the time; radiating toward unenlightened darkness and prevailing over it.

If you become enlightened by these dharmas, one by one, it means one candle's light carries over to ten-thousand candles and, finally, to a limitless number.

That is why it is called, the everlasting candle.


Once upon a time there was a Buddha named, lantern-lighter; which is like the lighter of the everlasting candle. An indigent-being did not understand the expediency of the method that Buddha used in his speech, so instead, he demonstrated delusory behavior and attached to the form of doing by burning the sesame oil, lighting the empty rooms, and sincerely thinking, that he is taking refuge in the sutras.

What a great mistake!

Why? If Buddha radiated light from a hair between two eyebrows, it would enlighten the ten-thousand plus eight-thousand worlds.

And if his whole body radiated the light then it would enlighten the whole world from ten directions.

How can we even talk about benefit from ordinary candlelight?

Watch this meaning carefully; you will know what is wrong.