Lunchtime Chat With Maria and Frans

Bronwen LoganArticles, English Leave a Comment

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Maria: All right! Welcome to our lunchtime chat.

Frans: Okay!

Maria: You’re on! It’s been a very interesting week in the United States so I was really looking forward to this time to practice and be Reiki. I know it’s different all around the world but I wondered if you could just share about Reiki and how we can continue to help ourselves – or whatever comes to your mind.

Frans: Whatever comes to mind? So normally I would be in Cincinnati today and Zeynep and Sundar have been organising it for the last 10 years. It was the first year Maria was going to organise this particular class and event. And of course she thought “Now it’s way too much Frans coming here. I’m going to create a distraction so he can’t come”. So it’s great to do this online! Normally I’m in Jeff’s studio – it is a wonderful yoga studio. One of the things we normally do when I come to Cincinnati is Maria and I have a day where we have a day off and we hang out together. We go to a cafe or restaurant, or we go walking and spend time in Cincinnati and surroundings, or go to the movies. It’s an interesting element because often we think that the system of Reiki is hands on healing on a table, receiving a treatment, maybe visualising, meditating or practicing. But for me the juice of it is of course also in our daily life and that is what we have to bring it into. Not just on the meditation pillow, not just on the table. It’s always great if we can just sit there relaxed in our daily meditation, but if we take it off the meditation pillow and we still feel angry, worried and fearful in our daily life then we have to investigate our personal practice. This is what I always enjoy when I hang out with Maria because Maria and I we have this same kind of tendency to talk to random strangers, or do random acts of craziness. So therefore you can see how people respond, even with anger or worry – or actually engaging.

I remember this time we were in a park near the riverfront in Cincinnati and there were some guys working in the gardens there and of course there was a rake. I thought, well that will make a great picture for saying we are practicing Reiki (raking, you know). And the guy, he was so wonderful that we could borrow his rake and take silly pictures! Engaging in that way, with openness, with laughter and kindness, for me is really the flip side of the precepts. If we look at ‘do not anger’, then what is the opposite? What is the flip side? Being kind, being open. ‘Do not worry’ – what is the flip side of that? Being free, laughing and gentleness. All of those kind of things – being grateful, you know, being grateful for an opportunity. Maybe the guy had said no – that would have been okay too. Do you know what I mean? Being grateful for the opportunities that arise in your daily life to actually engage with your community, engage with your practice and engage with the precepts. So for me this is such an important element and then we be true to our way and our being. We don’t all have to pick up the rake and take silly pictures – that is just my way! And that is our summary – I think (I’m not sure), but having hung out with Maria for a long time, she does these random acts of craziness too, but we all have our own way. It can be in a more gentle way. It could be just in the in the shopping mall or when you go for your groceries, it could be seeing your neighbour and just saying hello or engaging. I think this is so important now, particularly in certain places where we still have lockdown or where there’s a lot of tension due to other reasons. I think it’s really good to see that we come from that base of kindness. Just a general base of kindness where we can be kind to each other without that anger, without that worry and without that fear.

Where does this worry and fear come from? This is also what is hidden within the precepts – it is past and future. We worry about something that might happen, but as we already see this year, man, we had planned being in Cincinnati! Doing all these things – Maria was going to be the new host and voila, it is not going to go ahead. So we can plan all sorts of things, I planned so much this year and all I’m doing is sitting in my home. But you know what I mean, I was going to be in the United States in different countries. I was meant to be in Paris later on this month and in the south of France and England. So I had planned all of this and suddenly it doesn’t go ahead! This is the same thing – we can plan so many things in our life, whatever it is, but it might never eventuate. So therefore worry is focusing on the future. We worry about something that might happen or might not happen. But as we can see from this year, that is really unstable. We are an unstable ground. Of course we need to plan ahead, we all know that we need to make some kind of plan. But if we hold on too tight to that then it’d be very difficult to be grateful – and then of course anger. Anger about something that you did yesterday, two minutes ago, six months ago, 10 years ago or 50 years ago – and we’re still angry with these kind of elements. But that is the past, the past is gone. If we only keep focusing on the past then the present moment (of course the present moment we can’t even find, but the present moment we can say is what we’re doing right now), then that can’t blossom because our energy is really focused on the past and the future.

