Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

I have been fortunate through the years to train some great people at my Reiki dojo. This was evident again the other day, when the discussion was the subject of the previous post, The Mystery of Cosmic Light. As part of the presentation, I had prepared a list of qualities that reflect the light. Let me first cover those, in no particular order.

Warm	Pure
Liberating	Glowing/Radiant
Positive	Alive
Healing	Open
Comforting	Peaceful
Blissful	Permeating
Protective	Expansive/Infinite

The light is always warm. It’s never cold or distant. It invites us into positive experiences. There isn’t an inner light that is negative. Light glows and is always pure. There isn’t a murky light in healing or meditation. It radiates and permeates all the spaces of the body and our being. When we make ourselves available to self-existing light, it’s freeing and we feel alive. The light is life! Another reason it’s freeing is that light is always open. We may contract to the light for various reasons, but there’s no contraction in the light itself. It’s expansive and infinite. The light goes on and on. In its expanse there’s much peace and we feel greatly comforted. And light heals. There’s no doubt that light heals. It’s light that heals. The light is life force and love. We can also wear it like a protective garment, and carry it like a protective shield.

As part of the Reiki Training I provide, I offer a lot of mentoring and support. One format this takes place is a practitioner-only meeting every month, a dojo meeting. And often in these meetings we crowdsource wisdom by sharing and listening.

Last week I asked participants how they were going to make the light more visible in 2012. This is what emerged!

• Encourage others: This is in regards to all the people around us. Encouraging people is a natural outgrowth of living a life of spiritual healing. When we ourselves become empowered, healed and benefit in all the ways spiritual practice adds to our life, we’re naturally motivated to lift others and have the resources to do so.
• Open minds: Healing transformation and spiritual growth need a certain willingness and ability to entertain possibilities. Without open-mindedness we don’t leave outdated beliefs and patterns behind. Helping others open their minds to greater realities is a way of sharing the light.
• “Taking care of your own house”: It all starts with ourselves. We have to engage the light first within our being and establish it in our heart and mind, and in our life. Otherwise it isn’t authentic, and we aren’t able to really bring the light into all the spaces the world needs it.
• Being present/mindful: This may seem obvious, but putting it into place and remembering it every moment is quite an undertaking. And it’s a prime way of sharing light. In presence and mindfulness we can drop expectations and judgments, and be with others and life in a natural, open way.
• Just being: This is a state of simply being the light we are. Often we are on the way to becoming this or that. We have to-do lists, goals and ambitions. Those have their place. But constantly being on that treadmill is exhausting!
  
• Smiling: The light spreads so wonderfully when we smile genuinely. It lights up others’ faces and lightens their hearts.
• Selflessness: When we receive so many blessings because of our dedication to our path, it becomes harder to hold on to them selfishly. There’s a natural abundance in blessings and it wants to be part of a domino effect of giving.
• Next generation: These are our kids, and all younger folk. They carry the light of the future as it is. As conscious and compassionate adults, we have a significant role to play in modeling how best the light can be harnessed and embodied.
• Service: This is outreach. Being full, we give. The light passing through us without resistance is limitless and more than enough for anyone who needs it.
• Listening: This is an echo of being present. Both the world and the earth, as well as other people and species need us to hear them! We’re wrapped up in our own busyness and distractions, but with spiritual practice we’re able to lower the noise and focus on the signal. If we listen without filters, the light flows unhindered.

Reiki is light. Life force is light. Ki is light. Light is consciousness. I’m a fortunate teacher to have people come to me to learn Reiki who can articulate and express so many facets of the light in a single meeting, spontaneously. I didn’t ask them to prepare these responses beforehand.

Light that is knowingly radiated into the world has a different vibration from light that is unknowingly brought into life. Light that is knowingly directed carries consciousness. It vibrates at a higher frequency and can directly interact with the consciousness of those whom it affects.

— Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee

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August 2nd marked the 4th year of this blog’s life. This post celebrates everything I am and why I started blogging. If you’re reading this via email or in a reader, do visit the post on the blog itself and experience it as it was meant to be. Your comments are very welcome as well! If you are new here or haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe via email. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.

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Reiki is a way of life. It is a way of living with wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is meta intelligence; that which has broken the limits of the rational mind. Compassion is meta love; that which has broken the limits of the human heart. Reiki is also a teaching with certain practices or methods. Often we give precedence to the method over the way. Methods are there to facilitate the way. Methods improve who we are, bring out our gold, transform us to be what we really are. The way is what is naturally there.

