Aloha! Welcome to Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaiʻi on this Memorial Day. I would like to offer my deepest thanks to our invited guests, volunteers, staff, and everyone participating in today’s ceremony. Today we come together to extend our prayers and wishes for peace and healing for a swift recovery from the widespread damage caused by torrential rains and floods that have recently hit Hawaiʻi, and to all spirits including those who have perished in conflict and disasters around the globe.

On this stage are offerings of pure fire and water. The fire has been kindled by joining kukui oil from Hawaiʻi with fire from an eternal flame safeguarded at our home temple in Japan. The water also joins different sources of water from Hawaiʻi and Japan as one. Fire bestows warmth and water bestows healing—characteristics embodied by this lantern floating, where our sincere prayers allow us to share a soul-to-soul connection with those who have passed and be truly uplifted.

During this ceremony we will chant sacred passages from the Shinnyo teachings set to beautiful melodies. Alongside our singing you will hear the voices of the founders of Shinnyo-en, my parents, Masters Shinjo and Tomoji, chanting a mantra of shinnyo, the Goreiju, which carries their heartfelt prayer to help quell the pain and suffering of the world. The melody of the mantra reminds me of the kindness and compassion my parents taught me and of the healing and comfort my brothers—who died so young—offered people through the way they lived: my brother Chibun was always selflessly giving and my brother Yuichi was always sincere in his gratitude.

Everyone has within them gentle and virtuous attributes as well as a warm heart. Let us express that wisdom and compassion with actions that honor all people and living beings in harmonious ways, beginning with those who are closest to us. Through this sacred ceremony that gives expression to our inextinguishable connection with loved ones, past and present, may we, like the light of the floating lanterns that shine upon the great ocean tonight, awaken our true inner light to illuminate the world and the future with hope.

Mahalo and Namu Shinnyo.