This is for me where we can engage with our local community and we do all these things through zoom now which is wonderful, but I think sometimes when we do this we actually forget our neighbour. Do you know what I mean? We say “Oh let’s reach out globally because now this is possible”. I can be on at the same time as some people in South America, Australia, Alaska, Scandinavia or wherever. Then I forget about my neighbour who is actually just sitting down the road or in the hallway feeling lonely or finding it scary to go to the mall because maybe she already has heart problems. Therefore we have to engage with our local community as well. Of course it’s always a two-way street, they also need to engage. Like I have a 75 year old neighbour she just texts me and goes “Coffee Frans?” and you know, if I’m here and if I have time I go for coffee. Then she might say Frans do some chanting for me or some hands on healing. Or sometimes she want to play with some crystals or the other day she had some cards on the table and she picked a card. So you know these kinds of things I think are so important in our daily life and this is why lunch with Maria (on my end), or you might say lunch with Frans or lunch with everybody – it is so great because we can engage with each other. What do you think Maria?

Maria: Yeah I think you’re right! I think especially now it’s easy to forget how it is to be with people. It’s easy to forget to just be friendly, I mean it’s hard even sometimes to smile you know, because you have a mask on and they can’t tell, so I’m spending a lot of time practicing with my eyebrows. But I think if I practice a lot I have this happiness, and then I can share that with other people in my neighbourhood. Because when I go for a walk, I just check on my neighbours, they come out and say hi and we have a little chat – people who don’t have a lot of people to talk to or to see in person. I think that you’re right Frans, to just engage with who we can.

Frans: Yeah and also I’ve always done this, for me this is easier than for some other people, because I’ve always done that. When I go into a shop I try to engage with the shopkeeper (or whoever) because I just enjoy it. Even on the street just saying good morning to someone, or good afternoon/good evening, in a restaurant or wherever you are – just trying to engage even if it’s just “Hello, how are you”. These kind of things are really engaging, it’s very enriching at the moment because sometimes when we stay inside (we might not realise it due to that staying inside), we’re drawing within ourselves and feeling more fearful and worried. Maybe in the beginning we don’t realise that we actually need these interactions. Of course there are some people who don’t need it and are okay in a cabin in the forest for 20 years, but that’s the rare person. We are hurt animals and sometimes we don’t realise it until there is a moment where you go “Geez I haven’t talked to anyone for two weeks”, “I haven’t hugged anybody for three weeks” or “I haven’t engaged with someone for a while” and this is what I’m saying. You can pick up the telephone, it’s in fact that easy, we don’t have to engage through zoom. I call my mum once or twice a day at the moment and she asked my why I was calling so much. Just to chat, to check in on her. This is also the first period that, even though I’ve been living here for three years now back in Holland, I’m home all the time. If I’m home I go once every second day – I either have a coffee at my mum’s place or have dinner there, and she goes “Why are you coming so often?” and I go, “Well you also need to engage more because friends of my mum they say ‘oh don’t come because maybe we catch something.’” Do you know what I mean? 

And so this is for me really where the system of Reiki can be very, very helpful. We don’t have to do hands on healing. I remember when I lived in India for a year in Darjeeling. I did volunteer treatments and there was one particular lady – I used to call her grandgranny or grandma and she had this tiny little ponytail at the back, she was so cute and she was 80. She didn’t want a treatment and she didn’t want Reiki, but she loved it when I came along and had coffee or tea and we chatted about all sorts of things. We just had fun – we laughed about all sorts of strange, weird and wonderful things. She would call me – actually she would not call me on the phone because we didn’t have a phone number, but she would send someone over and knock on the door “Granny is asking if you can come again”. I hadn’t been there for two or three days so then I would spend an hour or sometimes 10 minutes (it depended on the day), sometimes two hours. And even that I didn’t do hands on healing, the engaging was healing. Do you know what I’m saying? So I think now we have the opportunity to see that the system of Reiki is so much more than hands on healing. This is the moment where we can realise it’s not just about touching – we don’t have to have our gloves and mask on to do treatments, to do Reiki. We can do Reiki in our being-ness and this is so important for me at the moment, that we really

