Stoking the Fire of Practicing the System of Reiki

To stoke the fire of practice, we need to heat it up. The reason why we need to heat up the fire is so that we can burn away all our misconceptions, ignorance, anger, worries, fears, attachments, judgements, you name it.

This stoking is done through constant and right practice. And no, “constant” is not a typing error for “consistent”.

Yes, indeed consistent practice is important. But constant practice means that practice is done not just when we sit on a meditation pillow but throughout the whole day and night. We need to keep that fire burning.

Often we just practice for 10 minutes and then we forget about it. But what if we maintain mindful of our practice throughout our day and even in the night? If we start to do that, we create a constant fire, so we constantly are burning away all the stuff which obscures our True Self.

Imagine a pot of water. If you want to boil the water, you want a strong and healthy flame; if the flame is weak and goes on and off all the time, the water never will boil. This is the same within the system of Reiki, or any practice for that matter. The main purpose of the system of Reiki is to remember our True Self. But if our practice goes on and off and is not a healthy practice, then we never will remember our True Self.

Why is remembering our True self so important? At the moment the world is not in a healthy state. But if we start to remember our True Self, which emanates compassion and wisdom, our whole world will start to change. Thus it is of utmost importance that we stoke the fires of practice before it is too late and our children inherent a earth which is polluted, destroyed, and with no compassion and love.

Right practice is bringing the practice inwards, into our own being, because it is only there that we will remember our True Self. If we keep practicing externally and never want to deal with our own issues, we will not remember our True Self.

Right practice is therefore meditating on the precepts, meditating on the symbols and mantras, practicing the mediation practices like Joshin Kokyu Ho and Hatsurei-Ho, practicing hands-on healing on ourselves as meditation, and being in a meditative state of mind while we perform and “receive” reiju/initiation/attunement.

But as stated before, if we only do this occasionally, then the water will not boil.

The quickest way to stoke the fire and boil the water is to go to the roots of all our issues and that is our mind. Mikao Usui pointed this out as well within the precepts. 

Do not anger
Do not worry
Be grateful
Practice diligently
Show compassion to yourself and others

The precepts are about the root of all our issues; they are the spiritual medicine, and they are only about the mind. Thus if we really want to stoke the fire or embrace the system of Reiki with right practice, we have to go straight to the mind. We cannot always chant a mantra day and night, we cannot always practice Hatsurei Ho day and night, we cannot always do hands-on healing day and night. But we can place our mind in the right state of mind day and night. This state of mind is the mind of no anger, no worry, being grateful and compassionate. And if we practice this diligently, day and night, day in and day out, we create a healthy fire which will bring the water to boil in no time. This in turn means that we start to remember our True Self in no time, and this will have a tremendous ripple effect throughout the world.

As a result of training, my mental state remains comparatively calm. Through training we can change. We can improve ourselves. 
– Dalai Lama 

Frans Stiene

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.

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