"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened."
Someone on Facebook asked me about this one today. It's not a genuine saying of the Buddha's.
It's from a Japanese book on Buddhism called "The Teaching of Buddha." This book does contain translations of Buddhist sutras, but it also inlcludes a lot of explanatory commentary, of which this is a part.
A fuller version reads:
"An act to make another happy, inspires the other to make still another happy, and so happiness is aroused and abounds. Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. Those who seek Enlightenment must be careful of each of their steps. No matter how high one's aspiration may be, it must be attained step by step. The steps of the path to Enlightenment must be taken in our everyday life."
It's possible that the quote appeared with the attribution "The Teaching of Buddha," with this then being misinterpreted to mean that it was the word of the Buddha. Several well-known Fake BUddha Quotes originate in this book.
There's nothing at all unBuddhist about this quote. Often when I tell people that their Buddha quote is not in fact a Buddha quote they get rather annoyed and think that I'm denying the message conveyed by the quote, but whether a quote is true is separate from whether it's correctly attributed.
The Buddha did talk about lamps (I don't know about candles) and said things like:
"Just as an oil lamp burns in dependence on oil & wick; and from the termination of the oil & wick — and from not being provided any other sustenance — it goes out unnourished; in the same way, when sensing a feeling limited to the body, he discerns that 'I am sensing a feeling limited to the body.' When sensing a feeling limited to life, he discerns that 'I am sensing a feeling limited to life.' He discerns that 'With the break-up of the body, after the termination of life, all that is sensed, not being relished, will grow cold right here.'"
As you can see, this isn't very pithy or quotable!
A bit more quotable is:
As a flame overthrown by the force of the wind goes to an end that cannot be classified, so the sage free from naming activity goes to an end that cannot be classified.
But then this is rather hard to comprehend.
A later teaching — the Questions of King Milinda, has a similar analogy in reference not to happiness but to the teaching of rebirth:
The king asked: "Venerable Nagasena, is it so that one does not transmigrate and [yet] one is reborn?"
"Yes, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn."
"How, venerable Nagasena, is it that one does not transmigrate and one is reborn? Give me an analogy."
"Just as, your majesty, if someone kindled one lamp from another, is it indeed so, your majesty, that the lamp would transmigrate from the other lamp?"
"Certainly not, venerable sir."
"Indeed just so, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn."
This isn't the Buddha speaking, but it's the closest I've found to "Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened."
Related posts:
Fake Buddha Quote: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity.
My life in bullet-points (again)
Fake Buddha quote: "We're the same as plants, trees, other people, the rain that falls. We consist of that [which] is around us, we're the same as everything.'
