Transcript of an interview with Brightta Moser-Clark and Frans Stiene about their books The Reiki Way and the Way of Reiki
Brighitta: How are you?
Frans: Hello, Brighitta! I am good! Good to see you!
Brighitta: Good to see you! Do you want to introduce yourself, say a little bit about what you do in the International House of Reiki?
Frans: Yeah of course! So my name is Frans Stiene, I’m from the International House of Reiki which started in 1999. I’m getting old! I was having a coffee today and talking to the lady that served my coffee who is actually the owner of the cafe. We’re talking and I was like, how old are you actually? She says, “I’m 31” and oh man I feel old. She said, “you’re not that old!” and I say, “I think I’ll be 55 this year”, she’s surprised. “What are you 55!?”
Brighitta: Oh that’s not old though, is it.
Frans: No it’s not old! But anyway, I’ve been teaching the system of Reiki since 1999 full time around the world, written quite a few books, co-written some books and my new book will hopefully come out this year. We are here to talk about both our books!
Brighitta: I would love that! ‘The Reiki Way’ and ‘The Way of Reiki’. It’s very exciting!
Frans: So I’ve got Brighitta’s book here, it’s absolutely beautiful – ‘The Reiki Way’. Actually the full title is ‘The Reiki Way: Unlock Your Healing, Amplify Your Light and Attune to Who You Truly Are’. I love it! And so we realised my book is ‘The Way of Reiki: The Inner Teachings of Mikao Usui’, so a similar title. What I like about your book Brighitta, and what I like about you, is your design work! You created this beautiful card and the presentation of your website, or the room behind you, like this card, it’s all very beautifully designed. I find it very artistic, it looks fresh. Do you know what I mean?
Brighitta: Yeah that’s so nice, thank you so much! I think because I have an art background.
Frans: This is what I wanted to ask!
Brighitta: Yeah so I studied fine art photography and that was how I wanted to live until my son was born, and I realised that actually it’s not my life’s work, there was something else. Reiki was calling me. But I think all my creative energy now just gets channeled towards the presentation of how I teach Reiki, so thank you so much, that’s so kind!
Frans: I used to take photos, I still do but it’s just a hobby, I don’t even know how the thing works! But I have a camera, it’s actually lying on the table because the sunsets are absolutely beautiful here. I did a course over my late twenties about making sculptures and stuff like that. But yes, I really feel that I’ve channeled my creative energy in writing, in creating a wonderful website, the manuals etc. For me it’s a reflection of our state of mind.
Brighitta: Yeah, so true! We’re in that same space, the intuitive creative space. It’s where Reiki is, so we’re in flow and in that space. Have you seen the film ‘Soul’?
Frans: No not yet, it’s on my list!
Brighitta: It’s so good! They have these people who go into the “zone” when they’re creating and you can see them from the spirit world. You can see when people on Earth are in this this zone, where they’re creating, playing sports or they’re just in the moment. And I thought that’s really interesting, it’s like the Reiki space, you know. Where it’s just flowing and the energy’s moving, we’re not blocking it because the mind’s not in the way.
Frans: This is it! My new book is really focussed on that – not being distracted by past, present and future. Normally we’re really distracted by the past and then we we get angry about things, or we hold on to things, and if we don’t get it then we get angry, worried or fearful. Then we end up projecting on to the future a lot “I hope next week this, this and this happens” and then ultimately we’re not being grateful for the present moment because we’re projecting. We’re analysing constantly. I think it’s also a very habitual pattern these days, constantly analysing whatever we do. Then that creative moment is kind of lost. That creative moment, for me, is where it’s completely free of past, present and future. That is really what my book is about! But what I like about your book is… maybe you can talk about your book first! Tell me a little bit about what you find unique about your book. Because it’s a very different Reiki book.