To become a better Reiki practitioner means to become a better person. ‘Better person’ here means fully being the best of who you already are, not some radical refashioning of who you are. Improving as a practitioner improves you as a human being too because that’s the nature of Reiki. Of course you have to apply Reiki sincerely to yourself and your life. As we partake of the wisdom and compassion that’s available through Reiki, we become more and more their likeness.

The methods of Reiki vary. There are meditative practices, healing techniques, purifying and charging methods, empowerment, and addressing the psyche. There are also methods to cultivate and wield primordial universal forces. All work simply, directly, and effectively. The methods are there to engender a greater, abiding set of qualities and states of being.

Wisdom and compassion are the path in Reiki.

What is Wisdom?

Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.
— Ram Dass

Wisdom has four tiers:

• Data
• Information
• Knowledge
• Wisdom

We start with raw data. Raw data isn’t necessarily useful, it’s isolated and not cohesive. If that data can be intelligently organized, it becomes information. Information we can use. Information that’s absorbed by a person, understood and internalized becomes knowledge. Wisdom is the application of knowledge that has matured and integrated, that’s become part of a person’s inner knowing.

Wisdom has its mundane side; wisdom applied to the affairs of the world, which is still preferable to approaching the world without wisdom. Then wisdom has its truer face; wisdom as a way to understand life, nature, the cosmos, and the age-old questions of existence, what it is, what it means.

It’s the existential aspect of wisdom that Reiki facilitates and enhances. When this level of wisdom is gathered, internalized, lived and applied, it also informs more practical, day-to-day concerns.

Wisdom is a naturally expansive state. It roots in a person and once rooted it expands because that’s its nature.

Wisdom’s tiers of concern:

• Self
• Others
• Society
• Biosphere
• Cosmos

When we begin to consider others, society at large, our physical and natural environment and how it all fits into a cosmic picture, we also expand our mind and heart (compassion). Wisdom informs our thinking, our mind and heart. We begin to get the sense that nothing is separate and isolated. This is accompanied by an equal concern for generations to come and how the living of today, with its actions and creations, will serve the future.

Let’s take a moment to consider Sanskrit terms that indicate wisdom:

Jnana (“knowledge/wisdom”): Both worldly knowledge or world-transcending wisdom, depending on the context.

Jnana-Yoga (“Yoga of wisdom”): The path to liberation based on wisdom, or the direct intuition of the transcendental Self (atman) through the steady application of discernment between the Real and the unreal and renunciation of what has been identified as unreal (or inconsequential to the achievement of liberation).

— by Georg Feuerstein

Wisdom and intuition are linked. We’re all endowed with intuition. It’s educated and socialized out of us, but it’s there and can be revived. Intuition is lumped together with instinct, or gut feeling. Instinct is a more animal sense, a useful one, but not real intuition.

Intuition is a soul faculty. It happens in the Heart. Intuition isn’t the knowing of mundane things, but the full birth and establishment of the spiritual in us. When we awaken to our spirituality, which like intuition is an intrinsic part of our makeup, this is wisdom in action.

Reiki excels at awakening us to intrinsic parts of our being that have been for various reasons lost to us. It does this through the practices Reiki comes with, and universal teachings that support these practices.  Reiki opens a person to truth; both personal and universal truth.

Wisdom and compassion are personal and universal. Personally wisdom and compassion make human life happier, more fulfilling, creating wellness, reducing suffering, and bringing a broad perspective from which to make choices and contributions to the world.

Universally wisdom and compassion are eternal factors, coexisting prior to creation and permeating creation. Embodying them personally deciphers and enhances life.

Here’s one more definition from Georg Feuerstein:

Prajna (“wisdom”): The opposite of spiritual ignorance (ajnana, avidya); one of two means of liberation in Buddhist yoga, the other being skillful means (upaya), i.e., compassion (karuna).

Any time we’re dealing with core factors of life, a rich tapestry becomes available. Afterall, ‘wisdom’ and ‘compassion’ are just two little words. It isn’t immediately obvious that they give rise to many qualities and states of being:

Integrity Self-knowledge Caring Mindfulness Intuition Generosity Discernment Gratitude Humility Wonder

Insight Peace Purpose Altruism Equanimity Fairness Joy Openness Understanding Courage

Human qualities often come in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, strength, freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of a nourishing fruit. Likewise, selfishness, animosity, and fear grow together. — Matthieu Ricard

Spirituality works at the level of the common denominator. It’s efficient and universal in appeal. Reiki is a teaching which unfolds our innate spirituality. Each time we practice Reiki in its meditative or healing form, we partake of the wisdom that’s embedded in the core of reality. Reiki too comes from this same source. When we partake of wisdom, we partake of compassion. They are inextricably linked, living parts of the engine of the universe even before the engine was built.

