Reiki
Reiki: aura (online Kanji dictionary)
Reiki: an atmosphere/feeling of mystery (Nelson’s Japanese/English Dictionary)
Líng-qì (Chinese):
Líng (raindrops falling through a cloud + three mouths/speak/opening/entrance + shamans working): spiritual, numinous, transcendent, efficacious. Schipper (Taoist Body) calls it spiritual power, something that lies within each person and becomes manifest as one becomes perfected through personal spiritual work. Jarrett (Nourishing Destiny) describes it as that power of the healer to awaken the highest in others, just by her mere presence even before any medicine is begun. Described as the yīn spirit of the heart.
Qì (curling clouds + grains of rice): air, gas, manner, airs, spirit, morale, anger.
Reiki in traditional circles is described as that which awakens the ancestral self, something that is already within us from conception. Usui Reiki Ryoho: Usui system for connecting with your ancestral self.
Usui Shiki Ryoho: Usui healing system (not the preferred nomenclature).
Teáte
Hand-healing system is simply te-ate: hand-healing
Teate: allowance, compensation, treatment, medical care (online Japanese dictionary, see 77 book)
Shu / Te, 57: hand (book dictionary, not online)
Shǒu (Chinese) (pictograph of a hand): hand
Tō / A(teru) / A(taru), 77: hit, be on target (book dictionary)
Shiki
Shiki: equation, formula, expression, ceremony, style (online dictionary)
Shiki, 525: ceremony, rite; style, form; method; formula (book dictionary)
Ryoho
Ryouhou: remedy, medical treatment (online dictionary, not in book)
Ryō, 1322: heal, cure, treat medically + Hō, 123: law (book dictionary)
Liáo (Chinese) (sacrifices to cure illness): treat, cure + Fǎ (as water goes): law, method
Usui-Do
Dō, 149: street, way, path (book dictionary)
&stop + face + river/hair): way, path, means, doctrine, road
Jumon
Jumon: spell, charm, incantation (online dictionary, not in book)
Ju: not in book or online or zhongwen
= mouth + [kei, 406 (elder brother); xīong in Chinese (person who does the talking)]
Bun / Mon, 111: literature, text, sentence (book dictionary)
Wén (Chinese) (pictograph of interlocking lines): script, writing, language, culture
Many traditional reiki instructors teach that all four reiki symbols derive from Quán Zhēn Daoism.
Jumon are the spoken words that go with each symbol to describe and direct their meaning.
Quán Zhēn (Complete Realization) Daoism focuses on inner alchemy and harmonizing Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. (Inner alchemy is the use of meditation, body movements, and breathing practices to achieve personal transformation.) See the Timeline for more information on the development of the various Daoist sects, and the Nán (Southern) Sòng Dynasty (1126-1279 A.D.) for the origins of Quán Zhēn Daoism.
Usui's Affirmations:
1) For today only, do not anger, do not worry
2) Do your work with appreciation
3) Be kind to all people
Qì is said to travel in subcutaneous fascia; those with thicker fascia can transfer more qì; you can build it up but only to a level appropriate for your body.
Energy centers: láu-gōng (labor). Places of work.
Láu (burning strength): labor, exert, deed, service. Gōng (carpenter’s square): work.
@ 3rd eye, creases of knees and elbows, soles of feet, ½” below each malleolus, palms, and other areas.
Láu-gōng in order of strength = palms (PC meridian) > heart > knees.
Treatment (3min per position; half-hour total treatment time)
7 hand positions: part of a standard healing pattern in use long before Usui’s time.
Meridians addressed: sides (gall bladder), back (bladder), front (stomach).
Meridians are pathways of lower resistance in the fascia.
Intent: allow energy to be offered to the patient; don’t force or expect; maintain wuwei.
Recipient positioned with their head to the north is most restful position (laying face-up).
Practitioner to start with palms on own legs; mindfulness; center self between positions.
1) Eyes [BL, ST, GB]
2) temples (thumbs into upper fold of ears) [GB, TH]
3) occiput (roll head to get hands under) [GB]
4) thumb on notch at midpoint of clavicle, tuck fingers under [ST, GB]
5) floating ribs (skipped with seated patient) [LR exit point]
6) shoulder blades, medial region (hands under patient) [SI, GB]
7) spinal area at adrenals/kidneys (L hand under spine, R hand on L shoulder joint)
[BL23, kidney shu point]
(for seated patient, L hand behind the chair at adrenal level, R hand spends 30sec each at back of crown, occipital ridge, and C7). Finish by gently squeezing the recipient's arms and legs.
History
Mikao Usui (8/15/1865-3/9/1926), not a doctor, title was sensei (teacher).
Not much known about his life. 2nd son presented to monastery as a child, therefore well educated in languages, philosophy, and religion.
Known that he spent much time researching in various Kyoto libraries. Never left Japan.
Usui's 21-day meditation at Mt. Kurama would have involved some time in the monastery, some time meditating, and some time adjusting the diet. There were no "bubbles of light" containing the reiki symbols, and stories of a large meal after his fast followed by the curing of an inn-keeper's dental abscess only appear in the Western reiki teachings.
In the early 1900s he developed Usui-Do, a meditative spiritual system based on ancient Daoist practices but uniquely Japanese in style, for achieving harmony of self and enlightenment. Basis of the system is the set of affirmations, and concept of wuwei. “Unity of self through harmony and balance.”
Spent seven years in the poor district of Kyoto, gave treatments, kept case notes.
1922 opened his school in Tokyo, where he trained many students, 16 to teacher level, before his death of an aneurism in 1926.
1923 earthquake, journalistic evidence of Usui’s system helping people.
1923 trained his principal student, Eguchi, who in 1925 introduced and taught the palm healing system, Usui-Teate, under Usui's supervision.
1925 trained 3 naval officers, including Chujiro Hayashi who turned the school into a clinic and developed a complex set of hand positions for treating patients in a clinic setting; employed a method requiring several practitioners work at once on a patient; specialized in chronic illness and patient would spend 8hr in treatment, 8hr in meditation, 8hr sleeping. Developed step-wise training system also. This was Usui Reiki Ryoho.
Hayashi trained 12 teachers, including Tatsumi (c.1900-1996) whose notes are the basis for Traditional Japanese Reiki’s close reconstruction of Usui’s original system. Also taught Hawayo Takata, made teacher/master in 1938. (She taught that Usui was involved in Christian studies and went to the University of Chicago Divinity School, to make reiki more acceptable to the West after WWII.)
