Be a lamp unto yourself/appa deepo bhava

This is one of the most often repeated of the Buddha’s recommendations. Its valuable suggestion remains of continuing relevance to practitioners new and old. Whether we might call it a prescription, a recommendation or a suggestion, this is one of the Buddha’s deepest, most incisive revelations. The meaning of this brief teaching is apparently very clear and obvious, but it ranges far and wide to cover what its most literal reading might not make immediately apparent.

To be “a lamp unto [one’s] self” means to shed light over one’s own presence and actions, to make one’s presence apparent moment by moment, present moment by present moment, in the here and now. Maybe we could like the lamp to our contemporary spotlight, where light is shed on one “spot” not before it nor behind it. The spot that is en-lightened is the present. And so, the onus is on each one of us to shed light on our present, moment-by-moment, enabling us to live the present unhindered by the conditioning of the past or the anxiety for the future. The possibility of living in the present is a revolutionary aspect of the Buddha’s example, for it leaves totally within our grasp the possibility of being not a-historically but in what might be termed historically present.

But to be a lamp, to shed light on a spot or on a moment, also serves as a beacon for others. This is what the Buddha himself represents, an example, a lamp in the darkness that illuminates the possibility of seeing the present upon which it shines. This finds continuity in our inherent Buddha nature. We are all potentially Buddhas in the making, and the lamp that aids in actualizing that nature is also the lamp that guides others toward the available path.

The other side of the coin of “be a lamp unto yourself” is that we should not represent our experience as one that is easily and mechanically transferable to others. Each one of us has shed light onto ourselves. The path must be that of our personal experience of it. There are no shortcuts along the path, and our lamp is fueled by our own energies along it. We cannot pretend to use another’s energy (experience) to fuel our lamp, we cannot lend our energy to power another’s lamp, and we cannot be a lamp onto another. But we can be that beacon that makes it clear that the path is possible, and that it is peopled by others on a similar journey. Imagine walking along a path in the darkness, and seeing myriad lights moving along it like innumerable fireflies. Each one generates its own light, each one moves independently of the others, experiencing its own relationship with the world, but all of them share the life of a firefly. Being a lamp onto ourselves communicates to others that while the journey might at times be lonely, we are not alone.

And finally, being “a lamp unto [one’s] self” is an encouraging representation of the energy that we all carry within ourselves as a resource for discovering the true nature of the world.

“Meditation is not an escape from life…but preparation for really being in life.”
Thich Nhat Hahn