What is Compassion?

In simple terms, compassion and love can be defined as positive thoughts and feelings that give rise to such essential things in life as hope, courage, determination, and inner strength… Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness. — Dalai Lama

There’s that clustering again, that efficiency. This is precisely why spirituality, or Reiki which directly accesses our spirituality is so transformative. It dispenses with surface details and goes straight to the heart of it all. One thing must be clear about transformation:

Transformation is not change; transformation is growth. — Swami Rama

It’s a matter of growing into what and who we already are. This is a journey best taken with compassion alongside. When we grow to forgive ourselves and others, heal the past, be true in the present, and bring home the understanding that the future is a realm of possibilities, compassion is the companion we need. Compassion makes it possible to be human and divine, to appreciate the world and aspire to its betterment, to suffer and see suffering and break and be put back together in miraculous ways. Compassion is true strength and true gentleness.

Wisdom engenders compassion and compassion engenders wisdom. When wisdom permeates because we practice, compassion follows because wisdom tells us it makes sense. Similarly, when compassion permeates because we practice (practice Reiki, i.e., living out our spirituality), we become wise to truth. Here are some sensible truths:

Just as parents care for their children, you should bear in mind the whole universe. — Zen Master Dogen

Not one single atom opposes us. — Zen Master Hongzhi

As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others—what and whom we can work with, and how—becomes wider. — Pema Chodron

Reiki is compassion in action, both inwardly for the practitioner, and from that foundation outwardly in the world and in nature for the benefit of all.  Reiki works with humans and animals and trees. It’s effective with and helps all parts of life and society. Why? Because it’s a path, an authentic way to embody spirituality, to make it every moment.  What’s so significant about spirituality? Only that it’s the living tissue of existence.

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being. — David Steindl-Rast

Wisdom and compassion are categories on this blog. So is Oneness, as is healing. Wisdom and compassion are one, and lead to Oneness. Oneness is our original state of being. Reiki is abiding resting in Oneness.

Healing and the truth of Oneness access each other. Healing returns us to Oneness. Oneness draws us to healing. Healing prepares us for enlightenment. Oneness is enlightenment. Healing makes way for truth. Oneness is truth.

Nonordinary eyes see Oneness. Ordinary eyes see separation. Reiki is the healing of the illusion of separation.

Extend the boundaries of the glowing kingdom of your love, gradually including your family, your neighbors, your community, your country, all countries—all living sentient creatures. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Related:

A Reiki Primer / Introduction to Reiki Training and Healing

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You’re bound to become a buddha if you practice.
If water drips long enough
Even rocks wear through.
It’s not true thick skulls can’t be pierced;
People just imagine their minds are hard.

— Shih-Wu (1272-1352)

Shih-Wu or Stone House was a Chinese Chan (Zen) poet and hermit. He also served as abbot of Fuyuan Temple (near Hangzhou) for eight years.

Bill Porter, who’s lived as a Buddhist monk and translated various works, including Stone House’s poetry says this about him:

… he was one of the exceptional Zen students who became a poet. Stone House had a genius for poetry that is unique. I’ve always said that he was the greatest of all the Chinese Buddhist poets. And although he was a hermit, he was a Zen teacher, too, and he taught individuals through his poetry.

This is why I love wisdom, and the world’s wisdom traditions. Ages before we had terms like ‘brain plasticity,’ ‘neruoplasticity,’ ‘cortical remapping,’ or ‘brain malleability’ there was a Zen poet who already knew, had already experienced it, and was teaching it.

While Shih-Wu was an abbot for some time, he preferred his mountain hut, where he lead a frugal existence. The windows of his hut were made of oiled paper which ripped easily. He ate a wonderful variety of food he farmed himself on terraced banks on his mountain. He built his hut by a spring and as Bill Porter who has visited the site relates: “The spring was still flowing right behind the hut, the only spring on the mountain.” He had a few possessions, some tools and kitchenware.

Today, neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life, is seen and measured with sophisticated technology such as PET scans and MRIs. These technologies cost in the tens of thousands.

I don’t want to dwell on that so much. I want to dwell on the teaching.

