Buddhism is a one of the world’s wisdom traditions. To illustrate just exactly how a wisdom tradition works and why it’s so precious and significant, let’s look at one buddha and the inner workings of related teachings. The Japanese names are going to be used since this is a Reiki blog, but Sanskrit versions will also be given.

DAINICHI NYORAI  大 日 如 来
Literally, “Great Sun” (Mahavairocana or Vairochana in Sanskrit)

This is an image of Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana) in the Kongo-kai (Diamond World) who makes a Chike-in sign (entering the world of Buddha's wisdom) in front of its chest. Dainichi Nyorai is the central deity of the Kongo-kai Mandala that represents the structure of the spiritual world in esoteric Buddhism.

Variously known as the Great Buddha of Universal Illumination, Cosmic Buddha, All-Encompassing Buddha, Life Force of the Universe, Spreader of Light in All Directions, or Great Shining One, Dainichi is a ‘celestial’ buddha. Buddhism teaches that there are three bodies (kayas) or manifestations of enlightenment. Of these dharmakaya is that aspect of the Buddha which is unchanging and eternal, referring to the essence of awakened being, absolute buddha nature. It’s the basis of all existence, including human. It’s also the spiritual body or “truth body” of all buddhas. This is Dainichi Nyorai, and where the ‘cosmic’ or ‘celestial’ reference comes in.

Dainichi is said to be omnipresent and all things, like the air we breathe, with all other buddhas and deities being emanations of Dainichi.

The first virtue of Dainichi Nyorai is the universal radiance that dispels darkness, with the ability to destroy suffering and despair. The second virtue is that this radiance has neither beginning nor end, and that the light of wisdom is like the sun, which always shines regardless of whether it’s day or night. The third virtue is an ability to enlighten living beings, and that great compassion is the parent of life which continues to nourish all living beings at all times.

Dainichi Buddha corresponds to the historical Buddha’s first turning of the Wheel of the Law in Deer Park in Sarnath, India. This is where the historical Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. The Turning of the Wheel is a metaphor for the teaching of the path to enlightenment.

One of the ways that wisdom comes into play is in understanding the mind of enlightenment and its various facets. The “five buddha families,” is an ancient Buddhist system of doing just that. The buddha families are traditionally displayed as a mandala. Each buddha in the mandala embodies one of the five different aspects of enlightenment. These manifest themselves as enlightened qualities as well as neurotic states of mind. The buddha families clearly present a complete picture of both the world of enlightened mind and the world of ego.

Traditionally, at the center of the mandala is Vairochana [Dainichi Nyorai], lord of the buddha family, who is white and represents the wisdom of all-encompassing space and its opposite, the fundamental ignorance that is the source of cyclic existence (samsara). The dullness of ignorance is transmuted to a vast space that accommodates anything and everything.

In the east of the mandala is Akshobya [Ashuku Nyorai], lord of the vajra family, who is blue and represents mirror-like wisdom and its opposite, aggression. The overwhelming directness of aggression is transmuted into the quality of a mirror, clearly reflecting all phenomena. Vajra is associated with the element water, with winter, and with sharpness and textures.

In the south of the mandala is Ratnasambhava [Hōshō Nyorai], buddha of the ratna family, who is yellow and represents the wisdom of equanimity and its opposite, pride. The fulsomeness of pride is transmuted into the quality of including all phenomena as elements in the rich display. Ratna is associated with the element earth, with autumn, with fertility and depth.

In the west of the mandala is Amitabha [Amida Nyorai], buddha of the padma family, who is red and represents discriminating-awareness wisdom and its opposite, passion or grasping. The intense desire of passion is transmuted into an attention to the fine qualities of each and every detail. Padma is associated with the element fire, with spring, with façade and color.

In the north of the mandala is Amogasiddhi [Fukūjōju Nyorai], buddha of the karma family, who is green and represents all-accomplishing wisdom and its opposite, jealousy or paranoia. The arrow-like pointedness of jealousy is transmuted into efficient action. Karma is associated with the element wind, with summer, with growing and completing.

— Irini Rockwell (brackets are mine)

Correspondingly, Dainichi’s characteristic hand gesture in Japan (although not always) is the Mudra of Six Elements (seen in the picture above as Chiken-in — also called the Knowledge Fist mudra.) In this mudra (hand gesture), the index finger of the left hand is clasped by the five fingers of the right. It symbolizes the unity of the five elements (Goshiki) — earth, water, fire, air/wind, and space/void — with spiritual consciousness.

Wisdom Fist mudra or simply Wisdom mudra speaks to the truth that only by adding the sixth element — mind, perception, or spiritual consciousness — do the five elements become animate. This equates to the Diamond World (noted in the picture above, it’s a metaphysical realm inhabited by the five wisdom buddhas, also detailed above). Put another way, there’s “unity” only when the sixth element is added. Without the sixth element, ordinary eyes see only differentiated or separate forms or appearances.

In summary, Dainichi Nyorai is known as the Supreme Buddha of the Cosmos in Esoteric Buddhist thought, being the source from whom all other deities and everything in the universe emanates, as light does from the sun. The hands form the mudra of perfect knowledge, which holds the power to restrain passions that hinder enlightenment. With the left index finger surrounded and protected by the fingers of the right, this gesture expresses the all-encompassing union of the spiritual and material realms of existence, and how the spiritual gives life to and sustains the material.

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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:

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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The spirit

This only makes sense, as the spiritual is at the root of being human and life itself.  Acknowledging the spiritual is the ultimate healing. While Reiki can heal what ails humans on all levels, accessing and prioritizing one’s spirituality is where Reiki excels. Once the spirit is acknowledged and centralized, a major core shift occurs and sets the tone for the rest of a life.

Consciousness and energy

Another common misconception is that Reiki is a form of ‘energy.’ While life energy accompanies the Reiki experience, it’s more a vibration or pulsation, and what’s vibrating or pulsating is consciousness. Consciousness here means the substratum of reality. Transformation takes place in consciousness. Any healing or change that doesn’t take place in consciousness usually doesn’t last.

The flow model of Reiki is simply this: 1) Consciousness, 2) Energy, 3) Physical manifestation. Energy plays a role, but it can’t really exist without its source: Consciousness.

Reiki is a transformative and enduring practice. ‘Transformative’ means that it radically and permanently shifts body, mind and being. ‘Enduring’ means this shift doesn’t stall after one time, it continues to expand one’s paradigm. The practices don’t get stale, bringing new insight and wisdom, staying fresh, creative and inspiring. Healing that’s accompanied by this kind of true transformation is lasting.

Wisdom and compassion

A core change in one’s orientation and relationship to life, such as the one Reiki facilitates releases the truth within each person. Reiki isn’t about temporary pain relief or a momentary understanding. It’s about freeing wisdom and compassion from inside. All divinity is already within. Reiki is a spiritual teaching sourced in this divine database and gives the practitioner complete access to it.

Liberation of the truth within frees the outer life of all its suffering, pain, disease, fear, turmoil, anguish and misery.

Reiki facilitates this in a very practical and user-friendly way. The founder of these teachings, Usui Sensei, prefaced Reiki’s five precepts with:

Happiness is secreted inside, that’s its only secret. Truest healing is spiritual. Spiritual healing addresses the whole person instead of helping only with the body or mind, which can leave an opening for imbalance to return.

The ‘many blessings’ Usui talks about could be interpreted as that multifaceted divinity  activating and bearing fruit (blessings) in a person’s life again and again. It’s also the consistent and frequent (many) practice of the various methods given in the teachings.

In conclusion, Reiki is a contemplative path which leads to the emergence of the true self in meaningful unity with all life.

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Train in Reiki with Pamir.

Photo: © Pamir Kiciman 2010

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The following is taken from The Three Pillars of Zen, compiled and edited by Philip Kapleau, a seminal work on Zen Buddhism. While there are certain references specific to Zen, the appeal of the hara and its cultivation is obvious.

Hara literally denotes the stomach and abdomen and the functions of digestion, absorption, and elimination connected with them. But it has parallel psychic¹ and spiritual significance. According to Hindu and Buddhist yogic systems, there are a number of psychic centers in the body through which vital cosmic force or energy flows. Of the two such centers embraced within the hara, one is associated with the solar plexus, whose system of nerves governs the digestive processes and organs of elimination. Hara is thus a wellspring of vital psychic energies. Harada-roshi, one of the most celebrated Zen masters of his day, in urging his disciples to concentrate their mind’s eye (i.e., the attention, the summation point of the total being) in their hara, would declare: “You must realize”—i.e., make real—”that the center of the universe is the pit of your belly!

To facilitate his experience of this fundamental truth, the Zen novice is instructed to focus his mind constantly at the bottom of his hara (specifically, between the navel and the pelvis) and to radiate all mental and bodily activities from that region. With the body-mind’s equilibrium centered in the hara, gradually a seat of consciousness, a focus of vital energy, is established there which influences the entire organism.

That consciousness is by no means confined to the brain is shown by Lama Govinda, who writes as follows: “While, according to Western conceptions, the brain is the exclusive seat of consciousness, yogic experience shows that our brain-consciousness is only one among a number of possible forms of consciousness, and that these, according to their function and nature, can be localized or centered in various organs of the body. These ‘organs,’ which collect, transform, and distribute the forces flowing through them, are called cakras, or centers of force. From them radiate secondary streams of psychic force, comparable to the spokes of a wheel, the ribs of an umbrella, or the petals of a lotus. In other words, these cakras are the points in which psychic forces and bodily functions merge into each other or penetrate each other. They are the focal points in which cosmic and psychic energies crystallize into bodily qualities, and in which bodily qualities are dissolved or transmuted again into psychic forces.

Settling the body’s center of gravity below the navel, that is, establishing a center of consciousness in the hara, automatically relaxes tensions arising from the habitual hunching of the shoulders, straining of the neck, and squeezing in of the stomach. As this rigidity disappears, an enhanced vitality and new sense of freedom are experienced throughout the body and mind, which are felt more and more to be a unity.