take that with us into into every moment of our daily life. An energetic exchange can happen in so many ways and Maria said “Oh I’m practicing with my eyebrows”, but this is it! If you see someone wearing a mask and you see their eyes go then of course you will have a reaction and there will be an exchange taking place. We have to walk around people but we can walk with an open heart and an open mind of love, compassion, kindness and openness. Through doing this we learn to actually be in the present moment, because if I want to do that I have to let go of my worry. That doesn’t mean I have to physically touch people – I can do it from two metres, separate, very safely, you can talk and do whatever you want! You can do a funny dance, you can wave and we don’t have to physically sit on each other, but we can do this safely without worry about something like “Oh what would the other person think”, or without anger “That person is coming closer to me”. This is also an important element.

A while ago I was standing on the street and this woman came really close to me and wanted to engage, she was in her 80s and I could have been angry – or not. I could have also just said, “Okay let’s take a little step backwards”, or I could just engage. We all have these points we have to look at – of course we need to stay safe, but don’t do anything you don’t like. We can also do this in a nice way and say “I’m happy to engage with youbut let’s keep some space”. I was in Italy and we were on the beach and these four people came over (I wasn’t there when it happened), but there was these other two ladies on the beach, (I was with the other one). So we came back and they were all laughing. The one guy kept coming closer and his wife said “Oh no social distance”, but they were laughing so hard with other strangers. This was just so wonderful – in the end we were all laughing and I had no idea what they were saying because it was in Italian but it was just so wonderful to see this kind of engagement, and that for me is also Reiki. This for me is healing.

I’m drinking a cup of tea. Maria tell me something, because when you have lunch with someone you have to engage right!

Maria: I know! Well done Frans, I totally agree. If anybody has any questions or comments you can just unmute yourself, raise your hand or put it in the chat box if you have something to share.

Frans: We got one question by email, didn’t we Maria!

Maria: We did! It was about hands on healing – oh you have it.

Frans: So Elaine – yes this is true. Even through zoom it’s engaging. Even though we’re only two-dimensional (again we’re all different), but for me I really enjoy that multi dimensional engagement. If you look now at the images of people, we can only see it up till there. I don’t know what else is going on —

Maria: You know I’m wearing sweatpants so I’m glad you can only see this much.

Frans: I’m wearing my nice new pants! You can’t see them!

Maria: Yes, very nice!

Frans: But yes! When you meet people in person it’s multi-sensory, multi-dimensional. That for me is the beauty. Of course we can then engage on a much deeper level, but we have to do something now so we do it through zoom. 

So yes, the question we got by email was “Where do you start a hands on healing session?” This lady said “Mr Carter taught first to start it at the head”, then got taught by someone else who said to start at the stomach. For me it is really individual. Sometimes I start at the head, sometimes I start at the feet, sometimes I start at the back, sometimes the heart and sometimes I start wherever! Because we’re all so different. We all have different complaints and we come to the table with different issues. So therefore it’s really important to realise that we could have a standard treatment session (which is wonderful, don’t get me wrong), and I think that’s a great framework for Reiki One, but then when we start to practice more we have to see that person on a very individual level. If I always keep doing the exact same hand positions then I think it becomes like a ‘conveyor belt’ of hands on healing. For example if I go to a good massage therapist, they will tailor the massage for me, a good acupuncturist will do the same. I go to this massage therapist and sometimes she forgets I start by laying on my back – while most of the times she tells her clients to lay on their face, but it’s not my favourite position. So she goes “Oh yeah! You want to start like this”. Then she asked “Do you want me to do your back or do you prefer to do the whole massage session like this?” – so we’re all different!

