Offerings to the Buddha
Note: These items cannot be purchased online. As each offering carries the devotee's unique and personal wishes, it is best to personally to make the offering at Poh Ern Shih.
Flowers represent the intentions behind an action, which can either give rise to positive or negative karma.
Offering flowers to the Buddha serves to remind oneself to always have the purest of intentions so that the karma that follows will always be positive. The more positive one's karma is, the lesser one will suffer in life.
Devotees who wish to improve their relations with others also typically offer flowers. The belief is that flowers are visually appealing and by offering them to the Buddha this appeal may be transposed onto oneself to make the person more likeable.
Lights represent wisdom and also figuratively represents burning our time and resources in service of others.
Devotees offer lights and pray to achieve clarity either towards their cultivation journey as a Buddhist or towards specific personal issues. This is the wisdom aspect of offering lights.
On a deeper level, offering lights also serve to remind oneself that as a practising Buddhist, one should always give back to society and serve all beings with compassion. When done sincerely, life naturally becomes smoother.
This light carries the same meaning as the Lotus Light. In addition, it carries the blessings of the Great Compassion Mantra (大悲咒).
The Great Compassion Mantra is one of the most popular Buddhist mantra around the world. Always associated with Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva (more commonly known as Guanyin), the mantra is known to reduce the suffering of the ill, remove barriers in life, reduce negative karma, enhance spiritual cultivation and bring auspiciousness.
Devotees often choose this light if they face significant challenges in life and wish to receive help in successfully overcoming them.
Prayer wheels originated from Tibetan Buddhism. Wheels can be from different materials and can have various Buddhist mantras engraved in them.
The general underlying principle is that spinning the wheel is as meritorious as reciting the mantra engraved. In this particular version, heat from the light spins the prayer wheel situated above it, thereby creating a clever automated spinning for the devotee.
People who wish to purify their karma will benefit from this.