Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

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Even if you’re not a Reiki practitioner, the following precepts and commentary on them can help you because they are universal.

For today only:
Do not anger
Do not worry
Be humble
Be honest in your work
Be compassionate to yourself and others

When we look at the Reiki precepts Usui Sensei included in the heart of his teachings, we usually focus on the keywords of “anger,” “worry,” “humility,” etc. These are huge of course and deserve contemplation and deep engagement (read Usui’s Precepts: The living tissue of Reiki). For the purpose of greater understanding, let’s go ahead and breakdown some other parts of the precepts.

This set of guidelines is really divided into two sections: The “Do not,” and the “Be.” Although we know them as the Gokai or five principles, “For today only” is powerful enough to stand on its own, and we’ll break that down too.

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

On one level, these are classic ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ found in all teachings. If you strip all the words and ideas attached to “Do not,” and “Be,” however, a new understanding is born. This bare, minimalist consideration brings a simple clarity.

“Do not” that’s not followed by another idea points to the action state of ‘doing’ and tells us to drop it. This is perfectly natural, as Reiki is a practice in nondoing. It’s a teaching that draws the practitioner into an original silence within. In an actionless state we can truly heal and be healed; we can truly propel evolution and rest in the spiritual. Action is changeable, it’s in flux. Spiritual qualities like wisdom and compassion are only available when outer action is stilled. Thus, Usui tells us: “Not do!”

Then he reinforces it with, “Be.” If we are, no guidelines are needed because we directly embody humility, honesty and compassion. These qualities are natural to us. They exist in the same silence we originate from and are born into the world with us. Isn’t that wonderful? From this beginning we enter a living and expressing process of obscuring and complicating this utterly simple setup!

And there’s what could possibly be considered a sixth precept: “For today only.” This is also about being.

“Today” means ‘now.’ It’s not about sunrise to sunset. It’s about the light of awareness in each moment. In each moment we have a task at hand, are involved in an activity, or interacting with someone. In each case, if we can truly be in the moment, anger and worry simply don’t arise. Anger and worry are machinations of the egoic mind. Awareness helps us dip into the silence which keeps us in balance and harmony even in the midst of intense activity.

Words are part of the world which is of form and activity. Ideas and words have to be used to describe truths which are formless. It’s a tricky proposition. The formless can ultimately only be experienced. In getting to truth through a teacher’s words, it’s helpful to consider them with freshness and notice the subtlety. Many teachings are condensed, nuggets really and in bringing out their inner meaning we have to sense outside the parameters of language and syntax.

Please share in comments what the precepts mean to you and how have they enriched your life.

The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it. In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence. It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.

—Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield

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Reiki is most popularly known as hands-on energy healing. It is in fact a spiritual teaching which can also be used to self-heal and help others heal. The essence of Reiki is about the development of the person in both character and spirit. As a person grows and evolves, healing comes along too. The focus in Reiki is the emergence of one’s natural spirituality. From this foundation, all other applications of Reiki become available.

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 hara is central to Reiki practice. Unlike the chakras, it’s more difficult to find information about it, although authentic Reiki Training will provide the necessary knowledge. The hara is best understood in the experience of one’s regular practice.  And while the chakras are mentioned below, Far Eastern understanding of subtle anatomy is based on the hara, not the Hindu chakras.

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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Reiki helps the human being. Throughout life, you may have different symptoms. Symptoms are simply signs that natural order needs to be found again. Curing symptoms can be merely temporary. Making the human whole again is often a dynamic and ongoing state of balance.

What are some of the common symptoms people want Reiki to address?

Physical conditions

Back pain. Migraines. Fibromyalgia. Chronic Fatigue. TMJ. Skin disorders. Cancer. Autoimmune disorders. Thyroid imbalances.

Emotional conditions

Low self-esteem. Emotional distance & unavailability. Hot emotions like anger or jealousy. Panic. Fears. Inability to cope. Feeling uncomfortable in your skin. Feeling out of place. Grief.