And again when we engage with people the more clarity we have within ourselves. The more of this great bright light of what is pointed out in Reiki Three within the Reiki Three symbol and mantra, the more clarity we have. So in Japan that kanji of the Reiki Three symbol and mantra (particularly the sun and the moon), represents clarity. Everything becomes clearer, but of course we need to tap into our own luminosity first of all and then we become clear. My Taoist teacher was like that – she would sit opposite me and she would just go “Okay I touch you there,” or “I do this” and I would have these unbelievable experiences. She would just chat like this and go “Okay yeah close your eyes”, and boom like that – she knew exactly what to do at the right moment in time. That was a skill because her clarity, her own inner luminosity, was so clear. So the more we practice the more we know where to start, where to end and what to do for ourselves. 

Maria: Beautiful. 

Frans: This is a good question Elaine – I’m just looking at your question and you had a client who was upset that you felt the need to start on the abdomen and that she wanted to have the same pattern all the time. I think this is a really good one actually. So we can say to this woman “Yes I do that”, and each time you come I do the same pattern. I have some clients and I go “Okay we do exactly the same”, because I know they want that. Yet I would still talk to my client and say “You also have to learn how to let go of that”. So again, if I take that example, even for myself for a massage. Sometimes when I go to another person I don’t lay on my back – I might lay on my tummy. We need to be flexible and we need to learn how to be receptive in our healing. So often within the system of Reiki we learn how to do healing, but we learn very little on how to receive. Again this was so beautiful with my Taoist teacher. We would meet up and every session was different. There were no two the same. Sometimes she had me standing and she would do something, sometimes lying on the floor, sometimes on a massage table – on my side, on my back. Sometimes we’ll do a visualisation or some chanting, sometimes she would do healing or sometimes we would just talk – it was always different and yet always I left really empowered. This is why it also takes two to tango.

Maria: Yeah it’s a two-way street, being open means not just giving but receiving.

Frans: Yes that’s it! I think we froze for a second but —

Maria: That’s okay. I heard you though.

Frans: Yeah this for me is really interesting. If I would do a treatment or if I go to Maria for a treatment, then I need to trust Maria. Not just 50 percent or 100 percent – but actually 150 percent, and this of course is difficult. I have friends who studied with the old yogis in India, Tibet and Nepal and those yogis (like some teachers in Japan), they still do certain tests with the students to see if the student trusts the teacher and some of them can be quite scary. In Japan when you go and climb these mountains they do certain exercises. For example you hang over a cliff and there are no specific cords to hold you back and you have to have trust in the teacher that they will guide you through the process. If there’s no trust you become nervous and then it’s very difficult to to really get to the deeper aspects of healing.

Let me have a look! Cheryl – ah yeah it’s great that you visit your mother. I mean this is good – we need that personal contact, of course some more than others, but what I find very bizarre in our modern world is that we all know that babies need touch right? If we don’t touch a baby then the baby will have “malnutritions” and be underdeveloped etc. Then somewhere along the line we think that that stops – maybe when we’re 12 or 18 and we don’t need that touch anymore because we suddenly have become teenagers or “grown up”. But we’re still growing, we’re still making new neural pathways and we still need healing. So therefore we still need touch and I find it very interesting that somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten that human touch, that human interaction. 

