Mikao Usui is the founder of the system of Reiki and thus if we practice the system of Reiki, we need to take him as an example.
Many people take their own teacher as an example, or take Chujiro Hayashi or Mrs Takata as an example on how to practice. But as we all know, each person who came after Mikao Usui had his or her own interpretation of his teachings. Thus to really understand Mikao Usui’s teachings we have to go back to the founder, to the roots so to speak.
Therefore we can say that your current teacher is there to help you, to guide you to take Mikao Usui as an example in order to further your deeper understanding of his teachings.
As we all know, there are no current written materials available from Mikao Usui that point to how to implement his teachings. But we have something else: we have his own direct experience of “being Reiki”. As we have read, that experience took place on Mt Kurama where he meditated for 21 days.
These 21 day practices are still being practiced in the Japanese esoteric traditions. Before you can do the 21 day practice you must first have done the 7 day and 3 day practice. And before you can do those you have to have been practicing for a long time already. Thus we can see from Mikao Usui’s Mt Kurama experience that he was a dedicated practitioner.
Let’s focus back to his 21 day practice. Mikao Usui wasn’t just sitting there for 21 days and doing hands-on healing on himself, as he only realized he could do that after his enlightened experience! No, he was doing some really serious spiritual practices, like chanting and meditation practices so that he could drop all his layers and realize that he is Reiki, that he is the universe.
Thus for us to realize that we are Reiki, that we are the universe, we have to take Mikao Usui as an example. So how can we do this? Mikao Usui left us many tools we can use in our practice:
Chant the precepts for a prolonged amount of time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes.
Contemplate the precepts for a prolonged time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes.
Practice the meditation practices like joshin kokyu ho for a prolonged period of time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes.
Chant the mantras taught within Okuden Reiki II and Shinpiden Reiki III for a prolonged period of time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes.
Meditate on the symbols taught within Okuden Reiki II and Shinpiden Reiki III for a prolonged period of time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes. Internalize the symbols.
If you know the Reiju, practice this as a self empowerment practice on a daily basis.
And perform hands-on healing on yourself, without falling asleep in a state of meditation, for a prolonged period of time, start with 5 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes.
As you can see, I put hands-on healing at the end of the list because it is said that Mikao Usui only started to do hands-on healing after his 21 day meditation practice. Thus hands-on healing was a by product of him realizing that he was Reiki, through prolonged meditation practices and chanting!
Now we have turned it all around and we start with hands-on healing practice! And then maybe, yes maybe, we start to do some meditation practice.
But to practice Usui Reiki Ryoho is to dig deep, to go within through these prolonged meditation practices so that we can rediscover that we are Reiki and from that state of mind we can start to perform hands-on healing on ourselves and others. This kind of hands-on healing is very different of course, because it comes from a direct experience that we are the universe.
So if we are saying that we are practicing Mikao Usui’s teachings, we have to take him as an example and not others. Others can be a starting point – we have to start somewhere. But when we move deeper into the teachings, we have to take Mikao Usui himself as an example. And the more we do that, the more we practice what he himself practiced, the more we will move toward having the same direct experience – that we are the universe and the universe is us.
“Do not follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought” – Kukai
Based in Holland, Frans Stiene teaches in North America, Europe, UK, Australia and Asia.
Frans is also the author of Reiki Insights, it is the continuation of his previous book The Inner Heart of Reiki, taking your personal practice and understanding of the system of Reiki yet another step deeper.