Brighitta: I think each teacher teaches so differently, you know. It’s good as a Reiki teacher to really think about that. I try and guide practitioners (Reiki Two students specifically), to really think about why you want to work with Reiki and what is it that you want to bring to your clients. That’s maybe different or unique to you. I had been writing a completely different book for years, I’ve been writing this book for seven years! This is the third title that this book has had, and it was only a month after lockdown, I’d been doing Shinpiden with you, I was in lockdown (as we all were), and I was brushing my teeth and it just sort of dropped in. All my best ideas, they just drop in, you know. It was very clear, oh this is a Reiki book. It was opening to me, it was a really expansive idea. So all this time while trying to make this book it seemed like it didn’t want to be there, then when it dropped in that it was a Reiki book, it was a relief. So ultimately it’s the energy of our soul that I’m trying to invite, to come through, as the reader is reading the book. Whereas there are so many amazing Reiki books out there that are information based, and I think I’ve seen a pattern of people really staying in their heads with things that they’re learning about. It’s an intuitive and creative thing, like we’re talking about being in the moment, but they stay in this conceptual space with it. So I really wanted the book to open that energetic space of Reiki, of that oneness and consciousness, where they can really just rest while they’re reading. And maybe they’ll start to feel their own energy!
Frans: Indeed!
Brighitta: That was my main intention, was that the space was opening in the writings rather than actually writing about Reiki, although I do try.
Frans: Well this is what I like! Because you see so many Reiki books out there and it’s almost as if everybody’s copying each other. There is no originality in a way. Apologies, writers! But there are hand positions, there is a little bit of talk about the symbols, a little bit about this or that, but it’s all very basic – some basic history. But what I really like about your book is that it’s very poetic and there is no nothing about hand positions, in a way, it’s not like a manual. Really it’s just about what you were saying, it’s about that experience. For me that is so important. As you said, we are so in our heads these days. If I compare it to my book (you’ve read my book), it’s a little bit different, and yet I see a lot of similarities in it, like pointing out that we shouldn’t get distracted by the finger pointing to the moon. That is really what we do, we have these tools within the system of Reiki and we get so confused by them, so intellectual, we say “it must be this or that”. I wrote a little bit in my book about the Precepts, but in lot of books by researchers they say, “But maybe Mikao Usui took the precepts from someone else” or “maybe they were written like this”. We can debate that for the rest of our lives, but then we actually forget what it’s trying to point out. It points to your true nature, that expressiveness. I can’t express myself in art, dance or you with your beautiful bowls or writing, if I still have a lot of anger and worry, if I’m not grateful for that that specific ‘now-ness’. Therefore when we are letting go of the past, present and future, only then can we really be true to our way and our being. Being able to express ourselves and be truly free with our writing, then, of course, it’s interlaced with compassion because that is really it. That is also what I really see in your book, it’s that beautiful kind of compassion that comes forward.
Brighitta: Aw, thank you so much for that! I think what you’re saying also makes me realise how much I appreciate how many books you’ve written and how it’s really quite amazing. Is this number eight or nine?
Frans: I’ve lost count, so yes! First I co-wrote ‘The Reiki Sourcebook’, then I co-wrote with Bronwen ‘The Japanese Art of Reiki’, ‘Your Reiki Treatment’, ‘The A-Z of Reiki’ and we had some Reiki cards that were wonderful. By myself I wrote ‘The Inner Heart of Reiki’ then ‘Reiki Insights’ and now this one.
Brighitta: Yes, wow it’s so amazing. What I love is you’re really taking us into a deeper part of Mikao Usui’s teachings, more than I’ve ever seen any other writer. Honestly, I always tell all my students to just buy Frans’ books.
Frans: Thanks!
Brighitta: Because you have spent so much time being so true to his teachings and then true to your own way of really interpreting those teachings. So I really love that, and it just proves to you that you can always go deeper with what he’s offered us. There’s literally no bottom to it, there’s always more, there’s another layer that we find. It’s the same in our own healing, just when you think you’ve got it, you find more. Never think you’ve got it because that’s when you’ll get the most intense kick up your backside. So that’s what I love about it, you can write about the Precepts in every book but there’s something else you’re writing about, there’s something very fresh that we can access every time because of that depth. After my book went to print I was sitting with the principles again and I thought, “Oh I really wish I’d put this in there!”
Frans: I have exactly the same!
Brighitta: It’s taken me so long! I look at the principles, I talk about them all the time teaching (at least once a month I’m talking to students about them), but I really only just saw that essentially all it’s saying is to be here now and to be true and kind. That’s it!