Another question. “How can we remain grounded.” This is a harder one, Dale, especially when we lose a family member. This is why we need to make sure that in the good times we practice daily so that when things go sideways, we have prepared ourselves. Practicing in good times is much easier, but also on the other hand is much harder because it’s a good time. We feel great, we feel happy and content and we go “Practice? Why should I practice? Life is going good! I’m going to go for dinner with Maria or we can hang out in town and pull crazy Borat-like pranks on the local community!” But actually those are the times we need to practice. So first make sure that if times are going well you have your daily practice so that when shit hits the fan you feel ready. It sounds strange, but we all know shit will hit the fan. Why? Because everybody’s parents will die, everybody’s brothers and sisters will die and I will die. Death is eminent, this is something we can’t hide from. So therefore we know that it’s of utmost importance that we actually practice. It’s an important element, so that when times are hard – practice more. Years ago I spoke to a Taoist teacher who was working in Beijing in a Qigong healing hospital and he said that a healthy person needs to practice at least two and a half hours a day (according to him), and a person who is not healthy should practice five to six hours a day. Which is a lot! Most people don’t do this because we train ourselves that we take a little pill and then magically the headache or pain is gone. And of course, Dale, don’t forget to reach out. Come back to your local community. If I didn’t feel well I could go to the neighbours, even though they might not be my best friends I can still talk to them. I can still maybe feel safe to cry and to say “Shit this happened to me can you please support me. Can you help me? Can I have a snuggle, can you come here and make me a cup of tea or can we watch a movie together?” Reaching out to the local community around you is so important – then go for a massage or some acupuncture. Of course that’s not always necessary in these moments (or possible at the moment) but it helps! And then really making sure that we stay grounded and that’s the breathing in the hara or joshin kokyu ho.

I agree 150 percent with you, Roman. We need to stop calling it social distancing and call it physical distancing. Because we don’t need social distancing. This is the danger. I said this very early on myself. It needs to be physical distancing, because when we think about social distancing we have to hide in a room and close everything off, but you know we need to keep engaging socially. This is important for our health, not just now during Covid-19, but this is a great time to practice.

Okay I’ll pour a bit more tea! Anybody else or Maria? Tell me something!

Maria: I’ll tell you something! I think you’re right I think practicing more, and in times of difficulties, has really helped me to be very grounded and helped me to be present to what is coming up in my life. Also to be able to see people are with me, whether they’re physically distanced or not, I can just be with them a little more in that moment. I think that’s important to just be there and and notice how they are. I feel like I’m, in a way, a little more sensitive to how people are feeling especially at the moment because we don’t have input from a lot of people. That and I’m also still giving in-person Reiki treatments with masks and all of that stuff. I have to be really comfortable and not afraid to be able to do that – to be able to be in that open space to help others. But I am getting a lot of calls from people who are in this place of desperation, and I think that’s the point for me to say “Am I grounded? Yeah. Am I not afraid? Am I letting go of my anger so that I can still be there for them?”

Frans: Of course! This is where it first comes from. What we really have to think about is – what happens when you worry the whole day? At the end of the day you feel depleted. What happens if you’re angry the whole day? At the end of the day you feel depleted. That means you’ve wasted your energy so there is no energy for healing to take place. Therefore your immune system is going downhill. We put so much worry in the media that it is very tricky to navigate because we’re instilling in people that it’s okay to worry and therefore their immune system goes down. We also need to learn how to empower people in the media. 

So yes I agree with you Jess! I think the third wave of the pandemic is a mental one and you see it now already. I was reading an article where they were saying that suicide is up 30 percent. In my local neighbourhood – I live close to the main airport in holland, about 15 minutes away, and they’re talking about 60,000 people losing their jobs in this local area. Man, that is half of the population of this town, you know, what is going to happen? So of course people losing their jobs etcetera, it’s going to be tricky. 