Zazen (meditation) has clearly demonstrated that with the mind’s eye centered in the hara the proliferation of random ideas is diminished and the attainment of one-pointedness accelerated, since a plethora of blood from the head is drawn down to the abdomen, “cooling” the brain and soothing the autonomic nervous system. This in turn leads to a greater degree of mental and emotional stability. One who functions from his hara, therefore, is not easily disturbed. He is, moreover, able to act quickly and decisively in an emergency owing to the fact that his mind, anchored in his hara, does not waver.

With the mind in the hara, narrow and egocentric thinking is superseded by a broadness of outlook and a magnanimity of spirit. This is because thinking from the vital hara center, being free of mediation by the limited discursive intellect, is spontaneous and all embracing. Perception from the hara tends toward integration and unity rather than division and fragmentation. In short, it is thinking which sees things steadily and whole.

The figure of the Buddha seated on his lotus throne—serene, stable, all-knowing and all-encompassing, radiating boundless light and compassion—is the foremost example of hara expressed through perfect enlightenment. Rodin’s “Thinker,” on the other hand, a solitary figure “lost” in thought and contorted in body, remote and isolated from his Self, typifies the opposite state.

¹ “Psychic” here does not relate to extrasensory phenomena or powers but to energies and body-mind states which cannot be classified either as physiological or psychological.

Serene Buddha and The Thinker

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Do notice, however, Reiki’s profound impact. Click here to find out more about Reiki Training, and make sure you listen to the Reiki Primer audio.

Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP) is open to anyone who wants to share. Please submit your story to me from the link in “contact” above. For the time being stories are being published anonymously. I may lightly edit your submission.

If you wonder why this project is so very important, and why I’ve decided to curate such stories these words from Muriel Rukeyser say it all:

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”

I will always remember the day last summer when a woman at my job, from whom I picked up such a feel-good vibration every time we met without knowing why, told me that she was practicing Reiki. I had seen the word before but never knew of what it really was.

What is that, I asked. She started to explain and at that very moment, as she spoke, in an instant, I realized that I already knew this. It was already inside my soul and her words just reminded me of what I had forgotten and had spent my whole life searching. The knowledge of Reiki fitted exactly in that empty spot that always had been in my soul as a mark of something lost. First time I received distant Reiki healing last summer, there were several things revealed to me. My experience of the world has not been the same since then. It was as if the physical world and the spirit world merged like two overhead stencils were put on top of each other and I saw the dimensions inside each one.

I have carried a sort of faded inner knowledge and along with that faded memories in my soul as long as I can remember. I knew at a very young age that we are living in a very special time. Over the years though, for various reasons, I both lost and gave away contact with my inner truth and my soul until the knowledge of Reiki gently reminded me.

Reiju Blessing

I found your website, the Reiki Help Blog and immediately felt the connection. This is the place were I go to rest my soul and to put the pieces together. In the words and knowledge you share I find the truth I always carried.

And the beautiful way you paint with words is the same beauty I find in my own soul.

So there I was April 7 tuning into the Reiju Blessing you offer. It was a very gentle experience, very soft yet vibrating with energy. The day after when I sat down to practice distant Reiki, I noticed the first reaction.

I usually feel the energy strongly and can also have visions and pictures or feelings shown to me. This time it was so much more. As I started I felt the energy as if I stood in a shower. The energy just poured over my whole being and opened up my mind as never before. And the location of the third eye was like a marked spot of energy during the whole session. It was an amazing experience and clearly something had happened.

The next day I started to notice a change on the inside.

A new kind of joy and happiness filled my heart so strong that I cannot describe it properly. And every morning the feeling increased and stayed throughout the day until this Monday when I found myself connected with the universe and my soul in a way that I’ve never felt before.

My soul was singing, my heart was filled with light and for the first time I felt Love flow through my veins. Pure Love! I became One with every creation, every mind and soul. One with the Universe. One with my Soul. I reached out and touched the Truth. And I let it all go, the pain, the sorrow and the hurting.

I was at peace, at true peace for the first time in my whole life and I felt so loved. I was complete. And that was exactly what I asked for when I signed up for the Reiju Blessing on your list. It was an amazing moment, a magical moment. The moment of the absolute beginning of my new awareness and consciousness. It was breathtaking!

Pamir, I don´t have words enough to express my gratitude towards you and the Universe for this very life-changing moment. Thank you!

Best Wishes,

–A.L.H., from Europe

You’re so very welcome. What’s your Reiki story?

Read the previous stories in the project.

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Here is why having a spiritual ground is an important aspect of wellness:

• Spirituality unifies all the dimensions of health and wellness, these being physical, psychological, social, and of course the spiritual itself.
• It provides a continuum and empowers all aspects of health.
• Because spirituality transcends the individual, it fosters such essential qualities as love, compassion, care and altruism.
• Spirituality brings vital meaning to life.

In its most general sense, spirituality is a way of contemplating and understanding the invisible aspects of life and to transcend the personal, tangible and finite details of this world. This transcendental spirituality is needed because it provides vision, inspiration and profound meaning. And spirituality may include faith, although it doesn’t have to, to be valid and helpful.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content, or you can go here to view it.)

Cross-culturally and from all time periods, every authentic spiritual teaching that’s part of humanity’s heritage has always included a set of methodologies. Reiki is one such teaching. These teachings are commonly known as wisdom traditions, or teachings of perennial wisdom.

A teaching of perennial wisdom includes ethical and moral dos and don’ts; a central cosmology explaining creation, the universe, life and humanity’s place in it; other subtle truths; and practices to give the practitioner access to this knowledge and wisdom.

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My presentation was based on enumerating the lesser known types of immunities we have, other than the physical: Psychological, and spiritual immunity. Each is distinct and each forms a whole with all the others for healthy and meaningful living.

Below is an introduction to spiritual immunity, which is greatly detailed in the rest of the presentation, and especially with a lens on Reiki.

I welcome your questions and comments.

Reiki facilitates an internal spiritual opening, without dictating what that is for each individual. This spiritual opening is substantial and lasting.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content, or you can go here and view it.)

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This summer the Reiki One-Liner passed the 250 mark. It goes out only on weekdays, so that’s 50 weeks of a unique form of discipline and practice.

Initially I started writing these to educate my social network about Reiki. Very soon it became a rich way for me to consider the depth and breadth of Reiki.

Each writing reveals a new facet, usually not thought of before. Or, as I interact with Reiki, share it and teach it, watch it working in others and receive Reiki stories, it reveals new facets. Here’s one coming to me right now:

Reiki is a shining gem with endless facets.

There are four previous posts of 50 Reiki One-Liners each. Reading these as a list can become meaningless.

A Practice:

What I suggest is to go through each post one at a time, including this one, and write down your favorite few. These may be your favorite because you feel a certain way when you read them, or it points to a truth you love, or a truth you need.

Then, select one of and take it into meditation. Post it on your mirror or computer screen. You can also journal about it, using the one-liner as your prompt.

When you’re done with your initial favorites, visit the posts again and select another handful to grow into even more facets of Reiki.

Reiki One-Liner^SM

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are 50 new Reiki One-Liners:

1. A diagnosis is local. You are nonlocal. Reiki brings this home.
2. A powerful showering of Light is a major facet of Reiki.
3. All-healing Love is a primary color in Reiki.
4. Has your life gone awry? Reiki will reset it in away that serves you for years to come.
5. Healing stored negative emotions and energies is a main benefit of Reiki.
6. In face of unchanging symptoms, Reiki brings an abiding knowing.
7. It’s not only symptomatic healing Reiki provides; it can heal an entire life.
8. Reiki *hears* you without filters.
9. Reiki accelerates your evolution.
10. Reiki activates all your immune systems: physical, psychological, and spiritual.
11. Reiki allows while you grow to your next tier.
12. Reiki brings your worrying into perspective and keeps you calm.
13. Reiki develops a self-healing psychology hiding under all of your symptoms.
14. Reiki doesn’t address only the here-and-now, but the then and later, and the timeless.
15. Reiki eases the experience of being infinite in a finite world and fulfills it to the highest degree.
16. Reiki emerges who you are in the most natural, no-excuses way.
17. Reiki engenders the pure awareness that’s not based on thoughts and emotions.
18. Reiki heals the person and thus the extended life of that person.
19. Reiki helps you incarnate fully so you can really do “this” and live the sacred too.
20. Reiki helps you listen to life with your whole being, not only your head.
21. Reiki helps you see the essence of yourself and others.
22. Reiki helps you sit in your belly (hara) and handle life from there.
23. Reiki helps you suspend judgment and levels personalities.
24. Reiki increases your Light quotient.
25. Reiki is a provider, teacher and wayshower of compassion.
26. Reiki is a two-way elevator between Heaven and Earth.
27. Reiki is constant and fail-safe.
28. Reiki is integrated with life, not locked up in the intellect.
29. Reiki is the energetic equivalent of oxygen.
30. Reiki is the radical realization that your umbilical cord is intact and has only changed form and scope.
31. Reiki is the spontaneous cascade of Love.
32. Reiki lets you solidly know there’s healing available despite symptoms.
33. Reiki merges the you living in linearity with the You that envelopes time/space.
34. Reiki opens the sacred space within that can also be a liveable place without.
35. Reiki provides a lifeline in times of personal or global crisis.
36. Reiki provides a steadiness of heart and mind.
37. Reiki reminds you to settle in the belly (hara) when the mind overthinks.
38. Reiki removes the heat and burn of anger from your mindbody.
39. Reiki reveals the value of honesty in all you are and do.
40. Reiki shows you how to be humble without compromising yourself.
41. Reiki shows you the umbilical cord you have to the sun, the cherry tree and the rain.
42. Reiki soothingly buffers you when life’s upsets visit.
43. Removing excess baggage, outmoded ideas and clutter happens naturally in Reiki.
44. Strong immunity means integrity. Reiki takes you there.
45. Symptoms are information, not who you are. Reiki solidifies this knowing.
46. When life is pressuring you, Reiki acts as a relief valve.
47. When nothing works, Reiki still does.
48. When walking the path and doing the work, Reiki is an unmatched wayshower and aid.
49. With Reiki you gain access to healing a pinpoint or the whole tapestry.
50. You are the link between the healed and unhealed. Reiki gives you the courage to embrace the healing long buried.

This presentation had specific challenges. First I wasn’t sure how well-known Reiki is to the ITP community, although I knew there was some Reiki awareness (the founder of PDSA is a Reiki practitioner and Reiki played a major role in her complete remission.) Secondly, ITP is of unknown origin and without any medical cure, and potentially fatal.