I’ve always been an advocate of practice-based spirituality. Not sermon-based, not book learning, not intellectual grasp of truths. Not the surface inspiration of a quote, not the spiritual catchphrase. Not talk only. Spirituality has to be a part of us. Not a garment that comes on and off. Not an appendage. But a part of our being.

Spirituality must be embodied to be true and real, and indeed give its gifts. The best and most effective way for spirituality to be embodied is by practice.

This isn’t the practice of ‘practice makes perfect,’ it isn’t the ‘best practices’ of business, nor a drill, or social observance.

As Shih-Wu indicates, it isn’t even a practice to better yourself, improve skills, get over an emotional hump, lose weight or develop a character quality. It’s of an utterly boundless order. There isn’t even a box here.

He’s talking about being a ‘buddha.’ No, not that guy! Well, alright, he’s a good model. He’s talking about you. He’s talking about being awake, which is what ‘buddha’ means.

Buddha means “awake one.” Awake to what? That can be answered in many ways. Let’s stay with the poem. Awake to nonphysicality. If rocks are some of the most solid things we know, and they can be worn down, is there any reality and permanence to matter? Whoa, now Shih-Wu is dancing at the quantum level. Wait, when did he live?! Matter isn’t fixed to a single state.

I love the humor too. He knows we’re thick-headed. He also knows that’s an illusion. Fact is, the mind is bendable. It can be bent to wisdom and compassion. It can be bent to the heart where it becomes heartmind. The mind can be informed by sources other than the brain’s processing. And it’s also not fixed to a single state or pattern.

How? Practice. Shih-Wu also knew that the mind is nonlocal. It’s not not only limited to the brain, it’s not limited to geography, time or  habit. Bill Porter again:

By staying up on his mountain, he was able to affect the course of Zen in Korea. A prominent Korean monk came and studied with him at his hermitage and then took the robe and bowl of Stone House back to his country and established the Chogye Order, Korea’s main Zen tradition.

That’s quite something from a man who wore simple robes made of mulberry paper or lotus leaves in the summer, and a sturdy hemp most other times.

As he says:

Nothing is better than being free
but getting free is not luck.

So. Practice. I’ll see you there.

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In the rich history of cross-cultural healing traditions, the healer was responsible mostly locally with his or her art. The world was simpler, less crowded, there was more isolation and globalization hadn’t emerged. The healer was the tribe’s health care system. He or she was also an integral part of the entire functioning of the village on all levels. The healer was consulted not only in personal matters, but matters of the tribe, its identity and relationship to nature, the world, and others.

Little of this has changed today. Modern medicine has emerged and marginalized the healer somewhat, not because it’s more effective but because it has huge financial backing. However, there remain isolated tribes where the tradition of the healer remains consistent with historical models. And there are healers in urban culture who follow in these same footsteps.

What has changed is that the village has become global and the tribe is now nonlocal. Issues at hand are much more complex. What the healer heals and how has shifted.

Today’s urban healer must be a global citizen. The healer’s primary sphere of influence may still be his or her ‘tribe.’ Yet, the evolutionary stage of planet Earth and humanity is demanding that the healer becomes a healing presence in the world, and not only during a healing session.

Today’s healer carries the healing presence moment-to-moment so that there’s patience and deep seeing. This prevents reactions to a headline or personal situation. In the face of personal and global events, the healer responds in the world, rather than reacting to the world.

Being able to see below the surface allows a healer to be even-minded and take the long view. The short view is full of attachment, agenda and outcome. It’s limited, reactive, nonresponsive, and reductionist. When events are considered from the reduction to a headline, a corrective and healing response is out of reach. The healer waits and sees, until all factors emerge to be considered.

The cultivated healing place inside is a compass and firm ground which lets the healer remain calm and nonreactive. The healer responds thoughtfully. Thoughtful response is a quality of the awakened Heart. The awakened Heart is primed by practice. Healers practice not to get somewhere, but because it’s the crucible of change.

Healers practice not only with others, but first with themselves.

Once the Heart awakens, it has ready access to universal wisdom and compassion. Universal wisdom and compassion further helps the healer to be responsive, enduring and consistent. The healing way is living from a healing place inside and being a holder of a healing worldview.

The Heart is a place where events can be considered with patience and nonattachment. Nonattachment is a vehicle for clarity. This Heart isn’t the organ of the heart, or the heart of human emotions. It’s not physical at all. It doesn’t really have a location. This Heart sees whole. It’s awake to the eternal. It has shed any bitterness. It’s alive in the moment and pulses in scared rhythm.

