What Will I Do When I’ve Learned Reiki?

So you might be wondering what Reiki people actually do once they have been on a Reiki training course… what do they learn and what do they have to do to gain the benefits that are available through the Reiki system? Well, Reiki practice at First Degree, certainly in the way that we teach it, involves learning and trying to follow a simple set of guiding principles called the “Reiki Precepts” or Reiki principles, and it involves carrying out some regular meditations and visualisations that are used to focus and direct the Reiki energy through your body. Reiki people ‘work on themselves’ using energy.

It is the cumulative effect of carrying out these two main practices that is responsible for producing the many beneficial changes that Reiki brings into people’s lives.

The Reiki Precepts

The Reiki precepts are a simple list of guiding principles that Reiki people try to follow, a set of suggestions made by Reiki’s founder – Mikao Usui – about how to live your life. They are deceptively powerful, far-reaching in their effects, and they are not allied to any religion or belief system, so they would be acceptable to all people no matter what their spiritual background. We also encourage our students to investigate and learn to practice a simple meditative technique called “Mindfulness”, which is something that you can learn to carry out whilst doing ordinary and mundane tasks. Mindfulness is an important part of the original system that Usui Sensei taught, though it is not generally referred to in most – Western-style – Reiki courses.

Personal energy work

What do we mean when we say that Reiki people ‘work on themselves’ using energy? Well on a First Degree course with Reiki Evolution we would teach you a 10-15 minute sequence of meditations and visualisations from Japan, called “Hatsu rei ho”, which can be used 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
  • 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 energy exercises focus on an area of your body called the “Tanden” (“Dantien” or “Tan T’ien” in Chinese) which is an energy centre located two fingerbreadths (3 – 5cm) below your tummy button and 1/3rd of the way into your body.

To help you with your practice, when you take First Degree with us we give you a Reiki audio CD which contains a meditation track that talks you through your Hatsu rei ho.

Ideally Hatsu rei ho would be carried out every day, and certainly if you want to obtain the greatest benefit from your Reiki then you will need to work on yourself regularly, but daily energy work is desirable – not essential. Reiki will still benefit you even if you don’t manage to work on yourself every day. You get out of Reiki what you are prepared to commit to it, though, so regular energy work will lead to many benefits in your life.

As well as Hatsu rei ho, we also teach you how to carry out a variety of simple ‘self-treatment’ methods, where you use visualisation and intent to focus the Reiki energy onto different parts of your body. Most Reiki courses teach you how to carry out a ‘hands-on’ self-treatment technique where you rest your hands on your body in a sequence of hand-positions. While we do explain this “Western-style” method, we recommend a meditative approach to self-treatments, since this is a method that Usui Sensei taught and the one that we recommend; again we assist our students in getting to grips with this practice by providing a guided meditation on the “Reiki Meditations” audio CD that is given to all of our First Degree students.

So making Reiki part of your life at First Degree is not a greatly onerous task. You learn to follow a set of simple guiding principles, you learn how to carry out a simple meditation when carrying out mundane tasks, and you carry out a couple of energy exercises/meditations on a regular basis. The effects of these practices build cumulatively and over time they can make a real difference to you.