Oh! Intention – MJ! I’m reading this wonderful book at the moment and it phrased it in a wonderful way and I can’t remember the exact wording – I’ll look it up for you later MJ and I’ll send it to you. But they were talking about meditation practice without any expectation. Of course we need to have the intention to do the meditation practice. So for me the best way to see it is like a bow and arrow – maybe you’ve heard me saying that if I want to hit that painting over there I need to aim at that painting. So how is my aim? That depends on the person. In the system of Reiki we can have the aim of healing my knee, or the aim of feeling relaxed and kind, or is my aim embodying the precepts. Very different aims, right? We have to investigate – what is your aim? Now this is something I don’t say a lot, but I’ve phrased this in the past (what I might achieve). It sounds crazy, but this is why I keep it, most of the time, to myself – I want to achieve supreme enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. So that is my aim, but then I have to let go. So if I aim at that painting then hopefully I hit that painting. If I aim at healing my knee then it might be very difficult to embody the precepts because I’m not aiming at that. If I want an arrow to hit its mark then I need to let go of it, so the intention and then let go. It’s really important to let go and have no expectations. Here we come back to the precepts – be grateful, be grateful for whatever happens during your practice. We become so attached to “Oh this feels so good. This is great man, this is a great meditation”, and then tomorrow we do it and it’s not there and then we say “Oh it’s not working, it’s not happening. I can’t do it. I’m not good enough.” When the expectations of that intention are not met, then we get angry and worried. So this is really important to let that go. Aim the arrow, let go and relax. Then as they say in Japan – just practice. I will send you, if I find it, that phrase! I was just reading it this morning MJ, in this wonderful book I bought the other day.

Okay Maria!

Maria: No it’s from Janice.

Frans: Yeah remote sessions, or distance sessions, are just so wonderful. The best way for me to do those, well it takes two to tango. Of course we can just tap into that interconnectedness and healing will take place, but again we need to have the intention, the right aim and then let go etc. But ultimately if you can set up a time with someone, with your mum or with a friend, it could be 10 minutes, could be half an hour. I always say to the person – set your intent that you want to heal yourself and that you receive from that whatever you need at that moment in time. So normally we don’t tell people to set an intent to heal themselves, we say we are going to do it, but actually they are the ones who need to first of all. Their intent needs to be that “I want to heal myself”. If I go for a massage it’s to heal myself. I go for acupuncture to heal myself. Even if we go to a doctor, the doctor might reset your bone or do open heart surgery – you still need to heal yourself. If that doesn’t happen then the bone won’t repair, the heart will not heal. So therefore your first intention is that “I want to receive. I want to heal myself. I will receive whatever I need”, and then really feel that deep interconnectedness. So if I did this for Maria then I go “I am Maria, Maria is me” – oh man that is pretty scary!

Maria: Thanks Frans!

Frans: But do you know what I’m saying?

Let me have a look, what else do we have. Let go of the how! I think so too, Jess. We are so in our heads in our practice. When I lived in India and I would go to do treatments on people – no questions were asked. So for example, for a year, at least once a week, a Jeep would come to our house from the tea plantations, and they had villages on these tea plantations where people lived. The Jeep would come pick us up with a translator and a driver. The translator had gotten a list of people who were sick, who needed healing, and the driver would drive us there. We go there and the Jeep would park in front of the house, knock knock at the door “These people are here to help with healing”, and the people who needed the healing – no questions asked. It was brilliant! This was my first experience of doing treatments on people. They didn’t know anything about Reiki but they knew healing – healing is good no matter what. “This person comes for me, they come with love and kindness, I don’t really care!” Okay, voila! And then after a year of living in Darjeeling, I go to Australia. I thought “I’m going to do hands on healing on the local community in a nursing home or a hospital.” Oh man! Terrible! “How does it work? Do you believe in God? Is it going to hurt me? Where are you going to place your hands? What do you do?” Oh sorry ma’am your time is finished we had allocated half an hour, you’ve just wasted it with questions – next! Same thing! It was just so unbelievable! We are so in our head instead of just hopping on the table and saying “Yes do what you have to do” and being completely wide open. So this is a really important element.

