Practise mindfulness

Although mindfulness is something that doesn’t tend to turn up very often on most Reiki courses, it was actually a very important part of the system that Mikao was teaching, dovetailing with the precepts and the energy work to create a powerful method for self-healing and personal development.

And as you will have heard earlier, the practice of mindfulness is hidden in the Reiki precepts, hidden inside the phrase “just for today…” which for me is the most important part of the precepts: the phrase from which the other precepts flow.

So what is mindfulness?

Well mindfulness is a form of meditation that you can do anytime, anywhere.

You don’t need to be sitting alone in a quiet room, setting aside time each day for your mindfulness practice: mindfulness is a meditation that can become part of your daily routines and activities. You can be mindful when you’re doing the washing up, you can be mindful when you’re eating your dinner, you can be mindful when you’re typing on a keyboard or sipping cup of tea.

It is something that you can incorporate into your daily life as your daily life unfolds before you and it’s not something that you need to set aside special time for, which makes it such a versatile way of meditating.

When you are mindful, you are consciously and fully aware of your thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally, just existing in the moment, and in such a state you are free from thoughts of the past or the future, and free from the anger and the worry than can flow from such a dwelling on the past and the future.

By fully engaging with each moment, you are actually living your life, because all you have is this moment, this current awareness of the present: your life is a whole stream of present moments, and if you spend your time in the past and the future you are missing out on your life, because your life is here, now, not in the past, not in the future!

Find out more about mindfulness

The two books that I recommend about Mindfulness are both written by a Buddhist monk called Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced: “Tick Nut Hunn”). The two books are “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and “Peace is every step: the path of mindfulness in everyday life”.

I’d just like to read a small quote from Thich Nhat Hanh about mindfulness and washing dishes. Here goes:

“To my mind, the idea that doing dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you aren’t doing them. Once you are standing in front of the sink with your sleeves rolled up and your hands in the warm water, it is really quite pleasant. I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands. I know that if I hurry in order to eat dessert sooner, the time of washing dishes will be unpleasant and not worth living. That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle. The dishes themselves and that fact that I am here washing them are miracles!”

So mindfulness is all about being fully aware of yourself, other people and your surroundings in the moment, focusing your awareness on each moment as it unfolds. And by doing that, you can savour each experience as it appears.

Getting started with Reiki mindfulness

Now obviously, when you start to practise mindfulness you are only going to gain little glimpses of that lovely ‘in the moment’ state, before your mind drags itself off to think about the past and the future, taking you away from your actual existence, and you need to be forgiving and compassionate.

This is a new way of doing things and it will take a while before your mind starts to understand how to do mindfulness consistently. Mindfulness is a work-in-progress and you’ll find that over time those little glimpses of being ‘in the moment’ occur more frequently, you may find that occasionally you bliss out on some lovely mindful moments, and these moments, these glimpses, will build over time and become just a normal way of existing for you.

If your mind wanders, just gently bring your attention back to hat you were doing, what you were experiencing.

There’s no harm done.

Mindfulness lives in your Reiki practice already

You might be surprised to find that mindfulness is an integral part of your practice of Reiki.

When you’re treating someone and you’re in that lovely, merged state, blessed out on the energy, you’re being mindful, just there in the moment, with the energy and the recipient, no expectations: that’s mindfulness.

When you’re sending distant healing, you’ve set your intent, maybe you’ve visualised something and you’re just there, letting it happen, no thoughts of the past or future, just there with the energy: that’s mindfulness.

So your mindfulness practice in your daily life – when doing the washing up, when eating a sandwich – will benefit your experience of mindfulness when using Reiki, and your experience of mindfulness when treating someone, or self-treating, or sending distant healing, will help you to experience mindfulness more easily during your everyday life.

You are training your mind, over time, to approach things in a different way, and your mind will learn what to do.

About the 10 Rules

The Ten Rules of Reiki were put together by Taggart King as a helpful guide to getting the most out of your Reiki.

If you like what you’ve read, Taggart has a wealth of Reiki resources for you to use to get the very best out of your Reiki.

Read comprehensive manuals, listen to audio CDs or MP3s and follow special guided meditations.

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Author: Taggart King
Picture Credit: U.S. Army