Mental conditions

Stress. Depression. Anxiety. Lack of concentration. ADD and ADHD. Insomnia. Confusion. Negative thinking. Mental burdens.

Spiritual conditions

Disconnection from self and life. Loss of meaning. Dark night of the soul. Spiritual seeking. Loss of personal power. Soul loss. Not knowing life direction or purpose. Inability to forgive. Fear of death.

Reiki helps the person. What kind of person? A person with chronic pain. A person living with cancer. A depressed person.

• Do you suffer from migraines or anxiety?
• Does arthritis make every day tasks difficult?
• Have you tried different mattresses for your back pain?
• Do you feel ill at ease, unable to cope, or lack energy?
• Are you just existing and don’t feel well, but can’t put your finger on it?
• Is your family or partner driving you crazy?

All of the above is a sample list. The point is that symptoms are endless. The list could be 100 times this.

Because Reiki is concerned with the person and not the symptom, it can be effective for you no matter what your life looks like, how your body is doing, or how you feel and think.

Reiki’s most significant remedy is that it helps you embrace your innate or natural spirituality.

Why would you care? Because over and over, research shows that people with a personal sense of spirituality report:

• Less use of medical services
• Less minor illness
• Emotional resiliency in terminal illness
• Pain reduction
• Better immunity
• Accelerated healing
• Less anxiety
• Ability to buffer stress
• Being undefeated by crisis

Personal spirituality brings with it a greater sense of participation and empowerment, purpose and meaning, and a broader perspective, with a strong sense of well-being and not just an absence of disease.

In other words, spiritual health has a direct positive impact on mental, emotional and physical health. What spiritual health means to you is completely up to you.

Reiki simply promotes mindbody states that support your wholeness and wellbeing, gently balancing and harmonizing you in a holistic and individualistic way.

Have you tried Reiki?

Resources: Watch my video The Role Of Spirituality in Wellness.

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The immune system consists of about a trillion cells called lymphocytes and about a hundred million trillion molecules called antibodies.

This complex system patrols and guards the body against attackers from without and within, regulating susceptibility to cancers, infectious diseases, allergies, and autoimmune disorders. The organs of the immune system include the bone marrow, thymus, lymph nodes, spleen, tonsils, appendix and certain tissues in the small intestine (Peyer’s patches). These are known as the lymphoid organs as they are involved with the development and deployment of lymphocytes, the white blood cells that are crucial to the healthy functioning of the immune system.

Today there are multiple “stressors” that negatively affect the immune system: age, virusesn and bacteria, drugs and certain medical therapies, allergies, autoimmune disorders, malignancies, immunodeficiencies, environmental toxins, and even thoughts and emotions.

In a normally functioning immune system, cells that are destined to become lymphocytes are produced in the bone marrow. There are two major classes: T cells processed in the thymus, and B cells which mature outside of the thymus. T cells act as messengers and destroyers against pathogens. B cells secrete antibodies that match a specific invading antigen. In addition there are granulocytes, macrophages and monocytes, all capable of enveloping and destroying invaders. There’s also a strong connection between the immune system and the brain hormonally and chemically, as well as psychosocially.

Using Reiki to boost immunity is a natural and holistic way to energetically stimulate the immune system. Fresh supplies of vital life energy are provided to all major organs of the immune system in high concentrations. This creates a balancing action which is deeply restorative and supportive to the immune system, regenerating it to function at optimal capacity. The immune system is revived and all of its components once again communicate and work as they were originally designed.

To strengthen and balance the immune system with Reiki concentrate on these areas:

• The brain as the focal point of all bodily organization.
• The thymus as the master gland of the immune system.
• Long bones of the arms and legs as sites of the bone marrow.
• White cell producers: lymph nodes, spleen, tonsils and small intestine.
• The blood as there are inactive proteins there which act as immune system’s complement system.
• The skin as a primary boundary, together with the eyes, nose and mouth as entry points.
• Guided imagery to enhance stimulation, if needed.

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