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Usui Sensei
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Quote passage from Shoden: Reiki First Degree Manual, Taggart King, Pinchbook Press, 2009
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Reiki is a re-introduction of ancient healing techniques that were practiced throughout Asia long before the 1900s.
When you look up "what is Reiki" you will find the same generic definition all over the internet, "Reiki is a Japanese energy healing modality that uses universal energy brought forth my Dr. Mikao Usui in the 1920s."
What if I told you that Reiki is SO much more than that and that when we look at this region of the world how many ancient healing arts exist there. Even the overlap of Yoga, Buddhism and Traditional Chinese Medicine takes some looking into.
What if I told you that Reiki is an entire way of living that is comprised of a variety of lineages, teachings and experience brought together by Sensei Usui?
Reiki in the West has become diluted, just as we see in Yoga. It becomes stripped of its mystical and spiritual components and packaged as something that is closer to 1/4 of the teachings/philosophies/lineages.
We have to look at how the entire system has been infiltrated by the idea of selling and marketing. With Reiki we even have to look at the person from whom most Western Reiki practitioners are descendants of, Hawayo Takata. This is nothing against her or her journey, it is rather an invitation to research and study the ways in which Reiki was altered when shared with her teacher, Chujiro Hayashi.
To keep this history lesson brief, Hayashi was a naval physician in Japan and due to the lower numbers of naval physicians and the high number of wounded, the navy approached Mikao Usui and asked if he would teach these physicians and officers Reiki so that they could aid the wounded in greater numbers. Takata learnt from Hayashi, so she learnt the methodology of Reiki being used to treat others as a priority, not that it was best served as a tool for the Self/Soul's healing.
Now, let's pause for a moment and understand that further. Mikao Usui saw people and helped them heal, he would give them practices/herbs/meditations/movements etc. to do in between sessions with him. It is believed by some that Chi-Gong is the sibling to Reiki. He received an honorary doctorate for the work he did when a tsunami rolled through Japan and left many injured. It is also said that Sensei Usui did not name Reiki himself, it was a name given to these teachings by his students - still working on verifying this. When you became a student of Mikao Usui, you spent a considerate amount of time with him, it was a mentorship and an oral tradition of teaching that took time and dedication - not a one day or weekend training like we see here by the majority of Reiki Masters.
No manuals, no certificates, not even hand placements but intuitive development. This was an oral tradition and often times shared within the families of those who were lucky enough to study under Mikao Usui himself.
So when the naval officers were ready to go through their training, they did not have years to understand the energy, how to read it, their intention wasn't to live by the principles, it was to help alleviate suffering of others and help them heal physically. When it was Usui's students the emphasis was on personal strengthening and energetic awareness first and others as a bi-product.
So you can see how the intention behind the training shifted when Mikao Usui began teaching the naval officers as oppose to those in the general community. The shift went from personal understanding and deepening into philosophies of Tendai Buddhism, Shintoism, TCM and possible Yogic into designing a program that would be efficient in teaching these men how to provide care for the wounded using Reiki.
Takata learnt from one of these naval officers, which can be felt in the way in which Reiki is spoken about and shared in the West as a way to help heal others of ailments.
It is actually believed that Hayashi initiated more people into the Master Teacher level than Mikao Usui himself. So the majority of us are learning Reiki that is efficient and beautiful and powerful and yet, just like Yoga, is missing fundamental principles to fully understand the school of philosophy, techniques, awareness and systems.
I have been working with Reiki for almost 13 years now and it has been a passion of mine to try and get as close to the roots as I possibly can - I am just now starting to dive into how Yoga and Buddhism intersect and how Traditional Chinese Medicine fits into it all. Because to me, it makes sense that they would all be present in the history of Reiki as Mikao Usui was a student of many things.
So what exactly is Reiki?
Reiki is an approach to life, a way of letting go of the past immediately so that it does not create lasting suffering, it is the study and expression of the energy that exists all around us and within us at all times. It is learning how to feel the subtle realms/dimensions of existence and using these things as a way to create vitality within the body and alignment with the Soul's expression.
It is first used for the Self to understand how you relate to and understand the language of energy and after time it is then shared with others. You do not need to be initiated into the second or third levels in order to offer Reiki to other beings, you simply need to be disciplined enough to take the time and care to develop the greater capacity of understanding energy.
Reiki can be used for just about anything and everything.
To explain it simply, it is like a deep tissue massage for your energetic body and the effects of that are vast and vary from person to person.
I am still researching and discovering more about the truths but it is hard to come by, in fact, once it became a little more popular Westerners ventured to Japan to try and learn from the source but due to the history of Japan, Reiki was no longer prevalent. Reiki was then re-introduced to Japan from Westerners taking us even further from the roots.
There are now some grand children of grand parents who learnt from Mikao Usui himself who have taken it upon themselves to share this information with the world as a way to correct this diluted version of Reiki.