ITP is an autoimmune disease. I chose to address the human being living with ITP, which is exactly Reiki’s own approach; no matter the symptoms, Reiki heals the person.

The title of my presentation was “The Healing Power of Reiki.” Fairly standard, but I really wanted to expand our definition of being human, and wellness, and this venue created a great opportunity to do so. The first clip is the opening of my 45 minute talk.

The first idea we can explore is that the physical immune system is not the only immune system we humans have. The psychological and the spiritual are also components of the human immune system…And, physical immunity is greatly influenced by psychological and spiritual immunity.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

My presentation goes into quite some detail about our three basic immunities. The physical immune system is fairly well-known and understood, so I focused on psychological and spiritual immunity, and how these can actually determine our level of physical wellness, and at the very least mitigate ill health so a full life is still possible.

A basic understanding of Reiki is that it balances or rebalances a person on all levels: physically, psychologically and spiritually. In other words, Reiki finds within you, or returns you to homeostasis.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

There’s much more depth and detail to this presentation, and other portions will be rolled out here in the near future, so keep watching this space.

Most importantly, please let me know what you think by commenting here. Include what kind of information you need or are most interested in, where you need the most help and how the Reiki Help Blog can serve you better. I’d appreciate this and ultimately it will serve you by allowing me to post relevant material.

If Reiki were a tree, its trunk would be the meditative teachings of Reiki; hands-on Reiki would be one limb; and the precepts Usui left behind would be Reiki’s living tissue. This was explained in great detail in a previous post: Modern Reiki.

Today we’ll look at Usui’s Reiki precepts again. Since they are the living tissue of the teachings, it’s important to dwell on these simple words again and again. Not only dwell but bring them into full focus in our lives. The translation used here is:

For today only: Do not anger—Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others

Let me first quote from the previous post:

Without anger, conflicts would be resolved and new ones circumvented. Without worry, fear would end and we wouldn’t exacerbate suffering. Humility is respect and the willingness to include all viewpoints. Honesty; would there be a worldwide financial crisis if there was honesty?

And compassion. Compassion is both a prerequisite and condition of enlightenment. In compassion there’s no separation, no other, no stranger. Compassion is the true democracy! Enlightenment is a state of Oneness. If there’s compassion, there’s understanding and appreciation. Compassion unifies and in that unity we find enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn’t only a spiritual pursuit. There can be enlightenment in government, technology, business, science and social systems.

In delving deeper into these simple words, we have to consider that translation from Japanese, a language based on ideograms,  leads to rich interpretations; aphorisms are pithy and packed with meaning; and such concepts are layered in meaning.

Copyright Usui-Do Eidan

For today only: We mostly understand a day to be 24 hours in the Gregorian calendar which defines our lives. This is fine for what it is.

However, here we’re considering ‘today’ as also ‘this moment,’ ‘this duration,’ ‘this task,’ ‘this activity,’ or even ‘this interaction.’

If you’re serious about your Reiki practice as a spiritual one, a path, not only a healing practice or worse a modality, then you understand that it’s lifelong.

A life and a path is made up of moments. Before you’re intimidated by what is asked of you, stop, breathe and take a moment to consider both how fleeting and how endless it is.

You don’t have to master For today only, today.

Do not anger: Anger is an afflictive emotion and we all have it. It’s hurtful to those it’s directed and to person who is angry. It creates suffering for everyone. Sometimes righteous anger is justified, but in the end anger is never skillful or successful.

Anger heats up the mind and it makes mistakes, and anger shuts tight the heart. With and overheated mind and closed heart you’re a danger to yourself and others. Anger can also escalate to rage.

Whereas if a higher feeling state like love is cultivated, when it escalates it leads to bliss!

I feel Usui isn’t only saying don’t let anger prevail, but also heal your anger. This is a major undertaking. Anger is pernicious and insidious. It hides under layers.

Start today with some smaller angers and move onto bigger ones.

Do not worry: Let’s start with the worst case scenario…when worry escalates it becomes fear and/or anxiety. Worry as it is hangs around, niggling away and ruining your outlook as well as inner environment. Worry is powerful in its constancy. It’s a mindset that traps and holds hostage.

It holds hostage your physical, mental and spiritual energy without any purpose. For instance when faced with a dangerous wild animal, fear has a purpose. Escalated fear and ordinary constant worry which are baseless cause more harm than do good.

Worry is a creation of the mind and indicates that your mind is leading you, instead of you leading your mind. The mind is powerful but worry is an unskillful use of its power.

Be humble: Often recommended, seldom understood. Every other avenue that influences daily life tells us to be loud, boastful, self-aggrandizing and to stand out. We cringe at humility. It seems weak and wimpy.

It’s actually a fearless act to be humble because all self-promotion is really a way to hold fear at bay. And it goes further to change your orientation to non-ego. In fact humility is another way to stay in the present, for today only…If you’re not ego driven then the trappings of ego aren’t there either which removes fear and limitations.

Be honest in your work: On one level this is integrity, which starts inside with yourself and extends to all your expressions in your life and the many ways you touch people.

‘Honesty’ in this sense also means consistency, commitment and sincerity, and these apply to your spiritual ‘work.’ Transformation is real. It’s available and occurs, but not without the practitioner partaking daily in the teachings and practices.

And if the ground of your being is transformed from ‘honest’ practice, then the work you have outwardly in the world will be honest as well.

Be compassionate to yourself and others: This is the big one isn’t it?! It also brings the others full circle.

Compassion is a win-win, skillful means always. It’s inherent whenever Reiki is practiced. In fact, Reiki practice teaches about compassion in a visceral way; it’s felt and its qualities are understood.

Compassion leads to understanding which leads to unity. In unity we find a greater degree of enlightenment because we feel “at one.” Feeling one with yourself, others, the environment, the cosmos and the Divine is one quality of enlightenment.

Fortunately with compassion you don’t have to be enlightened to feel and benefit from it, and help others through it.

Compassion blesses everyone equally. It can remain as such or for the dedicated practitioner, compassion can lead to unity states of consciousness, which in turn deepen compassion.

How do you contemplate, engage and learn from the Reiki precepts Usui Sensei placed at the core of his teachings?

Each post for the Reiki Help Blog can take anywhere from 1-5 days to write/research, proofread/edit, and post with an appropriate image and formatting. If you leave this space with any value, knowledge, joy or understanding, please consider making a donation of your choice.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

An overlooked aspect of health is a sense of wellness despite symptoms. Even with an ongoing condition, it’s possible to be functional and happy in daily living. Every person has a set of principles, a foundation to live by, which brings meaning and purpose to life. Sometimes this foundation becomes a little shaky. Reiki is a way of living that brings back a sense of peace with oneself and harmony with one’s surroundings. It provides wisdom in here-and-now difficulties and is a resource of empowerment in one’s responses to challenges. Life is full of questions and many of the answers are available without having to go outside an individual’s own scope. Reiki is a teaching that accesses innate wisdom and intelligence, as well as compassion, which propel a vision of one’s potential. We will explore how this bedrock is part of the human experience and how it’s always accessible, as well as how to keep the access open during challenging times.

The above is the synopsis of the presentation I gave at the Platelet Disorder Support Association’s (PDSA) annual conference this year.

PDSA was founded by Joan Young to tell others about ITP.

“ITP, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as immune thrombocytopenic purpura, is classified as an autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease the body mounts an attack toward one or more otherwise normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign by the immune system and eliminated in the spleen, or sometimes the liver. Because this process removes platelets from circulation, people with ITP have a low platelet count or thrombocytopenia.” (PDSA website.)

“Idiopathic” means having no known cause.

Joan was one of the beautiful people I met at the conference, and she is a Reiki practitioner. Reiki was one of her choices in returning to wellness literally from the brink and staying there.

A healthy platelet count ranges between 150,000–400,000. During the course of the weekend I met wonderful people who have a platelet count of 30,000–50,000.

“About 30,000 platelets per microliter of blood is considered a ‘safe count,’ one that is high enough to protect against bleeding in the brain in most cases.” (PDSA website.)

However, I also heard story after story where counts crash and people literally have to be “rescued.”

I met one lady in her sixties who, as far she knows, has been living with ITP since the age of thirteen and her count is 6000–8000 in all those years. She has refused any of the available conventional, medical treatments.

Another person who has also refused treatment and has used homeopathy in six years of living with ITP, ranges between 19,000–22,000 platelets.

Many do accept the available medical treatments and experience varying degrees of success.

One of the points I made in my presentation was to not become a diagnosis, a platelet count, so I don’t want to keep listing numbers except to illustrate that the cause of ITP is unknown, as is its cure.

This is a daily reality for a girl, age 13, who was still so very happy to have recently acquired a three-wheeled bicycle. Falling, bumping into things, or hard sports are a no-no.

“Most people with ITP experience spontaneous bruising. Some find they have petechiae (pe-TEEK-ee-ay), tiny red dots on the skin caused by broken blood vessels or leaks in a capillary wall. If your platelet count is very low you may have other bleeding symptoms including blood blisters on the inside of your cheeks or blood in your urine or stool. In general, the more bleeding symptoms you have, the lower your platelet count.” (PDSA website.)

All the visible bruising I saw was subdermal and quite large and obvious. Saturday night there was a party and a steel band. One lady I’ve known for some time told me it was about the only place she could wear a sundress and nobody would think her bruises were odd, or draw other wrong conclusions.

Despite knowing her story quite well previously, this revelation really touched me and brought home what it’s like to be living with ITP.

One person who opened up to me after my presentation, had lost a child to ITP and started another support organization that works together with PDSA.

A rare disease is considered to be one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans.

“The incidence of ITP in children is estimated at 4.3 to 5.3 per 100,000 children per year. Since children with ITP usually recover, the prevalence of childhood ITP is about equal to the incidence. The incidence of adult ITP is from 1.6 4 to 6.6 5 per 100,000 and the prevalence is approximately 9.5 cases per 100,000.” (PDSA website.)

In May of this year, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a program to produce new treatments for rare and neglected diseases. This is a drug development program only, but still perhaps a step in the right direction.

