by Frans Stiene
Within the system of Reiki we find the core meditation joshin kokyu ho. If we translate joshin kokyu ho, we see that it means pure mind with each breath.
The practice goes like this:
1. Sit and gassho.
2. Place your hands in your lap, palms facing upwards.
3. With each in breath, feel a bright energy coming in through the nose and bring it down to the hara/tanden, just below your navel. When you do this, link the visual with the breath and the mind.
4. Feel the bright energy, the breath and the mind expanding through your body.
5. On the out breath, expand the bright energy, the breath and the mind out of the body, through your skin, out into infinity.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 until finished.
Mikao Usui was practicing on Mt. Kurama, which belonged to the Tendai Buddhist sect of Mt Hiei at this time of Usui’s life.
And when we look closely at joshin kokyu ho, we see that it resembles specific Tendai buddhist meditation practices.
“Now enter Vipaśyanā.
Kansoku 観息: Seeing the breath
When the mind is calm and abiding in quiescence, begin to visualise the breath entering and exiting the body. See the breath as bright white light, at first entering through the nose and into the body, filling every cell. Then see the breath fill and enter through every cell of your body, and in turn, this white light being part of everything, thus realising the emptiness equality of everything.
Kansoku還息: Returning the breath
The mind is now attuned with the breath and all surroundings to the point where the duality of ‘breath’ and ‘surroundings’, of ‘self’ and ‘other’ now dissolve away, returning the mind to ‘true reality’. Thus, the mind and the breath are not two, the mind ebbs and flows like the breath. In understanding this, we realise that this ebbing and flowing has no beginning and no end. It is, and yet it isn’t, both at the same time. This is the truth of the middle (Chū 中) to which we are “returning”.” A Basic Guide to Tendai Shikan by Seishin Clark
When the duality of breath, surroundings, self, and others falls away, we begin to slowly understand joshin kokyu ho – pure mind. And as we learn this practice in Shoden Reiki I, then we also need to see hands on healing from this nondual perspective. Which means no practitioner, nothing to channel, and no client: just Being Reiki.
“Once the body, breath, and mind are calm, subtle and at peace, begin Vipaśyanā in the following three steps:
1. Seeing the Breath. Visualise the breath as light entering your body. Contemplate its emptiness. There is non-duality of breath and body.
2. Returning the Breath. The breath nourishes the body, despite its emptiness. This is the relativity of breath.
2. Refining the Breath. Emptiness and relativity are not separate, this is the truth of the Middle.” – Tendai Buddhist manual
Of course before we can really have this direct experience of emptiness, vipasyana – direct insight, we have to calm our mind. To calm our mind we focus on the hara/tanden within joshin kokyu ho, anchoring our mind in the body. This is traditionally called samatha – concentration meditation.
In the beginning we see joshin kokyu ho as a specific practice, which we might practice daily for 30 minutes or so. But the more we practice the more we see that there is no beginning and end of joshin kokyu ho. Why? Because we still breathe – kokyu after we have “finished” the meditation. Then we realize that with each breath we take, our essence is pure and has always been pure and will always be pure, no matter what happens. This state of course is Being Reiki in all we do today.