It’s the very Heart of Life and it’s available to everyone, healer and nonhealer alike. In fact, we’re in an evolutionary cycle where healing is being asked of everyone.

Please find much more about this subject here and scroll down.

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It’s not certain if we’re at 2.0 or 3.0. What’s certain is that we need an update and upgrade. Our brain and neurology needs an upgrade, our mind too and our heart. In Buddhism there’s the concept of heart-mind. Ayya Khema tells us, “In Pali, heart and mind are one word (citta), but in English we have to differentiate between the two to make the meaning clear.” Pali is the language of many of the earliest Buddhist scriptures.

This teaching is a central one in Buddhism known as Bodhicitta, an awake heart-mind, or the heart-mind of enlightenment. In Tibetan psychology, the heart is synonymous with the mind. Tibetan worldviews are highly influenced by Buddhism, and consciousness, mental clarity, and the sense of self is known to rest in the heart. To put it simply, heart-mind points to a balance of wisdom and compassion, engaging both and giving both fair say in how we choose to live.

Today there are hopeful signs and utter chaos all at the same time. In the previous post I wrote: “At this very juncture, Earth’s and humanity’s narrative within it is being radically rewritten.” And: “We must participate in the emergent story of the Earth and humanity without the mistakes and limitations of the old one.” This observation is being made widely, and any thinking-feeling person can see the themes without trying too hard.

Robert Atkinson, Professor of Human Development and Religious Studies at the University of Southern Maine, writes:

Our collective story is lagging behind, resisting the flow of evolutionary change. The pre-twentieth-century story we have carried with us into the twenty-first century – built on the assumptions of duality, separation, and boundaries – has lost much of its meaning, power, and, most alarmingly, hope for the future. It faces crisis after crisis without offering any lasting resolution. The once well-understood principle of continual progress toward a collectively desired and beneficial goal is missing.

Soon after last month’s earthquake in Japan, Thich Nhat Hanh sent this message:

Dear friends in Japan,

As we contemplate the great number of people who have died in this tragedy, we may feel very strongly that we ourselves, in some part or manner, also have died.

The pain of one part of humankind is the pain of the whole of humankind. And the human species and the planet Earth are one body. What happens to one part of the body happens to the whole body.

An event such as this reminds us of the impermanent nature of our lives. It helps us remember that what’s most important is to love each other, to be there for each other, and to treasure each moment we have that we are alive. This is the best that we can do for those who have died: we can live in such a way that they continue, beautifully, in us…

This is a perfect example of balanced wisdom and compassion. The Japanese people give all of us hope. They have shown model behavior in the face of an ongoing triple disaster; earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout. They are resilient, sharing resources and services, not being tempted to commit crime, and exercising neighborliness, altruism and hospitality. Make sure you watch this beautiful video (4/12/2011) to participate in healing for Japan.

The last sentence of Thich Nhat Hanh’s statement is deeply inspirational. Referring to those who’ve perished he says, “we can live in such a way that they continue, beautifully, in us…” For there to be any kind of continuation, we and the Earth first has to survive. “Beautifully” stands for so many things, but today let’s focus on the preservation of Nature and the Earth. Dr. Atkinson, again:

We need a new chapter in our evolving story that will restore hope, infuse new meaning into the wondrous process of creation, and unify our consciousness with a vision we intuitively trust. We need a story that keeps renewing itself.

2011 has so far shown that new narratives source in the most unlikely places. Adding to the surprise is the South American nation of Bolivia. According to The Guardian online, “Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as ‘blessings…’”

Let’s not be naïve enough to believe industry and politics is going to change overnight to bring about the New Earth. This is still a huge step in the right direction, one that leader nations are strongly resisting. Here’s the depth and breath of Bolivia’s The Law of Mother Earth.

In the Andean worldview there’s a central Earth deity known as Pachamama. The environment and Pachamama are considered central to all life, with humans being equal to all beings, not higher, but equal. The Guardian writes:

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.

The draft of the new law states: “She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.”

This law reads like poetry! Bolivia’s Foreign Minister has also said:

Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values.

You can catch the full story here, including video about the impacts of climate change on Bolivia.

Bolivia gives us hope.

Joseph Campbell who was a master of myth and story isn’t alive today. He would have been a fascinating source for the meaningful interpretation of our times. Yet, with some prescience, the following is his contribution to us today:

We’re in a free fall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast. And always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. But all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective… Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes.

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