A lamp and a prayer

Light a Lamp

Built by Tim Yu, Founder & Editor · Published 11 November 2026

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Light a lamp on screen, a Tibetan butter lamp or a Sri Lankan oil lamp, with a short prayer from that tradition and, if you wish, a private dedication: a name, or a wish. Lamps are often lit for someone who is ill or who has died. Nothing you write is saved or sent, and nothing is counted.

A butter lamp, as offered before Tibetan shrines. The prayer offers it to the Three Roots (in Vajrayāna, the guru, the yidam or meditational deity, and the ḍākinī) and the Victors, the buddhas.

For whom, or for what, do you light it? (optional, private)

This lamp is a picture: nothing burns. What you write stays on this page and is never saved or sent, and nothing is counted.

A lamp on a screen

Nothing burns here, and we found no Tibetan teacher or institution that has said whether a lamp on a screen is an offering. What the tradition does say is that an offering can be imagined as well as set out, and that a lamp need not be a flame. Shabkar’s light-offering prayer offers its lamp “of real gifts and those imagined by the mind,” and Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught that thinking you cannot offer “the other lights in the house, for example, electric lights, is a very limited idea”: “you can offer all the lights in the house.” Neither was speaking of screens.

A caution from another tradition is worth keeping beside that. Interviewed about virtual temple visits, the Vietnamese abbot Thich Khai Thanh said that if someone uses technology to direct the mind toward the Three Jewels, “the experience can still have positive spiritual value,” but that “tapping a screen to make a virtual character bow does not automatically constitute meaningful spiritual practice,” and that “spiritual merit is not measured by how many times someone presses an icon.” So this page offers the lamp as a support for the prayer and the wish behind it, which are yours, and it keeps no count.

Lamps for the sick and for those who have died

“It is common to offer butter lamps for those who have passed away or for those who are sick,” the Tibetan Nuns Project writes. Many Tibetan centres offer lamps for the 49 days after a death; Ati Ling, a centre of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s lineage, describes offering them “with the wish that they make a positive future connection with a true spiritual path.” If you would like a real lamp lit, some Tibetan centres will light lamps for a donation, and through the Tibetan Nuns Project nuns in India light butter lamps that people sponsor.

If you are lighting a lamp in grief, you do not have to carry it alone. Our grief companion offers a gentle place to begin, and Buddhism and grief sets out what the traditions teach.

The verses

The Tibetan prayer is Shechen Gyaltsab’s four-line “Lamp Aspiration Prayer”, translated by Abraham Ta-Quan for Lotsawa House; the mantra is the one given in Atiśa’s “Light Offering Prayer”. The Theravāda stanza is the one A. G. S. Kariyawasam gives, with his translation, in Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals of Sri Lanka, where he notes that it still speaks of camphor although lamps came to burn coconut oil. For the history and meaning of the butter lamp, read our guide to butter lamps; for offerings more widely, making offerings.

To recite a mantra with a turning wheel, try the prayer wheel. See all our free tools.

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Frequently asked questions

Can you light a butter lamp online?

You can light one on screen here, but nothing burns, and we found no Tibetan teacher who has said whether a lamp on a screen is an offering. Tibetan prayers do offer lamps that are imagined as well as real: Shabkar offers his lamp 'of real gifts and those imagined by the mind'. A Vietnamese abbot, Thich Khai Thanh, says that turning the mind to the Three Jewels through technology 'can still have positive spiritual value', but that tapping a screen 'does not automatically constitute meaningful spiritual practice'.

What do you say when you light a butter lamp?

There are many lamp prayers. This tool gives Shechen Gyaltsab's short Tibetan prayer, which asks that 'the darkness of our ignorance be dispelled', with the light-offering mantra om vajraloke ah hum, and the traditional Sri Lankan Pali stanza for offering a lamp to the Buddha, 'a lamp unto the three worlds'.

Why do Tibetan Buddhists light lamps for the dead and the sick?

The Tibetan Nuns Project writes that 'it is common to offer butter lamps for those who have passed away or for those who are sick'. Many Tibetan centres offer lamps for the 49 days after a death. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche taught that lamps are offered with the wish that their light 'will illuminate the lower realms and the bardo'.

What does a lamp symbolise in Buddhism?

Light dispelling darkness, and wisdom dispelling ignorance. The Tibetan Nuns Project calls this 'part of the symbolism of lighting butter lamps'; the Sri Lankan stanza honours the Buddha as 'the dispeller of darkness'.

Is anything I write here saved?

No. What you write in the dedication box stays on the page while it is open and is never saved or sent, and the tool does not count the lamps you light. If what you write reads as though your own safety is at risk, the tool shows real places to get help first.