More will be posted here about my participation at the conference. I’m waiting for video of my presentation. Keep watching this space…

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In fact telling your story is the genesis of healing and growth. These personal stories collect to form a bigger landscape of the shared human experience. As C.S. Lewis has said:

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

We start there, unraveling the pain. This is the backstory. What’s ultimately healing and transformative is when we weave a new story, whether it’s personal or global. The transcendent story is the one that serves us best.

The transcendent story unites us and reveals the deepest mysteries of life.

It’s with this in mind that I’m starting the Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP). In 15 years of teaching Reiki, time after time it’s practitioners and receivers of Reiki who show and tell the most illuminating aspects of Reiki. Sharing Reiki stories is an amazing learning and validating experience. It deepens this path.

The Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP) is open to everyone. Please add your stories in comments on this post, or go to contact (top right) and email me. You can share anonymously, or with your initials and location, or full name and location. Share as many as you like over time. Stories will be curated by me and may be lightly edited.

Your Reiki story will be held in sacredness.

We begin with two stories from my own student practitioners. This first one is from someone who has been practicing Reiki for quite some time. I was recently interviewed and it prompted this sharing. Again, when we share and talk new associations are formed and we’re all elevated.

Pamir, your answers in that interview are beautiful and timeless. I even feel they are coming from your higher self. The most important part for me is that of shifts. I experienced a shift. I always loved everything around me and would even secretly talk to plants and animals. But I experienced a shift that came from great suffering to see my path more clearly (my desire to help people). So, my love and compassion was always there, but the decision to do something about it came later.

“It’s the emergence of all that you are, instead of only facets of a personality.” (From the interview.) This shift also brought an awakening to discover who I am and my ‘purpose.’ Of course, these realizations are still in progress since like you said, “I’m still awakening.”

My mom has been sick lately and I have been worried for her since she won’t go to the doctor or even admit she doesn’t feel good. Last night I took all my quartz and let myself be guided by them. I had never done anything with them but just have them in my room beside the picture of Paramahansa Yogananda.

I first filled a pot with water and put salt and Reiki’d it, then placed a quartz inside, then cleansed it with Jakikiri Joka-ho (a method for purifying inanimate objects). This I did with each of the stones. Then I placed them in a circle and put a card with my mom’s name and location and sent distant Reiki (crystals aren’t classically involved with Reiki). Finally, I placed the card under the biggest quartz which I feel was the one guiding me through it.

My mom called me this morning and said “I didn’t want to scare you but I have been very sick lately and today I simply woke up feeling healthy and strong.” All the pain she had disappeared and the vomiting stopped. Also, in a very odd way, $2,500 was sent to her today (and we really needed the money).

Like always, I want to thank you for being the tree for so many us who need you,

Namaste

This next one is a very recent excerpt from the 21-day report after Reiki Training I have in place to serve as a vehicle of accountability (both ways), and to further mentor my practitioners. What’s noteworthy about it is that even after a lifetime of habits and mental patterns, a mere 21 days of Reiki practice can have such solid benefits:

21 days looks like too little time, when you already have lived more than 16,000 previous days during your entire life. You can ask yourself how much more can 0.13 % of your existence do for you? Maybe nothing, but perhaps there was already a light switch waiting on the wall, and then the 21 days came as a space to do nothing else but turn it on.

To tell you the truth Reiki was not something that I was looking forward to practice before a couple of month ago. For the last couple of years I was too busy keeping myself entertained in a way not to see the falling bricks from the walls of my home. But finally the walls gave way to gravity, leaving me in the middle of what used to be my securities…now in ruins. That’s when I started feeling the need to clean up and rebuild and I started looking at one of the only things that was still standing there: Myself. Then, Reiki came to me.

When I first started the twenty minute meditations, my whole being jumped into it with great joy, it was something longtime missed and well needed, mostly for my never silent mind. I haven’t stop doing it, sometimes once, sometimes twice a day, and not precisely because I am doing it so well, but because of the opposite…With the hope of maybe one day being able to find the bottom that shuts down all the thoughts from my head, allowing the light to fill up the empty spaces.

I practice both Hikari no Kokyu-ho at night and Gassho Kokyu-ho in the morning (two Reiki-specific meditations taught in Level I). The first one opens me to the universe, the second one centers me into myself. In spite of the constant escape attempts from my mind, both have been slowly making things change around me. I can see the difference, I feel a lot lighter, I don’t worry that much, I don’t find myself immersed in the foggy cloud of day dreaming as much as I did before.

I started to visit some situations in my past, seeing them with other eyes and better understanding. Now I am more able to forgive myself and I am not letting others fill me up with guilt. I am finding great joy in things that I am rediscovering such as dancing.

Each post for the Reiki Help Blog can take anywhere from 1-5 days to write/research, proofread/edit, and post with an appropriate image and formatting. If you leave this space with any value, knowledge, joy or understanding, please consider making a donation of your choice.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

On July 30, 2008 I started a new service in the microblogging world by sending out this one-liner about Reiki:

Reiki is living with wisdom & compassion.

Since then Reiki One-Liner^SM has gone out to Twitter and Plurk everyday between Monday and Friday, with breaks of a few days since its inception.

Read the first 50.

Read the next 50.

Read third 50.

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are 50 more Reiki One-Liners:

1. At the core of anxiety, Reiki is abiding calm.
2. At the core of fear, Reiki is solid knowing of self.
3. At the core of illness, Reiki is a bottomless resource.
4. At the core of pain, Reiki is the presence of love.
5. At the core of sadness, Reiki is unending joy and comfort.
6. Reiki activates the dormant divinity in your cells.
7. Reiki beckons the soul.
8. Reiki busts hardened habits and beliefs, opening many new possibilities.
9. Reiki declutters mind space, personal/work space and heart space.
10. Reiki deepens meaning.
11. Reiki deepens your consciousness.
12. Reiki deepens your heart.
13. Reiki deepens your humanity.
14. Reiki deepens your relationships.
15. Reiki expands the accuracy of your intuition and your trust in it.
16. Reiki expands the heart past personal dramas.
17. Reiki expands the mind to perceive more than the five senses tell it.
18. Reiki expands your horizon.
19. Reiki expands your orientation from personality to soul.
20. Reiki gives Heart when life seems heartless.
21. Reiki helps you know who you are before personality and possessions.
22. Reiki increases the soul’s magnetic power.
23. Reiki is a celestial waterfall.
24. Reiki is a cool spring in the heat of trials.
25. Reiki is a nonphysical umbilical cord between you and the great Mother universe.
26. Reiki is a series of stepping-stones across the pond of life.
27. Reiki is Heart solace.
28. Reiki is spring rain on your weary soul mind body.
29. Reiki is springtime renewal all year round.
30. Reiki is tête–à–tête with your soul.
31. Reiki is the light of the Heart on the pathway of life.
32. Reiki is the Universe saying “pssst!”
33. Reiki is the Universe’s 411.
34. Reiki is the Universe’s 911.
35. Reiki is the way of the Heart through the pathway of life.
36. Reiki opens a Heart-based relation with all.
37. Reiki opens you to your soul.
38. Reiki replaces neurosis with bliss.
39. Reiki restores your original codes.
40. Reiki restores your original power.
41. Reiki returns you to the divine self-worth of your origin.
42. Reiki reveals what your name is before you take birth.
43. Reiki takes you from particle to wave and back to particle at a different location.
44. Reiki warms the soul.
45. There’s a truth before and after your lifespan. Reiki will reveal it to you.
46. With Reiki the Earth finds succor.
47. With Reiki there are no losers.
48. With Reiki there is refuge.
49. With Reiki you can be like a multi-armed deity.
50. With Reiki you can converse with Life.

Energetic Wellness

In Reiki as it is much was said about the true nature of Reiki, how it is a spiritual teaching and practice first, with healing being a natural extension of its enlightening practices. Yet Usui-san was widely known as a great healer. Teate means hands-on healing in Japanese and was very popular in Usui’s time. In 1923 an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit Tokyo. 100,000 deaths were reported. His Memorial stone states:

“Everywhere there were groans of pains from the wounded. Sensei feeling pity for them went out every morning to go around the town, and he cured and saved innumerable people. This is just a broad outline of his relief activities during such an emergency.”

Fast forward to the 21^st century. We have many options available to us when it comes to healthcare and wellness. Yet few of these options, including other CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) therapies, address energetic wellness. Why is energetic wellness important? Because without it we are not able to be well!

Acupuncture meridians

Most people are experientially familiar with energy as it relates to the ability of their body to function in its daily tasks. This is called “metabolic energy,” provided by the foods and supplements we ingest, sunshine and oxygen. Some of this turns into the raw building blocks of our body and some of it into chemical energy that keeps us active and productive.

Our nervous system, on the other hand communicates through electrical messages. These biochemical and neuroelectrical energy systems are well-accepted by science. There is also growing research that our cells emit weak bursts of ultraviolet light, indicating a light-based energy system. (Gerber 13-15. See below for book references.)

Then there are the contributions of thousands of years of spiritual and healing knowledge from the various cultures and civilizations of our collective history.

Two such contributions are what may be called “life-energy” (or “lifeforce”), and “spiritual energy” systems. One example of a life-energy system is acupuncture with its meridians, responsible for distributing life energy to cells, tissues and organs.

The best known example of spiritual energy distribution is the chakras, the seven major energy centers that play a critical role in our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. (Gerber 16-17)

Nadis

The chakras are also related to a maze of channels that distribute this unique subtle energy. These are known as nadis.

The system of chakras and nadis corresponds to your experiential center, that inner core from which you feel yourself move when you are truly spontaneous. From there you move out to contact the world. The meridian system, on the other hand, reflects how that energy interfaces with the world around you. (Ballentine 408)

Ki

You can read about the system that Reiki utilizes in Reiki as it is. Ki is naturally present in the body and in a special Ki field around the body. The fundamental functions of Ki are to:

• Transform materials, such as food into fuel in the body
• Transport substances, like blood throughout the body’s vessels
• Hold substances in place, such as blood in vessels and viscera in the abdomen
• Protect against pathogens and trauma
• Warm living tissues

When there is overall harmony, Ki flows smoothly and any minor imbalances are rectified naturally. When the body becomes stressed for long periods or there is physical damage, emotional trauma (e.g. anger, worry, fear, grief), or mental inharmony the smooth flow of Ki is disrupted, creating pools of excess and deficiency.