Alan, “I often hear about using Reiki on objects or relationships, what is your take on this?” Well for me, well I could do hands on healing on this object, it’s so wonderful, and hands on healing on the relationship or distance healing. But of course my relation to this object comes from my own mind, and my relationship comes from me. I’ve said it already – my. So first of all if we keep just doing it externally on the object, or on a relationship, we forget to heal. We first have to heal the “I”, then the relationship, then my relation to the object will change because the object itself is highly debatable. One can come in and see a painting on the wall and get afraid (maybe it’s a skull or whatever). Another person goes “Wow what an amazing painting, I want that above my bed.” Who is right? So the relationship depends completely on me, or on my viewpoint and my attachments. So when I look outside I look at a park. As soon as I look at a tree I see my previous experiences with the tree. I see it as those sticky notes (you have those yellow sticky notes, remember those), I’ve stuck them on the tree. When I lived in Australia I chopped a lot of wood because we had fireplaces and I loved it, so now when I see a tree I stick the idea “Hmm good firewood”, or I might go, “That’s a nice piece to cut, not too hard, that would be easy.” That’s my perception, right. But someone who’s never cut wood would not think about that. They might say “I hate trees because a tree killed my dad, the tree fell over and my dad died.” So therefore the relationship to external objects comes from me. I can send healing to the tree, but first of all I need to first heal myself. What do I need to heal myself of? I need to take away these sticky – M3 notes! Isn’t that what you used to call them? M3 sticky notes! Those yellow ones – I have to remove these and then I truly see the object, then I truly see the tree and I truly see the relationship.

Laurie, that’s true. The precepts are great during hands on healing in order to let go and just to be.

“What is the highest teaching you have not yet given?” I love it! Just be crazy! *screams like a madman* That’s it don’t tell anybody though!

Maria: Good one

Frans: This is a great question, I like it, I laugh about it and it’s funny. I read a lot of Buddhist books, not in this apartment but when I lived in Australia, because I took a lot of Buddhist stuff back from Darjeeling. Where I lived was a very big Buddhist community. So in the house a lot of people would come and say “Oh are you Buddhist?” No I’m not a Buddhist but in the Buddhist community you often have these different levels – the first Bhumi, the second Bhumi etcetera, and then these Yogi’s and Yogini’s – they say that if we’re stuck at being first Bhumi or second Bhumi (the lowest teaching or the highest teaching), we’re still seeing it from a very dualistic viewpoint. So therefore the highest teaching is actually what helps you at this moment in time. Tomorrow that might be different, but if a particular teaching helps you right now, then right now that’s the highest teaching. That will not stay the same tomorrow or next week, and it will not mean it will be the same for another person. I think it should be personalised. For example the Dalai Llama could give the highest teachings he knows, but if we’re not ready then nothing will happen. We also need to be ready for those kind of teachings. We might see a living Buddha, and it might look so normal that we don’t even really know and they might just be sweeping the street while they’re actually a living Buddha. We might just say “Hey, old dude, get out of the way”, because we’re not ready, we don’t see it. There are wonderful stories like that in the past, particularly in the Himalayas.

Diana! If I could do hands on healing on someone and their broken bones snap into place – man then I’m really, really good! But we all know it doesn’t happen that fast. Again that is do not worry! Of course with burns we have to be careful. I was burnt when I was very young, I think I was about 16. I went to the local pool and they had (I don’t know what it’s called), anyway they had these wooden things you could lay against in the sun and they had just painted them, but on this particular one the paint wasn’t dry and I didn’t know they had painted them. So that ended up on my back and it was a kind of transparent lacquer so I didn’t realise. So at the end of the day I go “Oh man, the top part of my back hurts”, and there were these super huge blisters. So I was pretty badly burnt – not from fire, but the sun. But yeah, of course you’re not going to physically put your hands on someone, but just hover above and sometimes when you do that you might ask the person. You might feel a lot of heat in your hands as the performer, but the person laying down might actually feel a lot of cold because again healing isn’t always heat but can also be cold.

Indeed! I mean for me permission is another thing. When I walk down the street I don’t ask to smile, “Excuse me do you mind if I smile at you?” We don’t do that! Ultimately every single thought will have an effect on everything else. We’re all interconnected, you know, we are the universe so whatever I’m thinking will have an effect, whatever I do has an effect. As soon as I make a cup of tea there is an effect – a) I need to get the water to my apartment and b) the tea bag needs to come from somewhere. So there’s all these effects and this is important to realise. Therefore when I do distance healing I’m not saying “I need to heal you. You need to receive this.” Then I think I should ask permission. All I do is just let the light shine. So within the system of Reiki there’s a lot of pointing towards the sun and the moon and the concept of rain. The sun and the moon are just shining, they’re not saying “Maria gets one ray because she’s been naughty, that other person doesn’t get anything because they’ve been super naughty and they look a bit pale so they get 20 rays.” No the sun is just shining. So my intention is that the person takes from it whatever they need. This takes me out of the equation and if they want nothing, then they want nothing, right.

