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The Kaizen of Reiki

If you have come across the word ‘kaizen’ before it will probably have been in the context of industrial quality control or personal development. “Kaizen” is a Japanese word that is usually translated as ‘improvement’, but it means more than that. The word has connotations of continuous, gradual, orderly and never-ending improvement, the willingness to constantly, relentlessly pursue improvement a small step at a time. The application of the kaizen principle is the reason why Japan’s economy was transformed after the Second World War. All workers were encouraged to make suggestions as to how quality and production could be improved, even by tiny, tiny percentages, but over time the effect of these tiny percentage improvements, applied consistently and built upon, transformed Japanese industry.

So what has this to do with Reiki? Well the word kaizen actually appears towards the end of the Reiki precepts. The line in Japanese is “Shin shin kaizen, Usui Reiki Ryoho”, which could be loosely translated as “Mind body change it for better Usui Reiki method”. So when Usui was talking about using his system to improve the body and mind, I get the impression that we are looking at a lifelong commitment to work with the system, to focus the energy on ourselves again and again, long-term, in order to produce small incremental improvements within ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to developing our effectiveness as a channel. But small changes build on previous small changes, an enhancement upon an enhancement leads to amazing development over time. And Usui’s original system gives us the solid, concrete techniques that we can use to develop ourselves: as channels, in terms of spirituality and in terms of intuition, to produce our own individual Reiki Evolution!

So how do we pursue our own kaizen of Reiki? How do we apply the concept of continuous and never-ending improvement to our practice of Reiki? Here are a few suggestions…

Root your practice of Reiki in daily energy work.

If you are serious about wanting to obtain the many benefits that are available to you through the Reiki system then you are going to have to work on yourself most days, ideally every day, and by doing so you will build up the beneficial effects of Reiki within you. It is not sufficient to use Reiki on yourself once a week, or to assume that if you treat other people occasionally then this is enough to give you the Reiki you need.

Your first priority should be yourself, and this means daily energy work. This does not need to be an onerous task, nor does it need to take a long time to carry out. Sometimes we decline to use Reiki on ourselves because we do not have the perfect opportunity, perhaps because we do not have, say, 30 minutes to work on ourselves. Yet even 10 minutes of energy work, when carried out consistently each day, would be far better and produce much better results than doing nothing for days, and then a great big blitz for a big chunk of time on a weekend to try and ‘catch up’. Spending even a small chunk of time working on ourselves each day builds up a momentum and stirs changes which build and build. Sporadic practice leads to some beneficial changes, but you are not maximising your Reiki potential.

So, how can we work on ourselves? Well, a good place to start would be to practise Hatsurei ho, a series of energy exercises taught in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the ‘Gakkai), an association set up after Usui’s death by the Imperial Officers who had trained with him for a while. ‘Hatsurei ho’ means something like ‘start up Reiki technique’ and consists of a series of energy meditations/ visualisations that focus on your Tanden (Dantien in Chinese) and which are designed to be carried out every day. The effects of Hatsurei ho are to:

    Clear and cleanse your energy system
    Help to move your energy system more into a state of balance
    Help to ground you
    Help to build up your personal energy reserves
    Allows you to grow spiritually
    Develop your ability as a channel for Reiki
    Help to develop your sensitivity to the flow of energy
    Help to develop your intuitive side

The exercises take perhaps 12-15 minutes to carry out each day, and can be fitted into the busiest of schedules if the will is there. We can all make this time for our Reiki practice.

But we should also focus the energy more specifically on ourselves, on our own self-healing, by carrying out a self-treatment each day. Whether you carry out the Western ‘hands-on’ method of treating yourself, or use the self-treatment meditation that Usui Sensei taught, you should focus the energy on yourself on a regular basis to help bring things into balance for you on all levels, and to help you to release things that no longer serve you: mental states, emotions, physical things. The energy will deal with many aspects of your body/mind, many deeply-embedded imbalances, if we give the energy the opportunity to do its work on us, digging deep and chipping away at the ‘baggage’ that we carry, over time.

We prefer to use Usui Sensei’s self-treatment meditation because it seems more intense and versatile, but all self-treatment approaches are valid. Usui’s Sensei’s system was all about spiritual development and self-healing, so Hatsurei Ho and self-treatment can lie at the very heart of your Reiki practice. You need to put yourself first, and the principle of kaizen means that by working on yourself consistently, great transformations are possible. You owe it to yourself to allow yourself to obtain the benefits that are available to you through Reiki.

Receive spiritual empowerments throughout your training and beyond.

Training with Usui was rather like martial arts training, where you were in ongoing contact with your teacher over an extended period of time. Part of your training involved receiving simple spiritual empowerments from Usui Sensei, repeatedly, at all levels. Each empowerment reinforced your connection to the source, cleared your channel for the energy, allowed you to develop spiritually and enhanced your intuitive potential. To echo this practice, Taggart sends out a distant Reiju empowerment every week, on a Monday, which can be ‘tuned in to’ by any Reiki person. You can find out about this, and what to do, by visiting this page of the Reiki Evolution web site:

Reiju Broadcast

On each occasion that you receive Reiju you are given what you need, and as your needs change from one occasion to another, this simple spiritual ‘blessing’ helps you to develop. A one-off attunement or empowerment does of course give you something permanent, and when you learn Reiki for the first time the attunements or empowerments that you receive provide you with the ability to use Reiki permanently, but it does not stop there: by receiving empowerments on a regular basis you are building momentum and allowing the energy to penetrate more deeply within you.

If we are committed to ongoing improvements within ourselves then we should make the time to receive an empowerment weekly. And again it is the regular commitment which is the key, the key to deepening your experience of the energy and its beneficial effects on you.

Work on developing your intuitive potential.

Mikao Usui’s original system did not focus very much on the treatment of others, and any instruction on treatments would not have involved slavishly following a set of ‘standard’ hand positions that you had to apply to everyone you treated. Usui’s method was simpler and more elegant. You allowed the energy to guide your hands to the right place to treat, different from one person to another, and different within the same person from one treatment to another. The way we have been taught to do this is through a ‘technique’ called ‘Reiji Ho’ (indication of the spirit technique’), a way of emptying your mind and merging with the energy, getting your head out of the way to allow intuition to bubble to the surface. The exciting thing about Reiji Ho is that it works for everyone, and with time – we come back to kaizen’s small incremental improvements – your hands will move more quickly, more consistently, more effortlessly, and you will start to attract more intuitive information. So every time we treat someone we should spend time cultivating our ‘Reiji’ state of mind, and gradually, gradually, we develop.

Learn to become the energies.

…that you are introduced to at Second Degree and Master levels. Usui’s system didn’t involve symbols as far as most of his students were concerned. Students were expected to carry out meditations over an extended period of time in order to learn to experience different energies and, at Second Degree, students were introduced to the energies of “earth ki” and “heavenly ki”, which represent two fundamental aspects of our being. By practising ‘becoming’ earth ki and heavenly ki again and again – a powerful self-healing practice – these energies became so familiar to the students that they could ‘connect’ to the energy direct without having to use a prop like a symbol. Usui provided some Shinto mantras for some of his students to use to invoke the energies, but it was possible to move beyond these mantras with time, too. In my article ‘A Simple Way with Symbols’ I describe a meditation that you can use to ‘become’ these energies.

But again we see that to obtain the greatest benefit, to enhance self-healing, to free up our practice and move beyond symbols, takes time and commitment. A quick meditation carried out a few times is not enough: Usui Sensei’s students spent 6-9 months meditating on just one energy, and this was done because the principle of kaizen – plugging away and developing by small amounts again and again – led to deep changes over time.

Live your life according to Usui’s guiding principles.

Usui’s simple principles to live by offer perhaps the best example of the principle of kaizen in our Reiki practice: Usui Sensei’s precepts are a work in progress. They are not something that you read through and think “OK, got that”: the precepts are simple to read and understand but they are something that you drip-feed into your daily life over time, more and more over time.

We may begin by thinking about the precepts when we first come across them on a First Degree course: we reflect on how they might impinge on our lives, our thoughts and emotions, our behaviour; we might imagine situations from that past that might have proceeded better had we exemplified the precepts, and we might imagine situations in the future and see ourselves behaving in a way that demonstrates that we are living the precepts.

But this initial surge of interest in the precepts is not sufficient to produce the beneficial changes that the precepts can produce in our lives.

To fully embrace Usui Sensei’s spiritual principles takes regular reflection and ongoing thought. On an ongoing basis we consider our thoughts and our behaviour, we reflect on the principles and what they mean to us. If we do this then over time we will find that living the precepts becomes easier, that our behaviour is modifying itself, that there are more permanent changes in the way that we react and behave and relate to other people. But this will only happen if we ‘chip away’ at our current behaviour patterns, using the precepts as our guiding light. There are no quick fixes: the precepts are not just for First Degree. The precepts are the essence of our Reiki practice.

Now, we do not need to be perfect, we do not need to beat ourselves up for not applying each and every principle on all occasions, but by dedicating ourselves, and by forgiving ourselves, and by trying to do a little better each day than we did the day before, we transform ourselves.

That is the key to our kaizen of Reiki: dedication and commitment, patience and forgiveness, and openness to the source. Long term.

Mindfulness and compassion

In this article I want to talk about Mindfulness and Compassion, which I believe are two essential components of Reiki practice. Whether we are treating others, working on ourselves, empowering others or living our lives with Reiki, we should grow to embody those two states, the essence of the Reiki precepts.

Mindfulness

According to Usui Sensei’s surviving students, Mikao Usui introduced his students to the practice of mindfulness at First Degree level, and emphasised this more at Second Degree level. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th Edition), to be mindful is to take heed or care, to be conscious. Mindfulness or being mindful is being aware of your present moment. You are not judging, reflecting or thinking. You are simply observing the moment in which you find yourself, fully aware. Moments are like a breath. Each breath is replaced by the next breath. You are there with no other purpose than being awake and aware of that moment.

So mindfulness is a state of living in the moment, of being relaxed, calm and fully engaged in what we are doing. Mindfulness is being fully aware of what is happening right now and giving ourselves completely to our task without distraction. By learning how to enjoy and be in the present moment we can find peace within ourselves.

Like precepts, mindfulness is largely associated with Buddhism and it is a meditative practice that is not reserved for special meditation sessions: it is a practice that you can embrace as part of your daily life and when carrying out routine and mundane tasks.

The best guide that I have found to the use of mindfulness as part of your daily life is the following book, written by Thich Nhat Hanh: “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and I recommend that all Reiki practitioners and teachers obtain a copy and practise being mindful during their daily activities.

I believe that Mikao Usui’s precepts are all about mindfulness, and that when we are exhorted by the precepts to “just for today” release anger and worry, we are being guided to exist as far as we can in a mindful state. Anger and worry are distractions, you see, and if we can exist in the moment by being mindful then we will not dwell on the past and beat ourselves up for things that did not go the way we wanted, and we will not dwell on the future, perhaps worrying about things that have not yet happened. We can learn to release our attachments to the past and the future and just “be” now, content and accepting in the moment, by learning to be mindful.

Compassion

The final precept, that of being “compassionate towards ourselves and others” is for me an exhortation to be gentle with ourselves, to be patient, to be light-hearted, to not take ourselves quite so seriously and above all to be forgiving – first of all of ourselves but also of others. By accepting and forgiving ourselves we start to release our anger and our worry, and move towards a state of contentment in the moment.

The original system was a spiritual path, a path to enlightenment, and the precepts were what Usui Sensei’s system was all about. These principles are a foundation for everything we do with Reiki: the states of mindfulness and compassion arise from following the precepts and from working with Reiki.

For example, how do we feel when we carry out a Reiki treatment? Treating someone with Reiki is a special, special gift. We feel a closeness, an intimacy, a merging with the recipient; we receive trust and we experience compassion. Ideally we should just be there in the moment, with the energy, with the recipient, with no expectations. We do not treat someone with the intention to resolve their health problem or eliminate their headache. We just merge with the energy and allow Reiki to do its work; we create a sacred space for healing to occur. If our mind wanders, as it may do, then we notice this and gently but firmly bring our attention back to the present and what we are doing. We become one with the energy as it flows through us, we become one with the recipient, and we experience that blissful contentment in the moment. When we treat we are mindful: we are an observer, not a participant.

Though some are taught that you can hold a conversation with someone as you treat, or watch television at the same time, this really will not lead to the best being given to the recipient. To be the most effective channel we can be, we need to be there with the energy, fully and gently engaged in our work, giving ourselves fully to the task without distraction.

Those same principles apply when working on ourselves, whether carrying out Hatsurei ho or self-treating. The state we should seek to achieve is that of being fully engaged in the endeavour, of being with the energy without distraction, merged, aware and simply existing in the moment, with a gentle feeling of forgiveness, love and compassion towards ourselves.

So both Mindfulness and Compassion are fundamental to our life with Reiki, fundamental to the Reiki precepts, to working on others and working on ourselves. Not surprisingly they are also an essential component of the transmission of Reiki to another person through carrying out Reiju empowerments. Reiju is the ‘connection ritual’ that Usui Sensei used, and taught to his surviving students. It is simple, elegant and powerful, free from the clutter and detail that surrounds most Western attunement styles. When we perform Reiju we have no expectations: we are there in the moment with the energy, following the prescribed movements. We are relaxed and fully engaged in what we are doing, aware of what is happening right now, and we give ourselves completely to our task without distraction. That is the essence of Reiju, the essence of treatments, the essence of the precepts, and the essence of our life with Reiki.

The Reiki Precepts

reiki precepts principles gokai

What are precepts?

Mikao Usui gave his students a series of ‘precepts’ to follow.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th Edition) defines a precept as (1) a command, a rule of conduct, and (2) a moral instruction, and they are an important part of Buddhist practice.

We know that Mikao Usui was a Tendai Buddhist, and so precepts would have been an important part of his spiritual life. Lay followers of Buddhism generally undertake to follow (at least one of) five precepts, which are given in the form of promises to oneself: “I will (try) to…”.

Here are the five Buddhist precepts:

To refrain from harming living creatures (killing).
To refrain from taking that which is not freely given (stealing).
To refrain from sexual misconduct.
To refrain from incorrect speech (lying, harsh language, slander, idle chit-chat).
To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness.

So precepts are a list of guidelines for living your life. They are not framed in terms of “thou shalt not…” as in the Judaeo-Christian tradition but rather are a set of ideals to work towards, recommendations about thought and behaviour that you should follow as much as you can.

Mikao Usui’s rules to live by

Everyone who has learned Reiki will have, or should have, seen the Reiki precepts – Mikao Usui’s ‘rules to live by’ – and they are available in a variety of different forms in different lineages. Perhaps we should start by reading the text of Usui Sensei’s version:

The secret of inviting happiness through many blessings
The spiritual medicine for all illness

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

Do gassho every morning and evening
Keep in your mind and recite

The founder, Usui Mikao

A Western set of Reiki precepts

There is actually some difference between the precepts that Mikao Usui was teaching and the precepts that are quoted commonly in the West. For example, some Western versions of the precepts include an extra item: “honour your parents, elders and teachers”.

This is not original and seems to have been added by Mrs Takata to make the “list of rules to live by” more acceptable to her (largely) Christian American audience.

Where did the Reiki precepts come from?

There has been some speculation about where Mikao Usui’s precepts come from.

It has been claimed that they originate in a book that was published in Usui’s time, and it has been claimed that they are based on the edicts of Mutsuhito, the Meiji Emperor.

Certainly it seems that many Tendai and Zen Buddhist teachers were passing on similar principles in Usui Sensei’s time.

But now we know that Usui’s precepts were his wording of an earlier set of precepts that have been traced back to the early 9th century, precepts that were used in a Tendai sect of Shugendo with which Usui Sensei was in contact. These precepts were a way of addressing aspects of the Buddhist eight-fold path in a simplified form, and they are the very ‘hub’ of the whole system.

The precepts were the baseline, the foundation of Usui Sensei’s teachings, and it was thought that individual could achieve as much spiritual development by following the precepts as could be achieved by carrying out all the energy exercises.

Negative affirmations?

Incidentally, you may find some commentators saying that negative affirmations are not a good idea: such things are said to be more effective when framed in positive terms.

What we have presented to us in the precepts is just a quirk of translation from Japanese to English: the precepts are actually a recommendation that we exist in the moment in a state where we are free from anger and worry, a ‘worry-free, anger-free’ state.

For me, Mikao Usui’s precepts represent both some of the beneficial effects that Reiki can produce in your life if you work with the energy regularly, and they represent a set of principles that we need to follow to enhance our journey of self-healing and self-development with Reiki.

Try my ‘releasing exercise’

My main purpose in writing this article is to introduce you to a way of working with the precepts in conjunction with the Reiki energy.

This is something that I have been experimenting with: a way of directly experiencing the effects of a precept in terms of energy flow.

I would like to suggest that you do the following, for a couple of minutes at a time, twice a day, for a month: Sit with your eyes closed and your hands resting in your lap, palms up. You are going to be releasing energy through your hands.

Stage One

Sit comfortably with your eyes closed and your hands resting in your lap, palms up. Take a few long deep breaths and feel yourself becoming peaceful and relaxed. Your mind empties. Say to yourself “I now release all my anger…”; say this three times to yourself if you like. Allow energy to be released through your palms, and be still until the flow of energy subsides. This may take a little while, particularly the first time you try this exercise.

Stage Two

Now say to yourself “I now release all my worry…”; say this three times to yourself if you like. Again allow a flurry of energy to leave your hands and be still until it subsides. Again this may take a little while, particularly the first time you try this exercise.

Alternatively, try carrying out the releasing exercise in time with your breath. Breathe in gently, say to yourself “I now release all my anger…” and then breathe out, allowing your anger to flood out of you on the out breath. Gently breathe in, and repeat.

Over to you

Why not try my releasing exercise for a few days na dsee what difference it makes to you.

And post a message below to let me know how you got on.

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Picture Credit: César

The 10 Rules of Reiki


In this article I thought I would set down ten things that you can do – ten principles to take account of – to benefit your practice of Reiki. This is not something that has come from Japan, or from early practitioners of Reiki: it is just something that I have put together myself. I hope that this article will be of interest to people at all Reiki levels.

(1) Reiki is all about you

Although Reiki is sometimes presented in the West as a sort of complementary therapy, a hands-on treatment technique, or a form of Japanese spiritual healing, that is not what Reiki is all about. If your practice of Reiki consists mainly of treating other people then you are missing the point because Reiki is all about you! Reiki is a personal practice for your self-healing and your spiritual and self-development. You are the priority here.

In Usui’s time the treatment of others was not focused upon or emphasised, in fact treatments were a bit of a distraction from the main thrust of his teachings, which Usui Sensei referred to as a “system to achieve personal perfection”. Right from the start, the system was about personal development, not working on others.

So to gain the greatest benefits for yourself through Reiki, you need to establish a decent routine of working on yourself in whatever way that you were taught. If you were taught Western-style then do your hands-on self-treatment regularly, if you know about Japanese-style Reiki then practise your Hatsurei ho; if you know about Usui Sensei’s original system then add his self-treatment meditation to your regular Hatsurei.

I know that some people seem to have the view that working on yourself is in some way ‘selfish’, but if you cannot look after yourself properly then how can you help other people? By working on yourself regularly you make yourself a better channel and more effective at what you do in terms of treatments, so there are plus points all round for those who make themselves their Reiki priority.

(2) Base your practice on the precepts

Usui Sensei established a simple spiritual system that was rooted in his precepts, his ‘rules to live by’. Rather than being an interesting set of instructions to read on a course and put to one side, Usui’s precepts are at the very heart of his system, and it was said that as much spiritual development could come through following the precepts as would come through doing any of the energy work. If we are consider ourselves as ‘practising Reiki’ then we will follow the precepts.

So we need to think deeply about the precepts and how they affect our lives. We need to consider each precept in turn and reflect on how that precept might impinge upon and guide our thoughts and behaviour and relationships and priorities. And we need to do this regularly, using the precepts as an ongoing source of guidance, the effects of which will make a real difference to us, and the people around us, over time.

The precepts are something that you we drip-feed into our lives, something that we refer to regularly and reflect on regularly, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the people with whom we come into contact.

(3) Practise mindfulness

Although not referred to on most Reiki courses, the practise of mindfulness was as important part of Usui Sensei’s system as were the precepts, and in fact mindfulness is hidden in the precepts! Mindfulness is a form of meditation that one can perform at any time, when carrying out ordinary, mundane activities like walking somewhere or washing dishes or sipping tea, and involves becoming consciously and fully aware of your thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally, existing in the moment.

When you are living ‘in the moment’, fully engaged in what you are doing, fully aware of the present moment, then you are existing in a state where there is no anger and there is no worry. By not dwelling on the past or speculating about the future, by embracing fully the present moment, you are living the precepts, and mindfulness brings with it humility, honesty, compassion and forgiveness.

So mindfulness is a way of experiencing Mikao Usui’s spiritual principles.

(4) Work on yourself daily

Reiki isn’t something that you can pick up once in a while, play around with for a bit, and then drop again… not if you are looking to receive the many benefits that are available from the system, anyway. If you are looking for consistent benefits then you need a consistent practice. The precepts say “just for today”, and that is a good starting point: just do something with Reiki today. You can manage that. It doesn’t have to be hours and hour’s worth. Just do something for 10 minutes: you have ten minutes. Do something for 20 minutes. And if you don’t have ten minutes, get up 10 minutes earlier: problem solved.

Don’t worry about what you will do tomorrow: just focus on today.

When tomorrow comes, do the same. Just do something with Reiki, even for ten minutes. Don’t worry about tomorrow: just do something today.

(5) Commitment is the key

There are spectacular benefits to be enjoyed through practising Reiki, and all you need to do is to work with the energy consistently, focus on the precepts and practise mindfulness. The benefits build up cumulatively, you see, and sporadic and occasional practice isn’t enough if you want the very best out of your Reiki. You will get out of the system what you are prepared to put into it, so Reiki deserves a little of your time each day. You need to plug away at a few simple things, a few simple exercises or routines, and make them a regular part of your day, as regular a part of your routine as brushing your teeth or your hair.

And once you have established a regular habit of working on yourself with Reiki then you will find that it is difficult to stop: you will find that you really miss your hatsurei session or your self-treatment if you miss a day. That is the sort of position you are looking to get yourself into and by committing yourself to working with Reiki each day, even if it is a little inconvenient, you will reach that point.

(6) Don’t try too hard

While we do need to commit ourselves and establish a decent routine of working on ourselves in order to obtain the many benefits that are available to us through Reiki, we should at the same time make sure that we do not try too hard, work for too long, or take our practice too seriously. Reiki is best enjoyed in a gentle, laid-back and light-hearted fashion rather than in a fists-clenched, furrowed-brow, tense, ‘ready for a lot of hard work’ sort of way. We do not force Reiki and we do not force a fierce practice on ourselves.

