Sakyamuni, another name for Buddhism, means also illumination, or realization of the saving character of the light within.

The lamp is the most important symbol in, Buddhism, as it typifies the divine flame or illumination (which is cosmic consciousness), as the goal of the disciple.

Another interpretation of the symbol of the lamp, is that of the power of the lamp to shed its rays to light the way of those who are traveling “in the gloom,” and by so doing, it lights the flame of illumination in others, without diminishing its own power.  An article of faith reads: 

“As one holds out a lamp in the darkness that those who have eyes may see the objects, even so has the doctrine been made clear by the Lord in manifold exposition.”

Again, in the Book of the Great Decease, we learn that Buddha admonished his disciples to “dwell as lamps unto yourselves.”  Another symbol used throughout Japan as a means of teaching the masses the essential doctrines of “The Compassionate One,” has become familiar to occidental people as a sort of “curio.”  It is that of the three monkeys carved in wood or ivory.

One monkey is covering his eyes with both paws; another has stopped his ears; and the third has his paw pressed tightly over his mouth.  The lesson briefly told is to “see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil,” and the reason that the monkey is employed as the symbol, is because the monkey, more than any other animal, resembles primitive man.  If, then, we would rise from the monkey, or animal condition (the physical or animal part of the human organism), we must avoid a karma of consciousness of evil.

Buddhism is full of symbolism, and these symbols must be interpreted according to the age, or of the individual consciousness of the interpreter, or the translator.  But the fundamental doctrine of Buddha is essentially one of renunciation as applied to the things of the world.  Nevertheless this quality of renunciation has been greatly exaggerated during the centuries, because of the fact that the Lord Buddha had so much to give up, viewed from the standpoint of worldly ethics.

In the following “sayings of Buddha,” we find that the quest of the noble sage was for that supraconsciousness wherein change and decay were not, rather than that he regarded the things of the senses, as sinful.  For example: 

“It is not that I am careless about beauty, or am ignorant of human joys; but only that I see on all the impress of change; therefore, my heart is sad and heavy.”  Or this: 

“A hollow compliance and a protesting heart, such method is not for me to follow:  I now will seek a noble law, unlike the worldly methods known to men.  I will oppose disease, and change and death, and strive against the mischief wrought by these, on men.”

According to the Samyutta Nikaya, the twelve Nidanas (or chain of consequences) are: