06 | 15th Annual lantern floating hawaii
dedicated volunteers offer hearts, invaluable service By Rachel Breit
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olunteers are crucial in keeping the Lantern Floating Hawaii alight — no small feat for a ceremony with more than 5,000 lanterns this year, up from 750 in 1999. With the significance the ceremony holds for many, volunteers are inspired to take part in the ceremony officiated by Shinnyo-en, either having attended the ceremony themselves or after learning about how it touched a friend or family member. This includes members of the public as well as Shinnyo-en Buddhists. Serving others is a central
practice in Shinnyo Buddhism. Practitioners from around the world come to offer themselves in service through lantern floating. Each year, over 50 youth from Japan engage in a beach clean-up as one of their volunteer efforts. The event would sink if it weren’t for the help of hundreds of volunteers, who help before, during and after the ceremony day. This includes both members of the public as well as Shinnyo-en Buddhists. “We actually have to limit the number of volunteers,” says Roy Ho, executive director of Nā Lei Aloha Foundation,
due to the overwhelming interest of the public. Volunteers perform a variety of activities from assembling lanterns to retrieving them at Ala Moana after the ceremony. Assembling the wooden lanterns is one task. Other assignments volunteers carry out are paddling eight double-hauled canoes out to cast off the wooden lanterns; running the Lantern Request Tent, where individual lanterns are handed out to the community; lighting the lanterns’ candles; and retrieving lanterns, disassembling, cleaning and
storing them. Included in volunteers’ instructions in handling the lanterns is a spiritual message that stems from the ceremony’s roots in Shinnyo-en. An introductory video asks volunteers: “Please quiet your mind and focus your heart as you make these lanterns, as if this were the lantern that you yourself would float.” A purification process takes place before lantern assembly as well. Volunteers must wash their hands, and they have the option of using incense powder for further symbolic cleansing. Tools
or hardware that fall on the floor during assembly must be re-purified. “This is how precious this construction is,” explains 13-year volunteer Howard Takahashi. “People’s hearts are really going into these lanterns.” Charlene Flanter, communications manager and program officer of Nā Lei Aloha Foundation, echoes the same sentiment: “The hundreds of volunteers who help to make this ceremony possible are an invaluable resource not only for their manpower, but for the heart they bring to the activities.”
One such volunteer with her heart in the ceremony is Danielle Moskowitz. She became a volunteer after attending the ceremony in 2008. Like others attending the event, Moskowitz wrote messages to her father on a lantern. “To let the lantern go provided so much personal healing for me,” says Moskowitz. Since then she has attended the ceremony and volunteered each year. After participating in the event, Moskowitz also became a Shinnyo-en Buddhist. “I wanted to get to know more about the people that put it on,” she says.
“We want everyone to find happiness. Always remember happy moments in your life. Then you can take action to help others by sharing that feeling. This act of compassion will expand your heart’s capacity for altruism.” — HER HOLINESS SHINSO ITO