Oasis
Reiki e-Newsletter
Volume III Number 3
Aug 11, 2005
A digital Tibetan Prayer Wheel
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We place your wellbeing directly into your own hands.
Hello Subscribers!
In this issue:
GREETINGS & NEWS
USUI SENSEI'S BIRTHDAY!
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE REIKI PRACTITIONER
GREETINGS & NEWS I'd like to share some testimonials from recent students. These are real people who've sincerely applied the teachings, are living their multifaceted lives with all ongoing challenges, and report the following remarkable results. Once again, these personal glimpses show us that Reiki is indeed a complete life tool! While there is ongoing Reiki Training at our Hollywood location (contact me for details), the following dates are the fall schedule at Imperial Point Medical Center for Shoden/Reiki I Weekend Training: Sat. & Sun., Oct. 22 & 23 The maximum number of students for these classes is 8, classes fill quickly. Preregistration is required for your place to be reserved. Contact me to register and ask questions, or contact Elaine at Healing Arts to register only. She's available Tue-Fri 10-8 p.m. at 954-776-8748. PAMIR KICIMAN, RM, CHt In honor of Usui Sensei's birthday, I offer the following waka that I composed for this occasion. Although outdated today as a form of poetry, Usui did include the Meiji Emperor's waka in his teachings. The form contains 31 syllables, which in English are usually divided into five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7, and 7 syllables respectively. The modern version of waka is known as tanka, although the most popular form of Japanese poetry today is the haiku. My dedication is entitled O-Sensei, meaning "Great Teacher." Usui Sensei: Let's speak about the language we've adopted around Reiki. What first comes to mind is, "I'm doing Reiki" or, "Let me do Reiki on you." Language frames our reality in a certain way. By changing language we can change our reality. It's one of the ways in which what we attract and dispel can be set into motion. If you're one of my students, hopefully it's been impressed upon you, with further validation in your own practice, that Reiki is less about "doing" and seriously about BEING! We're constantly "doing" in almost every area of our life. It's an industrial, technological society; mostly motivated by MORE is BETTER and I CONTROL how to get more. Since we're a breed of "doers," balance must be found somehow. If we frame Reiki as "doing" too, it's hot water where cool is needed; cool, calm, restful. Reiki is a state of non-action. The more you flow with incoming energy, the more it will flow and you'll experience greater harmony and balance. Personal evolution or healing can't be forced. We are connected to the electromagnetic field of Earth; there are seasons, cycles and rhythms. The wheel of life doesn't alter its course for the needs of only one cog. Life is interdependent and flowing with an ageless wisdom. Reiki gives us a huge chance to listen to this wisdom. So "give" and "receive" Reiki, reserving the doing to other areas of your life that respond well to that. Practice Reiki on and with yourself, others, Nature and its life forms. Remember, non-action isn't inaction. Right action of course has its place as we conceive, mount, produce and materialize our life and work, with all of its details. Similarly, Reiki isn't "sent" at-a-distance. Rather, we're constantly helping the evolution and healing of others when we sincerely work on our own opacity, our stuckness. And when we do formally sit to practice nonlocal healing, it's a becoming of oneness with the receiver, whoever or whatever that may be. We merge and participate in an eternal moment that lingers the entire course of the flow of energy; an undulating dance of intention and sharing of this Divine gift, sans space and time limits. Meditative Reiki One of the gems that have appeared in the surfacing of the original Usui teachings is the integral place of meditation in Reiki for the practitioner. This isn't someone's creative idea of how to meditate with the energy, or guided meditation, or simple quiet sitting. Reiki meditations are based on a perennial understanding of Ki, breath, the spiritual spine, significant points along it, and what the cornerstones of personal evolution are. Posture is important, without becoming too rigid about it. You can sit cross-legged on the floor or furniture; sit on furniture with your legs uncrossed, feet flat on the ground; or sit on the floor Japanese style on your knees. Head and torso are aligned; spine is upright but flexible. Cast your eyes down about 2 feet in front of you, looking at the floor and close or half close your eyes. Your focal point is always the hara region, in particular your tanden. The breath is smooth, continuous and elongated, i.e., slow it down. Of course you want to breathe abdominally, letting the diaphragm do its intended job, filling the lungs from the bottom-up, without the use of other muscles around the ribcage and chest. Essentially, your belly expands on inhalation and contracts on exhalation, with little movement elsewhere. If you're practicing bringing Light energy in through the crown, it can feel like the opening and closing of a flap or valve, about two inches above the hairline. Most importantly relax in body and mind. Drop your striving; it's not the place for it. Practice sincerely and observe without judgment or expectation. As Universal Ki interacts with you and your consciousness is elevated, you may find that the breath becomes finer