Yeah broken bones is again the same thing. I would just do it and see what happens. If you fall over here and I see a bone sticking out, we’re going to call the ambulance. It might take 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes, (I don’t know how quick the ambulance comes in your neighbourhood), so if you can snap a bone into place in those five, ten or thirty minutes. Man! Then you are a really good healer. I don’t think this is gonna happen. Again this is where we come back to the precepts. Do not worry and be compassionate. All the precepts are interlinked with each other. ‘Be compassionate’ means don’t force healing onto someone. Even if I work on a broken knee my intent is not “I need to set the bone, I need to set the bone.” This is not my intent. My intent is that the person takes whatever they need. As simple as that. Therefore I set myself free.  Then that client says “I take whatever I need”, and they set themselves free. When we are both free the energy flows like crazy but it’s getting the ‘I’ out of the way.

Yes! The upcoming 21 day event! We’ve got two more minutes for lunch!

Maria: Yes please share what’s coming up!

Frans: These noodles were really good! If you go to Cincinnati they have some really great lunch places! One of the favourite ones we often go to is in a place called Over The Rhine and they do these Vietnamese noodles which you can wrap into this clear noodle thing. Oh man, like a Vietnamese clear noodle thingy spring roll. They are super delicious!

So yeah – for the the 21 day upcoming event we’ve got quite a lot of chanting. This is just focussing for 21 days on joshin kokyu ho. It’s separated into three sets of seven days. So the first seven days we focus on more of the physical aspect of joshin kokyu ho, then the second one it becomes less physical and a little bit more visual and the third one is more simple. That way it helps you to really focus on the different layers of joshin kokyu ho. Because if we only do joshin kokyu ho with our mind (which is what we normally do), it is not always beneficial. Sometimes we need to do more physical joshin kokyu ho. Particularly in these circumstances when the external wind is tough, you know. I see it as a tent. If it’s a beautiful day and it’s quiet we don’t need these stakes to pin the tent down. We can just pop up the tent and it will stay peacefully. As soon as there’s a little bit of wind we need to put maybe four stakes in it. If there’s even more wind we need to put maybe eight stakes in it. So at the moment there is a lot of wind in the world so sometimes we need to use more stakes. What does that mean? We need to add more visual and physical elements to joshin kokyu ho so that we can stay grounded and centred. 

Maria: Thank you so much it’s beautiful – stay grounded!

Frans: Thank you for organising! Lunch was good! My belly is full – Bellissimo! 

Maria: I should have brought my sandwich – just kidding! Thanks everyone for gathering together and for this beautiful chat, thank you Frans! Again he has his 21 day meditation practice coming up pretty soon. I’ve benefited greatly from all of those practices and it’s helped me to stay really grounded and present, able to continue to be compassionate, so I’m really grateful.

Frans: We have a great retreat coming up! I was meant to teach in Cincinnati, which of course is not going to go ahead, but there will be an online one! We start tomorrow – Cincinnati time 9 am. It will go for four days so that will be great! You can still join Maria in person. How we’ve done it is that Maria is there in person at the retreat centre (the venue) and I’ll be there like this – live, bothering everybody! So some people will join in via zoom online – they want to stay in their homes all safe, and a few people are joining Maria live (and live dancing). You can always email me at [email protected] or look at my website and I will speak to you all soon! Thank you so much for joining me for ‘lunch with Frans and Maria’ and I’ll talk to you later!

Maria: Thank you, thank you! Bye! Absolutely, thank you everyone!

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