Healthy flow of Ki is known as Genki and disrupted Ki is called Byoki (literally, sick Ki). There are four basic types of Ki disharmony:

Deficient Ki – this can lead to spontaneous sweating, fatigue, lethargy and weakness.

Sinking Ki – which is characterized by organ prolapse (e.g. sagging organs and bagginess), vertigo, weariness, and a very weak pulse.

Stagnant Ki – the flow of Ki is slow or blocked, which can produce swelling, bloating, belching, achiness all over and fidgetiness.

Rebellious Ki – the direction of normal Ki flow is reversed, leading to hiccups, vomiting, coughing, asthma, liver problems and fainting.

The human energy system (HES) continues on. Beyond the scope of this discussion, we are also surrounded and interpenetrated by a set of subtle bodies.

The first of these is the “etheric body,” an almost exact replica of the physical and its template. Another subtle body is the “astral” which relates to feelings and their expression and the influence of our emotions. Each of these spiritual bodies vibrates at a higher rate than the previous one. However they are not to be understood in linear fashion, but more in the sense of expanding and connected fields. The “mental body” of course deals with the energy of thought, creation, invention and inspiration. Lastly, there is the “causal” or “spiritual body.” This obviously relates to our soul and higher Self, and is a divine template. (Gerber 23-31)

As you can see, so much more is going on to create the physical body and enable it to function. So much more is also going on to make our mind and feelings function. Consciousness is not only a mechanical firing of electrochemical signals, but an energy of its own. And a whole lot is going on to make our soul a part of physical existence.

In light of this information, energetic wellness takes on new meaning. It becomes a priority, vital to health, prevention, wholeness and a life of fulfillment.

Reiki as a Healing Art

Reiki is organized, orderly Ki. It is intelligent, compassionate and wise. There is a harmony to it.

Reiki is not dependent on the practitioner’s ability to sense disruptions in the energy or Ki field of the recipient to diagnose their energy flow and patterns. There is no need to direct or manipulate the energy, and no need to “correct” in any way.

Reiki treatments are gently balancing and support the wellbeing of the recipient in a holistic and individualistic way. Relaxation, pain relief, physical healing, reduced emotional distress, mental acuity, and a deepened awareness of spiritual connection are commonly reported benefits.

Reiki:

• dissolves stagnant ki
• eliminates deficient ki
• balances rebellious ki
• tones sinking ki
• neutralizes incompatible energies
• re-balances the human energy system
• flows healingly through both the meridians and the nadis
• addresses the recipient at a causal level, not masking symptoms

Reiki offers a direct link to starting and growing an energetic relationship with yourself in the deepest, most meaningful sense. What is interesting about Reiki is that it runs the entire energetic spectrum, from life energy to spiritual energy. It is both the chi (ki) of the meridians, webbed out more on the surface of our body, and the prana­ of the chakras and nadis, webbed in the more nonphysical aspect of our being.

Reiki treatments are richly nutritive to body, mind and soul, and help one to make the changes needed for optimal living. With so much at stake, an experienced and sensitive practitioner is essential.

The word “practitioner” does not only mean one who practices Reiki on others, but more significantly, one who practices Reiki as part of their personal spirituality.

Find a Reiki healer who is not merely using techniques, but comes from the sincerity of inner understanding, who embodies the sacred space needed for true change and wellness to take place. The healing relationship you will have with this practitioner is based on trust and mutual resonance. There needs to be trust in the process also.

A remarkable feature of Reiki is that it creates access to your own answers, insights and revelations. It is second to none in receiving your own spiritual and healing information. Your commitment level to your own growth and healing is vitally important. Personal growth and healing occur in an environment of partnership, cooperation, discipline and real willingness on your part to better some aspect of yourself. It takes courage to embark on a journey of self-development and many twists and turns are common. Hurdles and obstacles do come up. Open communication is the best way to move your inner work ahead and succeed.

Reference books:

A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine: Energy Healing and Spiritual Transformation

Richard Gerber, MD

Radical Healing: Integrating the World’s Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine

Rudolph M. Ballentine, MD

Each post for the Reiki Help Blog can take anywhere from 1-5 days to write/research, proofread/edit, and post with an appropriate image and formatting. If you leave this space with any value, knowledge, joy or understanding, please consider making a donation of your choice.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

This is my tribute to Earth Day. It was written in 2001 and has been polished up a little. At the time, I read an article about Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and had known very little about these trees until then.

The majesty and uniqueness of Giant Sequoias immediately grabbed my imagination and heart. I was transported to a hypersensitive state of feeling for and communicating with this species, especially the specific tree mentioned. At the time I had no previous interaction with any variety of redwood at all.

It wasn’t until some time later that I was graced with the physical presence of these trees at Muir Woods in Marin County, California (there are some Giant Sequoias there although most are coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.)

When I finished reading the article, I immediately sat at my computer and wrote the following. It wasn’t the first or last time that I experienced interspecies communication.

Make sure you read the end part as it has a message for all humanity.

Photo by Kevin Grahame

In 1852, during the California gold rush, a lone hunter was chasing a wounded grizzly bear into the forest, when he stumbled upon the Giant Sequoia redwood trees. That he was chasing a wounded grizzly was not a good start. The sacredness with which Native Americans regard Giant Sequoias, to the point of not even touching them was about to be shattered.

These awesome trees have a lifespan of up to 2000 years, the most ancient being 3300 years old. They have continuously existed since 100 million years ago, outlasting the dinosaurs. The largest stand over 300 feet tall, and their trunk at the base can measure as much as 32 feet in diameter. Their physical presence is undeniable, pointing to a presence of another variety altogether.

The hunter will remain nameless, although his and those of other misguided souls are known. Let’s call him Mr. Hunter. The boss of the gold mine camp can be Mr. Greed.

Mr. Greed seized opportunity at a time when the land was obviously exposing its riches. The land is abundant and provides for humanity’s needs. It was created for us to stand on and to live. Gold. Trees. What a miracle! The land gives freely, but humans aren’t free. Mr. Greed is a profiteer, but we’ll get back to him in a moment.

It’s saddening that Mr. Hunter couldn’t even use the input of his senses to be deeply moved by these trees, let alone have a spiritual perception about their true value. He could’ve gone down in history as one who discovered a natural marvel, an expression of Nature’s creativity. Instead he’s merely prey for my writer’s indignation and horror.

Take a breath! Take a moment and bask in the wonder of such a sight. Take your hat off, sit and experience such majesty. Mr. Hunter, could you have been given a greater opportunity to understand Life?

Can you imagine the moment he stumbled on these ancient ones? Can you feel the silence of these trees and the environment they dominate?

Feel the pristine quality of this place.

The height of this arbor cathedral.

That he was able to find his legs to get back to camp is a small miracle of its own. Not one such tree, but acres and acres, with all other life forms contained and thriving.

Divinity in bark.

Was Mr. Hunter scared? Was he excited? What did he feel? How long did he stay before returning to camp?

Did it ever change him in some fundamental way?

All that’s certain is that camp boss Mr. Greed and everyone else were duly informed and rushed they did to gaze with their own eyes. Of course that would be the only choice.

What words did Mr. Hunter use to describe his discovery?

At the time, no one knew that Giant Sequoias are almost indestructible. Their bark is fire-resistant, strange as that is for wood, and because their root systems spread over nearly an acre of soil, they’re able to survive the most terrible of droughts.

Mr. Greed, unlike Mr. Hunter, was a man of deeper thought, and clearly saw a way to riches by making the site of the discovery a tourist attraction.

Discovery Tree, so aptly named but mistreated, was to be the mascot of these ancient ones at the hands, mercy and intelligence of this band of men. Not having TV or any other technology, Mr. Greed brilliantly decided to take a massive slab of Discovery Tree with him on a traveling freak show as a way to advertise the site.

We have progressed since then, because these majestic trees can now be toppled down in whole acres and the land forced to comply to a profit agenda by something called clear-cutting, but that’s another story.

In Mr. Greed’s time, who lives on in many disguises, there wasn’t any tool strong or long enough to make a dent in Discovery Tree’s fireproof bark.

Think about this: Nature made a tree, a form of wood that has a fire-resistant outermost layer!

Brains were doing overtime and the solution was to hire miners to drill holes with long metal augers as wide as a man’s fist, a workingman’s fist.

After twenty days of drilling, there was a circumference of holes around the tree. Such is humanity’s indomitable spirit, that it just won’t give up!

Remember: 20 days of drilling. Fist size holes. Fireproof bark.

When Mr. Greed’s affluent invited guests came for the crowing victory, Discovery Tree still refused to fall.

It remained standing for another two days.

It chose to make its exit with a dignity befitting Its species and broke the grove’s profound silence one lunchtime when the idly curious were away.

The thunderous shudder of Its fall reverberated across the Earth and millennia, both as a warning and as an announcement of the first Sequoia Saint to ever grace our memory.

Trees, creatures, plants and knowledgeable peoples all over heard it and shared in the silence following such a mighty crash. It was and is a sad moment whose lesson is still haunting modern society.

This story is very much alive today and sadder than ever. Mr. Hunter and Mr. Greed have been replaced by the gaping mouth and endless stomach of consumerism. The Machine has replaced augers.

However, that’s not why I wrote this. I’d like to dwell on Discovery Tree. Who was It? What did It feel? How is It doing now?

Thank you for asking! I’m quite well. We all appreciate the voice you and many like you have given us.

The most important realization is that no created thing is a random mutation, following a string of events after the Big Bang.

We are all creations of the Great Original and science will soon understand that.

The thought that led you to write this is a true thought: There has to be purpose and design behind the creation of our exceptional form. We are honored to express the diversity of Divinity in such magnificence. Our story is strong.

This is evident in that you haven’t even visited us physically. You’ve seen some photographs, but not even a documentary. Yet, our story reached across time to touch you. This again is with purpose.

We are all souls. The creations of Nature also have souls. The form we embody is specifically designed to make this fact visible. It forces Reason to falter so truth can take hold. Our lifespan points to eternity. We were placed here to witness time. Our cousins on land, the Elephants and our cousins in the ocean, the Whales have a similar purpose.