Reiki is rather like a flowing stream of water, and we are a rough rock sitting in that stream. The rock will become smooth, of course, but this will be achieved gently, through having the water flow consistently, and this will be done in its own time.

We might read about some of the experiences that other Reiki people might have when working on themselves, or receiving attunements/empowerments, or treating others (seeing colours, feeling particular things) and we may not notice all these things ourselves; we may notice very little. We may then think that if only we tried a bit harder then we would notice these things and then we would then be ‘doing it properly’.

But trying hard and trying to force things is the best way there is to put a great big block on your progress. You will progress fastest when you give up trying and just be. Stand aside (metaphorically), do the exercises, treat people, and don’t think or worry about what you do or do not experience. Be a bystander, be neutral and empty, have no expectations. That is the best approach, the approach that will lead you to progress at the right speed for you.

(7) You don’t need to be perfect

Along with the need to be relaxed and laid-back and light-hearted about your practice, you should also make sure that you are not beating yourself up for not being perfect! You do not have to be perfect in order to obtain benefits for yourself through Reiki, or to treat other people successfully. No-one else is perfect, so you don’t have to be either.

So perhaps your mind wanders when you do a treatment or work on yourself. So what? This happens to everybody else. Don’t worry about it (there is something in the precepts about worrying). It you make a big thing about it and try through ‘force of will’ to have an empty mind, you have just made things worse: now you have two lots of thoughts… the first thoughts and then all the new thoughts about getting rid of the first lot of thoughts! Don’t worry. Pay the thoughts no attention. Let them go. Bring your attention gently back to what you were doing. Feel the energy flowing through you; imagine yourself merging with the person on the treatment table. Over time your mind will settle, and you’ll spend more of your time in a nice empty meditative state, but thoughts may well intrude again, and some days will probably be better than others. That’s ok. You’re human. It will sort itself out with time.

(8) Don’t keep trying to puzzle out ‘why’

To get the best out of your Reiki I recommend that you don’t spend too much time trying to puzzle out why you are – or are not – experiencing a particular thing. Don’t keep trying to work out what a particular colour that you or the recipient saw during a treatment means, or ponder the significance of a colour that you saw when self-treating. Don’t keep wondering what a particular sensation in your hand means or why you felt a lot of energy flowing into a particular area of someone’s body, or why you didn’t feel any energy flowing into a particular place. It doesn’t matter.

Your head can really mess up your experience of Reiki if you keep on frantically thinking about, analysing and questioning things. Don’t think! Just be. Empty your mind, merge with the energy, if you are treating someone then merge with the recipient, and let it happen. Follow the flow of energy when you are treating, yes, and allow your hands to stay for longer in areas where more energy is coming through, but don’t start frantically trying to puzzle out what is going on: Reiki works on lots of levels and you won’t know what’s happening so you may as well give up thinking about it and let go: enjoy the process, enjoy your treatments and give up the mental effort! It makes it so much easier that way!

(9) Trust your intuition

Along with not questioning everything that you feel or don’t feel, you should also not keep on doubting the things that you are feeling and noticing. If you feel something, you feel it: you are not making it up. You cannot make yourself feel something.

So if you notice that energy is flowing into you more strongly in a particular area when you are self-treating, accept that and go with it, self-treating for longer there than in other positions. The same applies when treating someone else: if you feel that there is a ‘hot spot’ or ‘fizzy area’ then accept the sensations and treat for longer there. You are not making it up.

Neither are you making it up if you feel strangely drawn to a particular area of the body. You are intuitive and you can work intuitively straight away. All you need to do is to stop second-guessing and doubting yourself, be still, and simply accept what comes to you. It doesn’t need to make sense. Don’t try and puzzle it out: just accept it and treat in the way that feels appropriate.

(10) Ignore silly rules and restrictions

While we are making sure that we are not cluttering our practice with endless thoughts, questions and doubts, we should also thrown out as unnecessary the various rules, regulations and restrictions that we may have been taught. Reiki does not need to be controlled, blunted and restricted by man-made rules that have no basis. Reiki is safe and Reiki is simple, and simple approaches are usually the most effective.

So we do not have to slavishly follow a prescribed set of hand positions when treating ourselves or other people and we do not need to say a set form of words for our Reiki to work. We do not need to follow ritualised sets of hand and body movements in a particular sequence to be able to treat someone and we do not need to refrain from treating people with various medical conditions. Reiki is safe and Reiki is adaptable. It allows many different ways of working that are all valid. There is no ‘one’ way that Reiki has to be used, and we should ignore admonitions that we should ‘always’, or ‘never’, do a particular thing.

So, to get the most out of your Reiki, I recommend that you make a commitment to yourself to work on yourself each day as your top priority, but not beating yourself up if you miss the occasional day. Use Hatsurei ho and self-treat, focus on the precepts and drip-feed mindfulness into more and more of your daily activities. Don’t try too hard though: be light-hearted and forgiving towards yourself because you don’t have to be perfect. Try not to clutter your mind with lots of thoughts and doubts and questions: just be neutral, have no expectations, be empty and content. And make sure you keep it simple.

Forgiving

We all have the ability to forgive; however, many people hold grudges or find it very hard to forgive others and themselves. In some circumstances this is quite understandable, but, no matter what the circumstances, one must remember that if you haven’t forgiven someone it isn’t them that suffers but you.

 It is you that the anger tears away at and tries to pull apart. The person who has done wrong to you doesn’t have to live with the same feelings and hatred that you are holding, close to your chest and in your energy system.

