Every week for the past 30 years, Palpung Thubten Choling has offered 1,000 butterlamps along with incense, flowers, and bowls of saffron water as a powerful way of radiating positive aspirations to ease the suffering of all beings and of specific individuals. We invite you to join in these auspicious offerings and include a personal prayer request, which will be read aloud during the Monlam Choga chanting practice following the lighting of the lamps. Using one of the two forms below, you can sponsor a particular number of offerings or donate a total dollar amount. A tong cho is 1,000 lamps plus associated offerings, and a gya cho is one tenth of a tong cho, 100 lamps with offerings.

Sponsoring butterlamps at a Buddhist monastery is a traditional means of accumulating merit, purifying illness and obstacles, and benefiting others. Our butterlamps are made according to the traditional custom: large pots of pure butter are clarified in the monastery kitchen. The liquid butter is then poured into traditional butterlamp vessels, into each of which a cotton wick has been inserted by hand. Butterlamps symbolize the light of wisdom and the warmth of compassion, which burn away ignorance and suffering and bring joy and harmony to the mind. Bowls of rice represent sustenance for the physical and mental exertion needed to accomplish enlightenment. Saffron water represents the cleansing of obscurations and the enhancement of positive qualities. Flowers symbolize generosity, and incense the purity of ethical discipline. Butterlamp sponsors share in the merit of these offerings, and also multiply it, as each additional participant is said to increase the merit of any dharma activity exponentially.

There are two ways to sponsor butterlamps: by total dollar amount or by designating specific offerings. Use either of the forms below, depending on your preference.