You can obviously tell that I have a passion for this just as I have a passion for honouring the roots of Yoga.
Ask questions. Do your own research. Look of the history of Japan. Be a student of life and of all things. Be kind. Be courteous. Open your eyes to the world outside of your own.
What if I told you that Reiki is SO much more than that and that when we look at this region of the world how many ancient healing arts exist there. Even the overlap of Yoga, Buddhism and Traditional Chinese Medicine takes some looking into.
What if I told you that Reiki is an entire way of living that is comprised of a variety of lineages, teachings and experience brought together by Sensei Usui?
Reiki in the West has become diluted, just as we see in Yoga. It becomes stripped of its mystical and spiritual components and packaged as something that is closer to 1/4 of the teachings/philosophies/lineages.
We have to look at how the entire system has been infiltrated by the idea of selling and marketing. With Reiki we even have to look at the person from whom most Western Reiki practitioners are descendants of, Hawayo Takata. This is nothing against her or her journey, it is rather an invitation to research and study the ways in which Reiki was altered when shared with her teacher, Chujiro Hayashi.
To keep this history lesson brief, Hayashi was a naval physician in Japan and due to the lower numbers of naval physicians and the high number of wounded, the navy approached Mikao Usui and asked if he would teach these physicians and officers Reiki so that they could aid the wounded in greater numbers. Takata learnt from Hayashi, so she learnt the methodology of Reiki being used to treat others as a priority, not that it was best served as a tool for the Self/Soul's healing.
Now, let's pause for a moment and understand that further. Mikao Usui saw people and helped them heal, he would give them practices/herbs/meditations/movements etc. to do in between sessions with him. It is believed by some that Chi-Gong is the sibling to Reiki. He received an honorary doctorate for the work he did when a tsunami rolled through Japan and left many injured. It is also said that Sensei Usui did not name Reiki himself, it was a name given to these teachings by his students - still working on verifying this. When you became a student of Mikao Usui, you spent a considerate amount of time with him, it was a mentorship and an oral tradition of teaching that took time and dedication - not a one day or weekend training like we see here by the majority of Reiki Masters.
No manuals, no certificates, not even hand placements but intuitive development. This was an oral tradition and often times shared within the families of those who were lucky enough to study under Mikao Usui himself.
So when the naval officers were ready to go through their training, they did not have years to understand the energy, how to read it, their intention wasn't to live by the principles, it was to help alleviate suffering of others and help them heal physically. When it was Usui's students the emphasis was on personal strengthening and energetic awareness first and others as a bi-product.
So you can see how the intention behind the training shifted when Mikao Usui began teaching the naval officers as oppose to those in the general community. The shift went from personal understanding and deepening into philosophies of Tendai Buddhism, Shintoism, TCM and possible Yogic into designing a program that would be efficient in teaching these men how to provide care for the wounded using Reiki.
Takata learnt from one of these naval officers, which can be felt in the way in which Reiki is spoken about and shared in the West as a way to help heal others of ailments.
It is actually believed that Hayashi initiated more people into the Master Teacher level than Mikao Usui himself. So the majority of us are learning Reiki that is efficient and beautiful and powerful and yet, just like Yoga, is missing fundamental principles to fully understand the school of philosophy, techniques, awareness and systems.
I have been working with Reiki for almost 13 years now and it has been a passion of mine to try and get as close to the roots as I possibly can - I am just now starting to dive into how Yoga and Buddhism intersect and how Traditional Chinese Medicine fits into it all. Because to me, it makes sense that they would all be present in the history of Reiki as Mikao Usui was a student of many things.
So what exactly is Reiki?
Reiki is an approach to life, a way of letting go of the past immediately so that it does not create lasting suffering, it is the study and expression of the energy that exists all around us and within us at all times. It is learning how to feel the subtle realms/dimensions of existence and using these things as a way to create vitality within the body and alignment with the Soul's expression.
It is first used for the Self to understand how you relate to and understand the language of energy and after time it is then shared with others. You do not need to be initiated into the second or third levels in order to offer Reiki to other beings, you simply need to be disciplined enough to take the time and care to develop the greater capacity of understanding energy.
Reiki can be used for just about anything and everything.
To explain it simply, it is like a deep tissue massage for your energetic body and the effects of that are vast and vary from person to person.
I am still researching and discovering more about the truths but it is hard to come by, in fact, once it became a little more popular Westerners ventured to Japan to try and learn from the source but due to the history of Japan, Reiki was no longer prevalent. Reiki was then re-introduced to Japan from Westerners taking us even further from the roots.
There are now some grand children of grand parents who learnt from Mikao Usui himself who have taken it upon themselves to share this information with the world as a way to correct this diluted version of Reiki.
You can obviously tell that I have a passion for this just as I have a passion for honouring the roots of Yoga.
Ask questions. Do your own research. Look of the history of Japan. Be a student of life and of all things. Be kind. Be courteous. Open your eyes to the world outside of your own.