The One Lamp That Excelled All Lamps

by Dorjé Lopön Hun Lye

There was an episode from the Buddha’s life that illustrates the power of open-heartedness (read: generosity). Once the Buddha and his disciples were passing through a kingdom and decided to stop for a few days when residents of the town invited them to stay and the king invited the Buddha to teach. Everyone was vey excited and great effort was made to host the Buddha and his disciples. In particular, everyone busied themselves with preparing lamp offerings to illuminate the teaching venue for the evening teachings that the Buddha was going to do.

There were magnificent oil lamps of all types – gold lamps, silver lamps, lamps encrusted with jewels, single flame lamps, multiple flames lamps, etc. All the wealthy and powerful tried outdoing each other in their lamps. Ordinary folk prepared more modest lamps but impressive nonetheless. At that time, there was an elderly woman who was a beggar and homeless. She barely knew when she was getting her next meal, much less having any lamps to offer. But nonetheless she was so taken and inspired by the presence of the Buddha and his noble disciples that she was determined to offer a lamp. Looking around, she found a half-broken shell of a coconut that she could use as a lamp. Then she cut a little piece of cloth from her rags to form a wick. The biggest challenge was the fuel – where can she get any oil for this lamp when she has no ability to buy any? She wandered from place to place trying to beg some oil but nobody was willing to give her any. Finally, at the last oil-seller, she thought of an idea: she would cut her hair, her hair that has never been cut all her life and try to exchange her hair for some oil. In ancient India, hair was something that you did not cut especially for women as it represented their dignity and beauty. But people would buy hair to add as extensions or to make into wigs. The oil-seller accepted her barter and gave her a scoop of oil to fill her half-broken coconut shell of a lamp. And off she went to offer her lamp.

When she arrived at the teaching venue, it was already dusk and many many brilliant lamps were illuminating the space. As she was too embarrassed by her lamp, she placed it way at the back, near the entrance of the venue, by the side of the door and sat down to listen to the Buddha teach. As it turns out, on that evening, the Buddha’s adversarial cousin, Devadatta was intent on causing a disruption to the teachings. Through his ability to conjur magic, Devadatta caused winds to blow and extinguish all the lamps, one after another. But it did not take long for everyone present to notice that as the strong gusts of winds quickly extinguished each lamp, one little lamp remained burning. And as more lamps lost their brilliance, the beggar woman’s lamp burned brighter and brighter. Devadatta whipped up his magic further and tried to extinguish that last lamp but to no avail. Instead, even with all the other hundreds of lamps extinguished, the venue was brighter than before and all due to the one half-broken coconut shell lamp offered by the beggar woman. This, the Buddha taught, is the power of open-heartedness, the power of generosity, of pure intentions. The one lamp that excels all lamps!