Like many, I felt sad. It was extremely painful too. I endured it because I was created to endure, as we all are. I stood and could have stood longer.

My species bled and cried with me, not for me but for the future. I chose when to call it a day. Without my choice, I’d still be up.

I bled and cried also because not one of those men had an opening of heart and mind. Their bark was thicker than mine. The boundary of their perception never once shifted or expanded.

At night I’d get relief and many creatures comforted me. The Great Original gave me many ways to lick my wounds. I forgave in the honored tree tradition, for most tree species have suffered at the hands of humanity.

The answers of Life are out in the open. There are really no secrets. All life forms contain these answers. Digging and searching are only to make the truth last and not be forgotten. After struggle and heartache, truth becomes permanent. Otherwise it loses to a multitude of distractions.

Not all species are supposed to last through all time. What’s devastating is premature extinction from unnatural causes. This is not in the interest of humanity or this Earth.

At the time I ceased to be, at least in that particular form, humanity was thinking a certain way, a way that has continued and has borne the results you live with today.

We have witnessed much in our time and we tell all of you now: Live in a way that honors Life for you partake in it. It gives you everything and you must also give it your everything.

It takes 20 adults with arms at full length to encircle one Giant Sequoia.

Praise be!

Credit goes to Mark Hertsgaard for the background on Discovery Tree, and for fascinating Giant Sequoia facts click here.

This is a partial list, more will be posted under the Healing resources category.

Feel free to forward this list to anyone who may benefit from it. Each book is described briefly, but it’s value can’t possibly be conveyed. These are all “gold.”

1- A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine: Energy Healing and Spiritual Transformation

Richard Gerber, MD

An encyclopedic classic on energetic healing according to the ancients and how it complements today’s allopathic medicine.

2- Radical Healing: Integrating the World’s Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine

Rudolph M. Ballentine, MD

An encyclopedic resource dealing with some of humanity’s oldest healing traditions and how we can benefit from them today.

3- Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self

Anodea Judith

A unique, in-depth look at the chakra system and how we can use it to help us in practical, everyday terms.

4- Ayurveda and the Mind

David Frawley

Explores how to heal our minds from the subconscious to the superconscious, along with the role of diet, impressions, mantra, meditation, yoga and many other methods to create wholeness.

5- The Healing Power of Mind

Tulku Thondup

The uncomplicated exercises and insights presented provide an important link between body and mind that strengthens the immune system and reinforces health.

6- The High-Performance Mind: Mastering Brainwaves for Insight, Healing, and Creativity

Anna Wise

The best book on brainwaves and how to use them to your advantage.

7- The Complete Book of Chinese Health & Healing: Guarding the Three Treasures

Daniel Reid

A remarkable book on Chinese medicine, meditation, and related subjects.

8- The Healing Power of Illness: Understanding What Your Symptoms Are Telling You

Thorwald Dethlefsen, Rudiger Dahlke

Indispensable resource for making sense of your symptoms.

9- The Creative Visualization Workbook: Second Edition

Shakti Gawain

The classic work on the power of visualization.

10- The Four Levels of Healing: A Guide to Balancing the Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, and Physical Aspects of Life

Shakti Gawain

Addresses all levels of being for healing and fulfillment to be real and complete.

11- Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

Alberto Villoldo, PhD

Reveals the concept of working with the “luminous energy field” that surrounds our physical bodies in a practical, easy-to-understand format.

12- Kitchen Table Wisdom & My Grandfather’s Blessing (2 Volume Set)

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

Wisdom from a doctor who trains other doctors how to be healers again.

13- The Healer’s Manual: A Beginner’s Guide to Vibrational Therapies

Ted Andrews

An excellent primer on the subject.

14- Teach Only Love: The Twelve Principles of Attitudinal Healing

Gerald Jampolsky

Profound teachings on the healing power of love and forgiveness.

15- The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living

Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler

In this guide toward personal happiness, His Holiness the Dalai Lama offers great information in regaining lost happiness.

Flowering trees near the Zigzag Bridge (Yatsuhashi), Seiwa-en. Photo credit: Jack Jennings, Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden.

Reiki is a highly-effective but simple and practical teaching originally developed by Mikao Usui¹ designed for:

• Spiritual growth
• Personal development
• Life enrichment
• Energy healing for self and others

In this age of instant gratification, ready information and marketplace spirituality, Reiki is a pure light that’s most beautiful and beneficial when savored with care.

Reiki is more popular than ever, and available almost anywhere in different formats. You can be trained online; receive all three Levels in a weekend; or go from teacher to teacher.

Apart from traditional and contemporary Usui Reiki, whether it’s Japanese or Western, there are an endless array of new schools and styles. There are also many Reiki websites, blogs, forums and e-mail lists. All kinds of Reiki information is circulated on Facebook, and microblogging sites such as Twitter.

Choosing a Teacher

Choose a Reiki teacher who is equipped in every way to serve you all the way down the winding path. Understand that Reiki is a living teaching, that is it continues to evolve the practitioner with each use. Therefore there are layers of learning and growth even for the teacher. Start with someone who has been guided by Reiki for a number of years and has reached a certain level of maturity. This is someone who has:

1. Inner and outer resources:
   1. Inner: Reiki is lived. Don’t learn Reiki from a parrot.
   2. Outer: Provides well-written, extensive, reference quality Manuals s/he has written and updates when needed. (I see too much dubious photocopied material hastily put together.) Has other resources such as website, blog, and audiovisual.
2. Availability to support and mentor you at all times. A local teacher is best. My phone is on around the clock. My email availability is also near constant. Post-training, it’s very beneficial to have practitioner meetings to deepen students’ Reiki assimilation.
3. Has a school and developed understanding. Look at a Reiki teacher’s body of work. Does s/he have standing in the local community, does outreach, gives presentations and is published (and I don’t mean only on their own site/blog)?
4. Holds terrestrial trainings and these are actual trainings, not only attunements². Reiki is a transmission and this doesn’t happen only during attunements. The entire training experience is a vibrational field that imparts this teaching, transmission and empowerment.
5. What kind of Reiki does s/he teach? Usui’s original, traditional Japanese Reiki is a natural preference and here’s why (the rest of this post also points out why):

• Modern Reiki
• Reiki as Consciousness I
• Reiki as Consciousness II
• Reiki as Consciousness III

Reiki’s Core Teachings

Reiki is a graduated teaching with each Level of training requiring solid integration. Within the full consciousness and energy of Reiki are sub-frequencies (Some of the links above explain this further.)

In simple terms these energies are Earth Ki, Celestial Ki and the principle of Connection. Ki³ is the life vitality of the body, mind and soul, as well as the energy permeating Nature and the material world. Ki is also Cosmic Energy and is all-pervasive in its various forms.

Earth Ki is our physical link to the earth. It’s the energy of the body and its creator, builder and healer. By associating with Earth Ki you also bring order and success to our material existence and concerns.

Celestial Ki is the link to nonphysical aspects of your being; your energy, emotions, thoughts and spirit. It’s the healer of your relationship with yourself, others and the Divine.

For ultimate wellbeing, material success and personal enlightenment, both poles are given equal importance and integrated to engender wholeness, and express the highest and most sacred in us, in a way that is visible and tangible in the physical world.

Connection is a key concept of Mikao Usui’s teachings. It relates to your essential Oneness with:

• Yourself
• Others
• Nature and all its life forms
• The Cosmos
• The Divine which is more personal

Students are sensitized to these energies with the use of primordial vowel sounds, and to a lesser degree with visual representations (in Level II).

Reiki is the full-spectrum consciousness and energy of all there is. As such it can be described as spiritual consciousness and energy. The entire spectrum is spiritual, even though it has an Earth pole and a Celestial pole. This spectrum which fuels all of creation and the Cosmos is also continuous and connected between its poles.

Reiki’s Special Subtle System

The system that Reiki follows is a simple and elegant concentration in three locations known as Hara. The first and main hara (lower) is in the lower belly, approximately midway between the bellybutton and the top of the pubic bone, also known as one-point.

The upper hara is located in the head at a point that corresponds to the middle of the eyebrows and is also known as the spiritual eye.

The middle hara is in the chest, at the sternum (breastbone) and is also known as the heart center.

The main hara is the body’s actual center. It’s equidistant from this location to the feet and to the head. Thus it’s the body’s center of gravity.

The lower hara is considered to be an intuitive and spiritual center. It’s an area into which your energy can settle and into which great vitality is drawn from the environment and the Cosmos.

The lower hara is an endless source of Ki, from which it comes and to which it flows. It’s the origin of balance and stability and not only physically. The mind and thus the emotions can also find calmness and strength here. When you are established in this natural center, Ki flows throughout your body and mind, and creates a healthy Ki field around you. The lower hara is your base support, your foundation.

Many of us are out of balance simply because we put our power and weight in the head (intellect/logic), the shoulders and the chest. Especially in the West, these locations are what are emphasized as being significant in success, self-confidence and health. Most of our education emphasizes the left brain; broad shoulders and barrel-chests are admired, the belly isn’t allowed to protrude making us tense. We are top-heavy! Do you realize how easy it is to literally tip over with such an imbalance?

Look at small kids who have just learned to walk. They push their bellies forward and walk with heavy steps, concentrating on their center. Unfortunately, many people lose contact with their center when they grow up. The immediate effect is bad balance and weakness in movements and an increasing confusion of mind also follows.

If you practice sensing your center in the lower belly and use it to support whatever you do, then certainty about your own being will grow. You will regain contact with yourself, secure in both knowing that you exist and increasingly learning who you are.

The upper hara is the center of mental faculties and higher mind. The energies felt here are lighter and more expansive, and relate to emotions, thoughts and subtle, meditative realizations.

This center is also about learning to use both hemispheres of the brain appropriately, i.e., not to approach matters of the inner self with too much logic and not to approach matters of the outer life with too much of a meditative quality. Ultimately you learn whole-brain thinking, using both hemispheres equally and in balance with each other and what is in front of you.

If undeveloped, this center can be unavailable to the wide range of consciousness and all its possibilities, thus limiting an individual’s choices. The potential for this center is discriminative intelligence, wisdom and realization.

