Dr. John Johnston, the Senior Fellow at the Center for Buddhist Studies, is doing fieldwork on visual arts research in Ōbaku Temple (Manpukuji) in Uji, Japan now. He shared on his Instagram a post about a special annual ritual on the birth date of Ingen Ryuki (1592-1673), the founder of the Obaku School of Zen.
Dr. Johnston is awarded a grant from the Ishibashi Foundation and Japan Foundation to conduct research on the visual arts of the Ōbaku school of Zen Buddhism. The research project takes Dr. Johnston to Uji for two months of research at Manpukuji, the main temple and headquarters of the Ōbaku school for over 350 years. Dr. Johnston is a co-organizer of the groundbreaking online exhibition “True Image: Celebrating the Legacy of Yinyuan Longqi (Ingen Ryūki) and the Art of Ōbaku” presented by the Center for Buddhist Studies. The True Image exhibition is the catalyst for Dr. Johnston’s research in Japan. See the exhibition at the website: https://ingen.arizona.edu
The special annual ritual on the birth date of Ingen Ryuki (1592-1673), from the post of Dr. Johnston's Instagram (@john_johnston_phd):