Each year, 6,000 lanterns are set afloat at Ala Moana Beach during the ceremony.

The original wooden-framed Collective Remembrance Lanterns were made by Shinnyo practitioners in the early years of the event. In the spring, Shinnyo practitioners, individual public volunteers and groups from schools, businesses and organizations contribute their efforts to carefully prepare these lanterns, as well as the Individual Lanterns, for the event day.

The lanterns have been specially designed to catch against special lines strung across the water, to ensure they will not float out to sea.

As soon as the ceremony ends, volunteers in canoes paddle out to the lines to retrieve each lantern from the water.

The lanterns are then cleaned and stored for refurbishment in future years. Remembrances and prayers are removed and handled in a proper and spiritually respectful way.

Guiding Lanterns are the large lanterns you see carried by assistants during the ceremony itself.

These special lanterns carry prayers on behalf of all of us, and are dedicated to all who have ever existed. We have been supported by an unfathomable number of beings who have come before us, from generations of ancestors to animals and plants that sustained all life on our planet since its creation.

Floating the six Guiding Lanterns ensures that spirits of all will be remembered in the Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaiʻi ceremony. Some examples of prayers on the Guiding Lanterns are “Victims of Natural Disasters,” “Victims of Man-made Disasters,” “All Tangible and Intangible Life in All Realms Past, Present, and Future,” and “Casualties of Violence Since Settler Colonialism in Hawaii.”

Collective Remembrance Lanterns are the original wooden-framed lanterns that were made by Shinnyo practitioners in the early years of the event and are refurbished each year.

They are floated by volunteers from canoes or the shore. Each of these lanterns carry multiple remembrances, submitted ahead of time from around the world or from those who are unable to, or choose not to, float an Individual Lantern.

Learn more about how to include your message on a Collective Remembrance Lantern.

Individual Lanterns are distributed at the event to those who would like to personally place a lantern into the water during the ceremony.

They are available at no cost, one per family or group. There are three blank sides on these lanterns, for writing remembrances on.

Learn more about how to receive and float an Individual Lantern at the ceremony.