On 'Be a Lamp Unto Yourself'

ji tou myou hou tou myou — Be a Lamp Unto Yourself.

On the origin

Attributed to the Buddha’s final instruction to Ānanda before his passing. A corresponding passage appears in the Chinese Dīrgha Āgama, “Sūtra of the Last Journey” (遊行経; Taishō vol. 1, p. 15), and it is transmitted in the Pāli Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya). The original dīpa can be read as “island” (a refuge) or as “lamp”; Chinese renderings vary — the Saṃyukta Āgama uses “island,” the Dīrgha Āgama “to kindle,” while the familiar “lamp” reading is a later, widely adopted gloss.

On the reading

Make of yourself a lamp; take yourself as the refuge. Make of the teaching a lamp; take the teaching as the refuge. Seek no other light, lean on nothing outside these two. Asked what would remain to rely on once the teacher was gone, this was the answer left behind.

On the garment

The seal for this phrase was hand-carved in Tokyo by the artist Satake Hōsen. The front carries this phrase’s seal; the back and inside label carry the Hōsen seal (寳千), printed in vermilion.

The garment is Bella + Canvas 3001 (short sleeve) or Gildan 2400 (long sleeve). A vessel for the word, not the subject itself.

― hosen, tokyo