The point of being unforgiving is valid in our lives so that we do not repeatedly become hurt by others, however, by forgiving someone, you don’t have to invite them back into your lives and have conversation and tea! The forgiveness I am talking about is letting go of the wrongs that have occurred to you and accepting what life has given you. Sometimes we can be so obsessed with what has been taken away that we dwell on what has been stolen from us instead of focusing on what has been given to us and the happiness that it has bought.

If we are consumed with unforgiving thoughts and actions it will be very hard to put ourselves in the mind set that is needed for Reiki. A calm, relaxed attitude, living in the now.

___________________________________________

Passage taken from ‘The Handbook of Equine Reiki’ by Sarah Berrisford, Epona Equine Reiki Centre.

www.epona-equine-reiki.co.uk

When we need to adapt…

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Sometimes our bodies simply say NO! Enough is enough.  If we don’t listen to what our higher self is trying to tell us then it will act and ensure we have to listen!  So we’ve two choices.  We can bemoan the fact that we are laid up incapable and worry and beat ourselves up for what we may see as our own inadequacies. We can gnash our teeth and wail about the things we are not getting done. We can wallow in self pity and become angry and frustrated but what would all these emotions  achieve exactly?  Would they make ourselves feel better, or simply produce a further dip in our spirits?

We could, on the other hand, surmise that whilst there may not be an apparent reason for our circumstances, nonetheless there is a reason and we can choose to go with the flow instead of fighting against it.

I’d like to share this little story with you, though not I hasten to add for a sympathy vote! Two days ago I was lamenting how little time I had to accomplish everything that needed doing.  My work is at its busiest (not that I’m complaining), the kids need running around here, there and everywhere, paperwork is piling up, household chores have had to be put on a back burner, my studies aren’t getting the attention I feel they need and my weekends are filled with ‘duties’ when surely my time I felt, could be better spent elsewhere. I did start to wonder who was actually in control here,  if it’s not me, then who is?

Yesterday, we travelled twenty miles in one direction for an appointment, turned around and travelled sixty miles in the opposite direction for another commitment  and inbetween all this had various stops to make to fit in other tasks. That morning my lower back started to niggle away at me but guess what? There’s simply no time for that nonsense, I thought, so I ignored it and carried on. Gradually the pain worsened, yet still I smiled and shrugged it off. I laughed at the way I was beginning to walk, cracked ‘old age’ jokes and ignored what my body was trying to tell me.  That was until 4.30am Sunday morning when my back went into spasm and seized up completely!   I couldn’t even writhe around in agony.  I wish I could end my tale by saying I channelled Reiki and lo and behold my back was cured.  The pain, however, was all encompassing and even though I made a squeak for help, I knew deep down there was a lesson here I needed to learn.  Would that lesson be learned if I instantaneously got the pain relief I needed?  Sadly, I think not.

So yesterday I was literally helpless but I still had a choice.  I could watch the dross on the television or I could connect with my higher self, pin back my ears and listen.  I could give my mind and body the attention it has been demanding.  I could work with the beautiful healing energies of Reiki, I could meditate on self healing, I could practise mindfulness and I could use the five Reiki Precepts as they should be used.  And so I did.  Whatever life throws at you, the precepts are a comforting guideline that we can adapt to our present circumstances.  For me,  in the here and now,  just for today…

I will not anger… I will accept that I need to rest and recuperate.

I will not worry….  about all the things that were planned for today, the places I needed to be, the things that simply had to be done because that will not alter my position.

I will be humble… I will accept that there are things I cannot do for myself today; that I have to rely on my family to do things for me.  So just for today I release the control freak as she cannot do anything better than anyone else 😉

Today I will be honest in my work. I will admit my current capabilities and not take on too much, or actually anything at all, I will accept I can do no other.

Today I will be compassionate to myself, as well as others. I will listen to my body and I will allow it to heal.   I will not beat myself up that I chose to ignore the warning signs, I have learned by my mistake!

In future I will not ignore my own needs and understand that if I do, I do so at my own peril.  Can you say the same?   It may be said that hindsight is a wonderful thing, I think a little foresight would serve us better ! 🙂

Reiki Blessings to you all,

Ann xx


yorkshire reiki courseAnn Halstead is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers offering Reiki training near the beautiful Summer Wine country in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.  Ann and her husband Jonathan also offer psychic development workshops and spiritual counselling.

Ann’s website can be found here:  www.holistic-wellbeing.co.uk

Just For Today, I Am Free From Worry…

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Some years ago, I attended a Reiki gathering at West Wittering, Sussex………… There I met many other Reiki practitioners and am still in touch with Diane  Thompson from Reiki Evolution all these years later……

One of the guest speakers was a Reiki Master from the Caribbean………… tall, slim, very energetic and with a smile that lit up the room……….

He spoke for an hour on one precept:  “Just for today I am free from worry”…..

“What is worry”?   He asked us to define this…… several hands were extended nervously as three or four people tried to do this………..he thanked them all graciously and then added his own considered definition:

“Worry”, he said, “is an unnecessary expenditure of energy over a situation we have no control over”…………… He repeated this slowly………..

“Take an example” he said…………. “If you have carefully done a pile of washing, put it all on the line outside to dry, and then you have gone off to work.   What happens if it starts to rain while you are 30 miles away?  Do you sit at your desk and worry about it?  Is there any point?  Does anything change?   So you see my friends, worrying about it does not bring your washing in!  However, if you have a kindly neighbour who you can telephone, you might be able to redeem the situation……”

This is what happens in our lives – a problem arises and usually, we worry about it and get nowhere.   Instead, if we can send Reiki to a family member in hospital instead of worrying about it,  that would be more productive, and beneficial.

So, stop and think whether you can do something about a situation (sending Reiki, for example) before expending your energy unnecessarily……….

Each time I read the Five Precepts, I am humbled by their profound simplicity and relevance in our lives today……..