The middle hara expresses Connection. It’s the center where all the elements of being human come to fruition. From the higher faculties of mind and spiritual evolution, including all the creations of right thought, right speech and right action, to the basics of the body and survival, the heart center expresses what is uniquely human.

It’s also where anger or similar emotions may be held. The potential for this center is that it fully expresses our Connection to all there is and embodies the quality of compassion in a real and profound sense.

Conclusion

While Reiki is deeply healing and can be applied to oneself and others, Usui’s teachings really lead to discovering your spiritual path, staying on it with purpose and understanding, and enhancing your experiences until satori emerges. Satori is the Japanese term for the experience of enlightenment, illumination or realization i.e., awakening to one’s true nature and the nature of all existence.

The practices he taught and spread give a clear indication that the real benefit of Reiki Training and practice is to bring out the best qualities of our humanness and reach higher, to a level of spiritual attainment.

This happens naturally when Reiki is utilized as a core practice of spiritual life. This means that apart from the formal use of Reiki’s many helpful functions, there’s less and less separation and difference between ‘Reiki-on’ and ‘Reiki-off.’

In other words, Universal truth, light, wisdom, love and power that Reiki helps us access gradually become an unbroken part of who and what we are.

As with any authentic spiritual teaching, Usui Sensei left behind a living teaching that addresses the whole person. There are several components of spiritual growth that are common to all such teachings. These components are addressed in Usui’s way with various easy-to-do practices. Included are:

• Regular cleansing of body, mind and soul
• Establishing a higher consciousness
• Maintaining energetic integrity
• Bringing wholeness to the subconscious mind
• Hara development
• Conscious Oneness and balance between heaven and earth
• Empowerment to reach the transcendental

His teachings are practical to the core and readily applicable in modern life. Good results are seen with even a little practice and the effects are incremental, leading to greater and higher spiritual experiences and evolution, as well as everyday happiness and success.

________________________

¹ Mikao Usui is the founder of the system of Reiki. Mikao Usui was born on the 15th of August 1865, in the village of Taniai-mura in the Yamagata-gun district of the Gifu-ken Prefecture, in Japan. He is mostly commonly referred to as “Usui Sensei,” with sensei meaning teacher or master. Some may use O-Sensei, with “O” being “great”. “San” is another honorific that is more neutral. He left behind a huge legacy. Reiki, as a spiritual teaching, and healing art is a global movement today.

² An attunement, initiation or connection ritual is the energetic opening or awakening that is gifted to the student by the Universe, through a Reiki Teacher. This enables the student to jumpstart their Reiki practice, giving them a clean, healthy beginning for their spiritual journey. It works energetically through the body, mind and soul to increase the student’s spiritual light quotient, which will is maintained by daily practice.

³ Ki is vital energy that enlivens creation, human body and mind, and runs the Cosmos. While it shows up as subtle energy, it isn’t only energy. Ki is also a set of Divine attributes: Wisdom, Compassion, Power, Light and Intelligence.

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Donate to this blog. Thank you!

On July 30, 2008 I started a new service in the microblogging world by sending out this one-liner about Reiki:

Reiki is living with wisdom & compassion.

Since then Reiki One-Liner^SM has gone out to Twitter and Plurk everyday between Monday and Friday, with breaks of a few days since its inception.

Read the first 50.

Read the next 50.

Tonight I tweeted:

Reiki is the Universe saying “pssst!”

One of my Twitter friends responded:

Luv ur 1liners. Had wonderful grocery visit. I was rollin’ along when cart wheels spazzed. Right there, great sale on pasta! Hee hee

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are the third 50 Reiki one-liners:

1. Feeling fragmented? Reiki defrags you quickly and completely.
2. Integrity and clear boundaries in communication are enhanced by Reiki.
3. Mind dissects and separates. Reiki brings a holistic view.
4. Mind over thinks. Reiki settles it into natural, spacious awareness.
5. Reiki beautifies the inner and outer you.
6. Reiki brings balance to your responsibilities and unburdens your shoulders.
7. Reiki brings out your inner gem.
8. Reiki centers you even at a red light.
9. Reiki does good and moves on to the next person or situation.
10. Reiki helps you know mind is not localized in the brain but is everywhere.
11. Reiki helps you notice the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
12. Reiki is a daily dose of good.
13. Reiki is a life and soul app designed by higher Intelligence.
14. Reiki is an ocean of compassion multiplied by awareness.
15. Reiki is an ocean of love multiplied by acceptance.
16. Reiki is context and meaning renewed by an enduring presence.
17. Reiki is daily empowerment.
18. Reiki is daily renewal.
19. Reiki is daily sanity.
20. Reiki is daily vibrational alignment.
21. Reiki is embodied peace.
22. Reiki is Grace.
23. Reiki is insurance for body, mind and soul.
24. Reiki is letting go of control so you can have true control.
25. Reiki is self-knowledge and biofeedback via hands-on and meditation.
26. Reiki is soul poetry.
27. Reiki is soul satisfaction.
28. Reiki is the art of self-communication.
29. Reiki is the in and out breath of the Universe.
30. Reiki is the interface between personal ki and universal Ki.
31. Reiki is the knowing that you are as infinite as the universe.
32. Reiki is the Universe’s way of saying, “Got your back!”
33. Reiki keeps you in grace if you get punk’d.
34. Reiki lets you help others without compromising yourself.
35. Reiki lets you KNOW that which can’t be quantified.
36. Reiki makes soul available in every situation.
37. Reiki places intellect in balance to assist your soul.
38. Reiki places you smack-dab in the lap of the Universe.
39. Reiki rebalances you in the midst of your day.
40. Reiki self-treatments=Self-acceptance and love.
41. Reiki sources your life from the lotus of your being instead of your lower self.
42. Reiki will shift procrastination right out of your system.
43. The body doesn’t lie. Reiki helps you know when the mind does.
44. The body is a vehicle for your spirit. Reiki remembers that and keeps it healthy.
45. The mind powered by Reiki functions higher.
46. The mind succumbs to fear. Reiki restores natural spaciousness.
47. Thoughts become biology. Reiki interrupts that.
48. With Reiki you recover better from setbacks.
49. Your body changes. Reiki stays with you throughout.
50. Your body is a library of you. Reiki is the index.

Many systems of spiritual meditative practice give a model of the various stages of meditation and self-realization. It’s useful to look at other systems sometimes to bring meaning to Reiki.

I’d like to use a model given in Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers as a way to draw some parallels. All aspects of Reiki are relevant here, but RDH illustrates the parallels best.

We’ll look at RDH from the viewpoint of a Reiki practitioner. For the practitioner, regular practice of RDH:

• opens the spiritual heart by first healing the emotional heart
• infuses with a great dose of spiritual energy
• boosts intuition and subtle perceptions
• helps you experience universal compassion seen in enlightened ones
• draws you closer together to people and communities
• brings the joy of spiritual fulfillment

Compassion is a stable emotion. The emotional energy of compassion is selfless and focused. It has equanimity, and motivates the intent of the practitioner to utilize one’s resources to help others. Ordinary emotional energy can be self-indulgent, scattered, attached, perturbed and unstable. It’s difficult to help oneself with such an emotional makeup, let alone others.

Compassion can be seen as the sincere heart-desire to soothe the suffering of others. Present in this wish is to alleviate not only their present unease, but the root causes of their discomfort. First is the recognition that all beings have the capacity for compassion. Intention and motivation are also crucial. The best outcome is possible by keeping your intentions alive and making them pure, noble and vast. It may seem impossible to help countless others, but once you start, and with the unique ability of RDH, your intention becomes true.

RDH is designed for the benefit of others, but simultaneously you, the conduit, receive untold gifts from the regularity of its practice.

Compassion cultivated by the transformation of ordinary emotional energy is known as ‘skillful means,’ for it enables the practitioner to skillfully use their mind, wisdom, love and energy for the benefit of others as well as their own spiritual development.

Bodhisattva of Compassion

The primary model of altruistic intention is the Bodhisattva.

Speaking of the Bodhisattva, Powers says,

The Sanskrit term literally means ‘enlightenment (bodhi) being (sattva),’ and it indicates…someone…progressing toward the state of enlightenment of a buddha….Bodhisattvas…are motivated by universal compassion, and they seek the ultimate goal of buddhahood in order to be of service to others….At the beginning of the bodhisattva path, they realize that their present capacities are limited and that they are unable to even prevent their own sufferings.

How true of Reiki. We come to Shoden (Reiki I), take responsibility for our own welfare, begin healing with the power of love (loving-kindness as a quality of compassion), develop spiritually, and move to Okuden (Reiki II) as a way to heal deeper, establish an abiding spirituality and increase our capacities. This includes RDH.

Powers continues that “a bodhisattva begins a training program intended to culminate in the enlightenment of a buddha.”

Among the good qualities generated by this training he lists six

perfections:

1) generosity
2) ethics
3) patience
4) effort
5) concentration, and
6) wisdom

These constitute the core of the enlightened personality of the buddha.

It’s uncanny how easy it is to put a Reiki spin on these:

1) Generosity is inherent in Reiki since the vital energy you access through its practice is so abundantly available, enriching you and those with whom you share it.

Along with this energy comes wisdom, insight, knowledge, peace, healing, compassion and light. These attributes are unlimitedly available. This prime generosity is expanded at the local, global and universal levels many times with RDH, and it creates a domino effect of generosity.

2) Ethics, i.e., the Reiki Precepts. Every spiritual system has these, for as you become empowered a strong foundation is crucial. Usui Sensei set forth these five points:

For today only:

Do not anger
Do not worry
Be humble
Be honest in your work
Be compassionate to yourself and others

“For today only” indicates that you do the best you can, for the precepts are a tall order, despite their simplicity. However, it also indicates that you practice everyday to fulfill this tall order.

Beyond ethics, Usui’s precepts are actual teachings, the underpinning of the system of Reiki. It’s because the ethical challenge is demanding that other techniques are included (such as RDH) to help the practitioner actually live the precepts.

The ethics of RDH itself come into play too. RDH is a process of Oneness with the receiver or target. It’s an extension of a personal spiritual practice and the integrity gained there forms the foundation of providing healing energy in this way. The intention is the highest good of the person. Results are surrendered, together with any worries about effectiveness.

