A delegation of monks from Miidera, one of Japan’s largest temples, conducts a ritual to rededicate the MFA’s Japanese Buddhist Temple Room and to invoke blessings for the community. The service is simulcast from the temple room to Remis Auditorium. The monks offer an introduction and explanation of the ritual prior to beginning, and afterward they greet the public in the Arts of Japan galleries.

Miidera has a historic relationship with the Museum of Fine Arts. The early founders of the Japanese collection—Ernest Fenollosa, William Sturgis Bigelow, and Okakura Kakuzō—studied Tendai Esoteric Buddhism there. It is also where Fenollosa and Bigelow are buried today.