How can anyone have worries when there is delicious ice cream to be had at Buckingham Palace!


hertfordshire reiki coursesHannah Shine is one of Taggart’s Reiki Evolution team of teachers, based in Essex/Hertfordshire.   She is also a multi therapist, practising from her home at Hatfield Heath.   Her Reiki courses are run from her beautiful summer house in her relaxing garden. Her therapies include homoeopathy, reflexology, Bowen technique, head massage, body massage, kinesiology, EFT and many others.  She is currently doing a cognitive hypnotherapy course at the Quest Institute.

 

 

 

 

Being Compassionate to Yourself…

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Whilst teaching Reiki First Degree, one of the subjects I love discussing is Mikao Usui’s Precepts.  For all intents and purposes there are five fairly simple rules that we Reiki folk attempt to live by but I have to confess, in the western world, it isn’t always easy to rise above our frustrations and remain calm or unconcerned about the challenging situations we may find ourselves in.  One precept that I find always leads to an interesting conversation is:

Just for today…

Be compassionate towards yourself and others.

Sounds such a simple precept doesn’t it?  Or does it?  The general consensus of opinion is that we seem to find it easy to show compassion towards others but not to ourselves! Why is that? Why do we find it so difficult?  Healers are compassionate people by nature; isn’t that what draws us to Reiki along with the desire to help others?  Yet even the most compassionate amongst us can still find it difficult to show the same kindness to themselves as they would to others.   Why is it when we are emotionally wounded, or when we’ve made a mistake (we are human after all!), we find it so difficult to give ourselves a pep talk or words of reassurance?  Would we treat our friends and loved ones with such negativity? Is it really far easier to punish ourselves than to treat ourselves with kindness and understanding?  Sadly, many people I speak with seem to agree that it is.

In Reiki we begin to learn and understand the power of intent. We know we can send healing energies across the globe, into infinity and beyond if we so wish.  Reiki will penetrate even the strongest of walls.  We are beginning to discover through quantum physics that thought is an incredibly powerful process which can produce astonishing results on the body and as such if we choose to continue to be negative towards ourselves on a frequent basis, then what effect are we having on our health?

To give you an example, the Japanese scientist Dr Emoto Masaru has conducted many experiments with water.  He subjected some samples of water from various sources to loving words and thoughts.  Other sample were subjected to negative thoughts and words of  hostility.  The water  from each of the samples was then frozen and the crystals they formed were photographed.  Amazingly, the water that was treated with love and kindness formed spectacularly beautiful ice crystals and the water that was treated with cruelty produced deformed and irregular crystals.   So here’s the thing and I’ll leave you with this thought:

Water constitutes approximately three quarters of the human body.  If water is so dramatically affected by positive and negative thoughts, just what exactly are we doing to the health of our bodies, minds and subsequently our souls if we struggle to treat ourselves with compassion? 

So….. just for today:  be compassionate towards yourself and others.

Much love to you all,

Ann x

yorkshire reiki courseAnn Halstead is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers offering Reiki training near the beautiful Summer Wine country in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.  Ann and her husband Jonathan also offer psychic development workshops and spiritual counselling.

Ann’s website can be found here:  www.holistic-wellbeing.co.uk

On anger

Anger is something that will come up a lot on any path of healing and self development. It is specifically referenced in the Reiki precepts: Just for today, Do not anger. Well, guess what? This week, I’ve been getting angry.

I’ve talked about this before and I’ll say it again – getting angry doesn’t make you a bad Reiki person, it doesn’t make you a bad person of any kind. It just makes you angry, that’s all. Anger is a natural human emotion, and pretending you don’t feel anger, ever, because you think it’s not a spiritual thing to do is just a lie like any other lie, and it won’t move you forward on your path. This is something I know. I also know this: when you are on a path of self development, over time your anger (the things you get angry about, the way you respond to anger and the situation that made you angry) will change. 10 years ago I was angry about all sorts of things, I got angry about stuff that just doesn’t even touch my awareness these days. And I could carry that anger with me, and nurse it for the entire day, no problem. And then I could head off and do something nice and self destructive about it. Such is the pattern of impotent rage, when you feel powerless to change the situation that makes you angry.

These days, I mostly feel powerful, so as well as many things that used to make me angry seeming unimportant, the things that do make me angry can be seen as often serving a purpose. But this purpose isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, I am just angry because anger is the appropriate response to that situation. In recent memory a dear friend of mine was attacked. Yeah, I got angry, how else was I supposed to feel? I love her, and some predator attacked her. This wasn’t really anger I could use at the time, but it was still an important experience. This, for me, was a lesson in allowing. Allowing myself to be angry, feeling that emotion, knowing it, allowing the experience to happen without judging it. At the time, a friend tried to calm me, to say that being angry was wrong, thinking negative thoughts was wrong, that this predator was here to teach lessons and I must maintain a state of calm. This advice was well meaning, but it was wrong and unhelpful. Why? Because it made my very valid feelings wrong somehow, it made me wrong to have an emotional response, and judged me for it. I should know better, I am a healer and healers don’t get angry like that. Yes, we do! We are all emotional creatures, and our emotions should be honoured. It’s ok to be angry when we learn about morally indefensible torturing of animals for ‘progress’ (read: profit of corporations), when a friend is deliberately harmed by some awful damaged person, when people that we wish we could trust betray us and treat us badly. (Those are the things that make me angry, you can insert your own list here.)  In these instances, we can allow ourselves to experience the emotion, without fear or judgement, and just be honest about that. We can come to know anger, so it doesn’t have such power over us, and as we do this we make the first steps towards what Alberto Villoldo talks about in his book, ‘Illumination: The Shaman’s Way of Healing’ – letting ourselves feel an emotion so we know it so well we can experience it in its purest form, without cause, and so become more peaceful and powerful in ourselves.