3) Patience is the quality which helps you process each level of training before moving on; having equanimity in the face of unchanging symptoms; and doubting not the power of Reiki. We live in a very results-oriented society, yet spiritual growth and healing are much more open-ended and organic.

This means that patience really becomes the wisdom to follow the energy and drop the need to achieve certain results. While intentions support spiritual and healing work, having a black and white agenda of results is detrimental.

You never know where growth or healing is going to show up. Being patient and wise enough to allow the energy to bring the best-fitting gift is a peaceful approach, rather than forcing a result or limiting what is available with a narrow and restless agenda.

4) Effort means to use Reiki as a practice and not just another tool. Spiritual teachings are really only effective when practiced and applied. It’s the depth of daily practice which ensures that you have the ability to respond in the spur of the moment with the greatest effectiveness.

Effort means to continually refine one’s understanding and application of Reiki. Building on what you have been taught by your teacher is the heart of your practice.

5) Concentration in Reiki is the quality of meditating on the energy as you apply it. This ensures non-interference of ego or distractions. It also enhances the experience of Reiki both for receiver and giver. (Yes, Reiki flows all by itself, but we hold an intention and meditation is concentrated mind.) In RDH concentration is even more important since you’re dealing with the formless (etheric).

6) Wisdom is the quality which completes love and without which we are lopsided. Universal Mind is close during RDH and gives your mind the opportunity to be informed by wisdom that you can then carry into our lives and the world.

These apply to the whole of Reiki, but the focus here has been Reiki Distant Healing.

1) Meditative Reiki which leads to inner mastery and evolution.

2) Hands-on Reiki which leads to healing.

The two form a complete and comprehensive spiritual teaching. There’s some crossover between them and one complements the other. Because Reiki is a spiritual teaching and not a healing art alone, or worse a modality (as some practice it), Meditative Reiki is the trunk of the teachings. This doesn’t negate the power and value of hands-on Reiki.

Hands-on Reiki is founded on, sourced from, and supported by Meditative Reiki, without which Reiki is a truncated teaching. This post details the pitfall such truncation causes.

Hands-on Reiki without its Meditative anchor

Until about ten years ago, Reiki was popularly known only as a hands-on energy healing practice, with Usui Sensei’s enlightenment teachings left out of the system. This error, unfortunately, persists to this day in many pockets of the global Reiki community.

Usui was really only interested in helping people alleviate suffering through their own self-realization or satori using meditation and other related inner practices. Because he was a dedicated spiritual practitioner, he had healing power and was involved in an ongoing conversation about “palm healing” with his contemporaries, but this wasn’t the main thrust of his work.

Healing power is part and parcel of any evolutionary path, as it is in Reiki. It’s there naturally as the practitioner evolves. Hands-on healing is simply an extension of this process.

Just like an apple has a core, spiritual teachings have a core which is meditation. Remove the core and the apple collapses in on itself.

I’ve been teaching and practicing Reiki for fifteen years continuously. I was first trained in Reiki without its core; then Usui-san’s original wisdom seeds were made available to me. This writing comes from my personal and professional experience of the Grand Canyon of difference between the two, as well as staying up-to-date on historical research, global observation of Reiki, and of course my own practice of the teachings I love.

Here are some of the results of Reiki without its core:

• It feels incomplete; some of the information is disjointed; leaves you with a lot of questions.
• This in turn leads to an attempt to complete the teaching with material from other traditions. A prime example of this is the inclusion of the yogic chakra system, whereas in fact Far Eastern spirituality revolves around the understanding of hara.
• The filling-in doesn’t stop there. A baffling array of Reiki flavors have emerged: Amanohuna Reiki, Angelic RayKey, Ascension Reiki, Blue Star Reiki, Karuna Reiki, Kundalini Reiki, Lightarian Reiki, Raku Kei Reiki, Shamanic Reiki, Shamballa Reiki, Tera Mai Reiki, Tibetan Reiki…ad infinitum! Many of these claim to be “more powerful” or “higher vibration.”
• The hunger still doesn’t stop, for without feeling complete and without an enduring practice Reiki folk can become collectors of all these flavors.
• And with all of this comes the addition of material and practices that are extraneous to Usui’s Reiki: Guided meditation, crystals, hui yin breath, unrelated symbols, violet breath, chakra balancing, manifestation techniques, Reiki or spirit guides, and channeling, to name a few.

Let’s look at two extraneous practices to highlight the main distinction being made:

A) Guided meditation

B) Chakra balancing

Guided Meditation: There’s nothing wrong with this practice. Often it’s a novice’s first introduction to meditation, and any meditation is better than no meditation. In the context of Reiki as an evolutionary practice, however, guided meditation skims the surface.

The entire teaching of Reiki and its native meditations is based on a perennial understanding of universal Ki. This Ki isn’t only subtle energy. It’s also a set of divine qualities which include nondual consciousness, compassion, wisdom, spiritual light and power, spiritual intelligence, harmony and balance, all wrapped up in an embodied experience of Oneness.

In Usui’s meditations, universal Ki travels along the subtle spine pooling in significant points along it, in time-honored practices which are designed to be transformative and enduring.

When meditations already included in Usui’s Reiki are not passed on, the void is filled with guided meditations or other breathing techniques. This inauthenticates and bloats a teaching that already has all the elements of a true spiritual practice.

Let’s examine in a little more detail. “Transformative” means that a teaching and its practices radically and permanently shift your being. “Enduring” means this shift doesn’t stall after one time, it continues to expand your paradigm, and the practices never get stale, bringing new insight and wisdom, staying fresh, creative and inspiring.

Firstly, if you’ve only been taught hands-on Reiki, it gives you only a certain view. Then, because it isn’t complete, it starts a false hunger and striving in search of more power and higher vibration, you start to collect Reiki styles and a mishmash of techniques. This search doesn’t fill the void.

When a spiritual teaching is properly designed as Reiki was by Usui Sensei, it has a graduated set of practices, knowledge, transformation and realization that’s built-in and that fulfills and advances the practitioner with each use.

As originally designed, Reiki gives the practitioner direct access to the power of the universe in a way that builds a solid, lifelong relationship, answering all needs and questions and making way for a meritorious life.

Chakra balancing: As mentioned above, chakras aren’t an understanding elucidated in Far Eastern spirituality which works with the hara model. This isn’t the aspect being discussed here, for that requires its own post.

Chakras are a part of the human subtle body and for Reiki practitioners what may work best is to solidify and embody Reiki’s native teachings on the hara, and then grow into a blended appreciation of both. This is still not what’s being discussed here.

What’s being highlighted is the idea that Reiki practitioners balance anything at all. The fact of the matter is that when giving Reiki to yourself or someone else the practitioner is in a state of nondoing. (More about this here and here.)

Reiki is not a practice of being actively involved in the delivery of healing. Practitioners don’t need to visualize, direct, focus, colorize, enhance in any way, or force Reiki. There also isn’t an evaluation in the sense of making choices of what is to be balanced. Nothing is removed and nothing is added.

There’s only receptivity, observation, witnessing, and allowing. Any other approach constricts the conduit.

Any healing action and balancing occurs between the intelligence of the recipient and Reiki. Another way to say this is that Reiki has a healing effect in the resonance between personal ki and universal Ki.

And this healing isn’t what it seems to be at first glance. Reiki does create better energy flow within the mindbody; it reduces pain; provides emotional support; calms and clarifies the mind and brings a host of other benefits. There’s an energetic aspect to it and it does work energetically with the person.

Yet what is often missed in the teaching and practice of Reiki as only hands-on is that real healing is happening deep in consciousness and not only in the subtle body. Reiki is spiritual healing even when administered via the hands which means that there’s a transformation of consciousness.

Let’s remember that Meditative Reiki is the source and ground of its hands-on application, that Reiki is first a spiritual practice of inner mastery and evolution. When a student receives the practices of the trunk of Reiki, the transformation made available through these methods is then available when applied as hands-on. The student must first be given the techniques, i.e., Reiki teachers worldwide stop passing on truncated teachings, and then the student must practice Meditative Reiki sincerely and regularly.

There aren’t any shortcuts. A practitioner can effect a meditative change and healing in consciousness through hands-on Reiki on self and others, if the inner practice is first known and then adopted in a devoted and disciplined manner. Otherwise, Reiki is reduced to only a form of energy healing with an inconsistent ratio of effectiveness.

(These posts explain how this is so in greater detail: Reiki as Consciousness — Parts I – II – and III.)

What Usui’s Reiki can truly offer the individual and the world

Usui Sensei graced the world with five simple but abiding precepts:

For today only: Do not anger—Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others

These precepts are simple, but they are not easy at all. There’s tremendous profundity to them and contemplation leads to many, many lifelong realizations. Right in the very center of the trunk of Reiki are these precepts. They are the living tissue of the tree of Reiki.

Another feature of spiritual teachings which are considered to be wisdom traditions is that in addition to guiding words, practitioners are given practices to fine tune the human instrument to actually be able to live the precepts.

True teachings can’t be embodied only intellectually. The intellect is an asset, but it must also be surpassed. To become and live Usui’s precepts, a transformation must take hold in the person. And this can only happen if the complete teachings are first deeply embraced by Reiki Masters and then fully passed on to students.

Let’s finish by imagining what the world would be like if Usui’s five precepts were well-established in all aspects of society.

Without anger, conflicts would be resolved and new ones circumvented. Without worry, fear would end and we wouldn’t exacerbate suffering. Humility is respect and the willingness to include all viewpoints. Honesty; would there be a worldwide financial crisis if there was honesty?

And compassion. Compassion is both a prerequisite and condition of enlightenment. In compassion there’s no separation, no other, no stranger. Compassion is the true democracy! Enlightenment is a state of Oneness. If there’s compassion, there’s understanding and appreciation. Compassion unifies and in that unity we find enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn’t only a spiritual pursuit. There can be enlightenment in government, technology, business, science and social systems.

This post has many areas that are begging for a more detailed look, and future posts will be expanding on these points. If you’re new here, please subscribe via email so you will be notified.

This post is also not complete. For instance, I’m eternally grateful for the hands-on function of Reiki. And the arguments above can be made in many other ways, all enlarging and enriching the global Reiki conversation. This conversation will be continued here and I invite you to join me by commenting and reading future installments.

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