{"id":300,"date":"2013-02-01T14:54:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T22:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/?p=300"},"modified":"2014-10-19T19:59:17","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T02:59:17","slug":"lighting-a-lamp-on-new-years-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"Lighting a Lamp on New Year’s Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lighting a candle on New Year’s eve will enhance the light of our minds
\nSaturday, February 9 (Lunar New Year’s eve) – 8:00 PM ~ <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our minds will be illuminated and
\nour ignorance<\/span> will be destroyed by the Wisdom Light<\/span>
\n when we light up lanterns and make offerings to the Buddha,<\/span>
\n we gain the highest insights and enable us to attain supreme wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to \u201cSutra of Merit and Virtue of Offering of Lamps\u201d, it has various kinds of statements about the merit and virtue of offering lamps. If one offers lamps in front of a stupa or Buddha Hall, one will attain four kinds of joyous virtue; an adorned appearance, always being filled with wealth and fortune, having great good roots, and having great wisdom. One will also attain four kinds of purity;: purity in Body, purity in Mouth, purity in mind, and purity in decent companion.<\/p>\n

One lamp\u2019s brilliant light quells many years\u2019 of darkness to herald peace.
\nA thousand lotus flowers\u2019 sweet scent pierces the stratosphere to reach Ultimate Bliss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00adVenerable Master Hua said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When lighting a lamp in front of Buddhas, one will attain bright eyes. With bright eyes, one will be able to observe things that others cannot see; and they will have a better understanding than others, one will then attain the heavenly eye penetration. One will attain the five eyes; the Buddha eye, the dharma eye, the wisdom eye, the flesh eye as well as heavenly eye, the merit and virtue is thus wonderful.<\/p>\n

For years GBM organized the Lamp Lighting Ceremony during Chinese New Year’s eve. The ceremony starts at 8pm. We will recite\u00a0 the Shurangama Mantra, followed by Ten Small Mantras and The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra. The ceremony officially begins when we start chanting “Namo Quelling Disasters, Lengthening Life Medicine Master Buddha”. Lots of participants including non-Buddhists visit Gold Buddha Monastery to wish for good a start in the coming year. This is a meaningful event as non-Buddhists get a chance to know more about Buddhism. Due to an overwhelming crowd, everyone has to line-up and wait for their turn to light a lamp.The ceremony ends about 9pm after transference of merit is done.<\/p>\n

From this event, we wish to<\/p>\n

Quell calamities and lengthen life,
\nHave good health and happy spirits.
\nIncrease blessings and\u00a0 good fortune,
\nGentle temperaments and world peace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

May the merit and virtue of lighting lamps,
\nbe universally transferred to all beings
\nin the Dharma Realm
\nand may all attain Bodhi fruition.
\nMay all attain bliss and leave suffering,
\nbring forth Bodhi resolve and attain Bodhi Way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lighting a candle on New Year’s eve will enhance the light of our minds Saturday, February 9 (Lunar New Year’s eve) – 8:00 PM ~ … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,31],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-chinese-new-year","tag-lighting-lamps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}