Other experiences of anger are more common. It is easy when you live in the world to fall into a state of anger over the little things, no matter how well developed you think you are. Sometimes things get under our skin even though, when you really think about it, those things are not important. And here we have an anger that can easily and quickly be harnessed and used – not for some great spiritual purpose, but to see where things are not as you want them and make those changes in your life. If you can’t achieve that change in full right now, at least make the decision, put things in motion. Do it *now* and don’t let that realisation escape you, it was a gift. Honour it.

This past week or so I have been angry. Not righteous anger that shows me what is wrong in the wider world. Not anger that lets me know myself and create peaceful energy in the world to ultimately play my part in raising the vibration and dreaming a better dream of the world into being. I’ve been aggravated, annoyed, petulant, stompy, ranty, wound up. As my boyfriend so innocently put it yesterday, ‘isn’t PMT only supposed to last a couple of days? You seem to have had it for quite a long time…’

Abraham-Hicks, in the law of attraction, talk about emotions as an inner navigation system. Be grateful that you feel crappy right now, because it is teaching you something, it is telling you that you have strayed from your path and giving you the opportunity to put that right. So, let’s review some of my anger in recent days.

I’m doing a part time temp job at the moment, in an office. I find the work to be entirely unimportant, and yesterday I copped an earful (via email, luckily for the person involved) about something that I had already offered explanations and apologies for, that wasn’t in any way my fault, couldn’t be changed due to my unfortunate lack of time machine, and really wasn’t important anyway – it was more about this person making themselves feel important. Ooh, it wound me up! Why? It’s not important, it doesn’t matter… and there it is. I detest doing work that doesn’t matter to me, that I don’t care about, that is all jumped up bureaucracy and a vehicle for people to pretend they are important when in fact they are contributing nothing to the betterment of this world. Message: Kay, why are you here? If you shift your focus you can go back to full time self employment by the end of May, you just need to trust. Just trust. Why, thank you Mr Anger for that timely message of support!

Here’s another one. I live in a block of flats, my next door neighbours are the kind you don’t want to live next door to. They shout and holler at each other constantly (the best rows are first thing in the morning, next to my bedroom, next to my head), then have very loud make up sex a couple of hours later (again, right next to me) and this is how they choose to maintain their relationship. They smoke so much dope and the hall reeks of it, they have loud TV and noisy friends over, they have kids who are noisy and frustrated by being in that house and not being allowed to go run outside… they’re just noisy. This is the way of things, when you live in a block of flats, you will hear other people, and sometimes your neighbours will be inconsiderate noisy people. But I was doing a little bit of drumming, in the middle of the day, for some healing for a friend, and they had the nerve to bang on my wall. What? After what I have to listen to? I throw no big parties, have no TV, no arguments, no shouting, no loud music, all you get is a bit of chanting and some drumming, never for long periods of time and never in antisocial hours, and YOU dare to bang on my wall? Are you kidding me?? Anger. Well, I’ve moved my flat around, so I don’t sleep in that room anymore, and this helps. But also, it makes me aware that my needs as a person have changed. I love my flat, and I love living in Crystal Palace, but I am not built for close quarters living any more. My time living in London is drawing to a close and now I know and accept that, I can begin to manifest the space that I need in order to be healthy and happy.

So why so many lovely lessons for me right now? Well, at the moment I am doing a project called ‘The Artist’s Way’. It’s a book by Julia Cameron and is essentially a 12 week programme designed to unblock your creativity and improve your life as a creative person. I understand that, at the beginning of week 3, I am unblocking a lot of old things that do not nurture me as a creative soul, and this is why the anger is bubbling up. Anyone on a healing and self development path, whichever form it takes, will go through this at some point. It is part of the healing process, part of the cleansing, part of the step towards fully realising your potential. Here’s what Julia Cameron has to say about anger in week 3:

When we feel anger, we are often very angry that we feel anger. Damn anger!! It tells us that we can’t get away with our old life any longer. It tells us that old life is dying. It tells us we are being reborn, and birthing hurts. The hurt makes us angry.
Anger is the firestorm that signals the death of our old life. Anger is the fuel that propels us into our new one. Anger is a tool, not a master. Anger is meant to be tapped into and drawn upon. Used properly, anger is use-full.
Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. But a very, very loyal friend. It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests.
Anger is not the action itself. It is action’s invitation.

I invite you to take a fresh perspective on anger. On a spiritual path it is so easy to judge it, to dismiss it, to repress it. Not today. I would venture a more in depth interpretation of that Reiki precept: Just for today, do not be enslaved by anger. If you feel it, embrace it, be grateful for it. And for God’s sake, please use it.


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Kay Gillard is one of the Reiki Evolution team of teachers, based in South East London. She is also a shamanic practitioner, and often combines her Reiki work with her shamanic practice, such as in the Reiki Drum course offered through Reiki Evolution. As well as teaching healing work Kay is an author, blogger and broadcaster with a radio show on Radio Lightworker.

You can follow Kay’s personal blog and learn about her work at www.kaygillard.com or visit www.starfirealchemy.co.uk for information on her shamanic work and events.

Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese

Hi,

One of my team of Reiki Teachers, Kay Gillard, recently put together this short video sequence to teach the Reiki precepts in Japanese. Kay said:

“I love to chant the Reiki precepts in Japanese when I am sitting in gassho – Usui would like us to do this every morning and evening as part of our practice… do gassho every morning and evening, keep in your mind and recite… Continue reading Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese

Podcast: Release anger and worry

In all Reiki lineages, the first three precepts are shown as, “Just for today, do not anger, do not worry”, and they are a really important part of Reiki practice. Learning to fully embody these simple Reiki principles has the potential to really transform people’s lives and it’s very much a work-in-progress where, by reminding ourselves of these Reiki principles regularly, we gradually mould our behaviour and experience the personal benefits that come through engaging fully with the moment, experiencing humility, compassion and forgiveness.
Continue reading Podcast: Release anger and worry