and finer. You can cease whatever technique you're practicing and actually meditate at this point. Just don't make it too soon, without this natural development taking place, because breathing in certain ways has many other benefits than leading you into meditation alone. Self-Treatment Some of these pointers will also help with giving Reiki to others. What I see most that may detract from the experience is an uncertainty in the hands, how they contact your body and at which locations. The main correction here is to make as much contact with the surface area of your body, with as much of the underside of your hands as possible. Mold your hands to make good, solid contact with your body, centering the palms over the main body part being addressed. The hands are relaxed, fingers and thumbs together. As your sensitivity increases, you'll find the palms "lock-in" to place, whether it's a physical location, organ, or an aspect of your subtle body. Practicing on others Always position yourself so that you can observe the client's face. This means that when working from the side of the table, the hand on the same as the side you're working from extends to the farther side of their body. In other words if you're working from their RIGHT, your RIGHT hand reaches to the LEFT of their body. This automatically turns your torso and head so you can see their face. If you're working from their LEFT, your LEFT hand reaches across. You don't have to look at their face constantly; sometimes your eyes are even closed. The face does register all of their experiences, however, and it's good to be observant. By the time you reach the legs, this is less of a factor, but do look up once in a while. Reiki is vibratory healing. Delicacy of touch, graceful movements around the table, quietude, lightness in every way greatly contribute to the overall experience, and significantly to the client's ability to receive, go within and have insight, and further to really deepen their spiritual connection.
Wherever you are in the world, receiving and reading this, whatever is happening in your life now, however you're feeling in this moment, I extend lovingkindness to you and intend that you are in perfect health and wellbeing, peaceful in body, mind and soul, joy abounding!"Receiving the Shoden attunements was the most profound spiritual experience of my life....For a long time I have carried some heavy emotional baggage. I have felt pain and anger for many years. I have been relieved of much of this baggage as a result of Reiki. In one instance, while doing a self treatment, I had a vision of a situation that I have been carrying around. The vision appeared and then I felt it taken from me. At the same moment I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from me. For the first time in many years I feel like myself. My approach to life and the way I interact with other people and how other people respond to me has changed in a very positive way....At the time I received my attunements I had a rash on my body. I had this rash for about 3 months. Within the first three days the rash was gone." --W.M., Pompano Beach, Fla. (Shoden student)
Sat. & Sun., Nov. 5 & 6
Sat. & Sun., Dec. 17 & 18
954-661-HAND (4263)
info@reikihelp.com
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USUI SENSEI'S BIRTHDAY!
The beloved founder and originator of these teachings, Usui-san, was born on August 15, 1865. There's so much I could say about his dedication to finding solutions to suffering and spiritual ignorance. Every single day I'm grateful to him and the energy of the Universe for the multiple blessings each brings, moment to moment.
As unseen wind is seen when
Bamboo moves, so you've
Given us Spiritual
Energy. Deepest gassho!
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PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE REIKI PRACTITIONER
Semantics
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© Pamir Kiciman 1999-2004
© Oasis Reiki Institute 1999-2004
All Rights Reserved
Tibetan Buddhists believe that saying the mantra (prayer) Om Mani Padme Hum, invites the blessings of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion. They also believe you can produce the same effect by spinning the written form of the mantra around in a prayer wheel (called "Mani wheels" by the Tibetans). The effect is said to be multiplied when more copies of the mantra are included, and spinning the Mani wheels faster increases the benefit as well.
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has said that having the mantra on your computer works the same as a traditional Mani wheel. As the digital image spins around on your hard drive, it sends the peaceful prayer of compassion to all directions and purifies the area.
Deb Platt suggests:
"To set your very own prayer wheel in motion, all you have to do is download this mantra to your computer's hard disk. Once downloaded, your hard disk drive will spin the mantra for you. Nowadays hard disk drives spin their disks somewhere between 3600 and 7200 revolutions per minute, with a typical rate of 5400 rpm. Given those rotation speeds, you'll soon be purifying loads of negative karma."
She suggests that you simply save the text "OM MANI PADME HUM," or use the Tibetan characters, which you can save by clicking on the image below, and then selecting the "Save As" option from the "File" menu in your browser:
If you use the default filename for
the image file, om-mani-padma-hum.gif,
you'll be storing the mantra twice.
--from www.dharma-haven.org
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