Frans: That’s it!
Brighitta: Just do it one day at a time. It comes up a lot in conversation, but there are plenty of similarities with getting sober and a 12-step program, it’s just one day at a time, that’s all we can do. Actually in a way we are getting sober to our truth and our true nature. To what holds us back, what makes us sick, what makes us stress and what makes us live in the past and the future. It’s really illuminating every time you sit with this.
Frans: Indeed! So many layers to it, I’m just thinking about all these different layers, like when I was writing about the Precepts in my new book. This particular book, is really about how we cannot say we know the whole way, it’s a process and a progression for the rest of our life. This is why we have to keep continue digging, digging, digging and digging. Really seeing the deeper layers of all the teachings, of not just the Precepts, but hands-on healing, the symbols and mantras, the meditations and Reiju. The more we practice and the more we get out of our head, the more we embody the practices. Only then does it make perfect sense. I was at a conference a couple of years ago and I was one of the guest speakers, there were a few. One lady in the audience asked the other guest speaker, “Do you think that the Precepts have a link to the eightfold path and six paramitas” and that particular teacher said no, no link at all. I said, “Yes they do!” Because if I’m less angry and less worried then I have ‘right’ speech. If I’m less angry and less worried I will have ‘right’ action. So we can look at all these teachings very black and white and say this is exactly the word, this is that, but actually there’s so much in it when we really go to the deeper elements, the inner teachings of Mikao Usui. That is not to be found on the surface layer, we have to go within ourselves, very deep I think, to really discover these inner layers. As you said, then it comes to that fresh moment of now-ness, and even then, can’t even find that “now”, so ultimately we have to also let go of the present moment because we can’t find it. If anybody has a chance, there is this video, put into Google “Dalai Lama on the present moment”. It’s a three minute video and he’s just standing near his house in Dharamshala in India, and he’s teaching, he’s just really freely talking about the present moment. But the way he does it, it’s just so brilliant to realise the present moment can also not be found. That to me means we can always go deeper and explore. Therefore there’s always something more to write, in the end.
Brighitta: Yeah, I love that about you and the Precepts. I noticed, its the experience that is always the teacher. When I am really present and I’m just sitting there drinking coffee, looking out the window or whatever it is, I pay attention to how I’m feeling and I noticed that this is where the Precepts are supposed to take you to. But when you’re naturally in mindfulness you’re naturally compassionate, kind and grateful. I’m naturally so grateful for my life when I’m just there without the really annoying voice that lives in the past. I had this great moment with my son recently, he just turned six and he’s always playing, he’s always inventing a story and there’s always something happening that he’s acting something out. I was just eating celery while he was doing that and I was watching the celery going into my mouth, but also 90 percent of myself was with these thoughts about my website and what I need to do just before the book comes out. It’s like all these thoughts, these plans, this whole thing was unfolding in my head. Then there was this background self, and this is really the part of me that I tried to write the book from, mostly from this background self and that’s why it took so long because I’m not there all the time.
Frans: It’s too far back!
Brighitta: The really far all-encompassing one, she sort of busted through the layers. It’s not even a she, it’s an it. It busts through the the layers of the mind and the body and I could just see there’s three of me! There’s this presence, the it, there’s the body that’s eating the celery and in the room with my son, and then there’s this voice that is somewhere else, that’s hardly ever there. I said to my son, “There’s two of me!” It was just one of those moments. He looked at me, he looked really scared and then I had to explain. I said, “There’s my body, and then there’s the voice in my head that’s not with my body. The voice is doing something else. Which one of those do you think is real, Eli?” He said, “The one that’s here!” and I thought, that’s so like kids, always saying something perfect, it’s so simple and direct. It’s the one that’s here, this is the real one. That other one nobody could find, the top surgeon in the world couldn’t find this formlessness, the personality. It’s a pretend endpoint, it’s another layer that opens. That’s what it’s all about.
Frans: Yeah, indeed. I like kids that way, they’re just so direct and so clear. But this is it, we cannot enjoy our water, tea or the teachings if we’re not grateful for what we’re doing right now. Right now we have to be really grateful! But what happens, we drink a cup of tea but it wasn’t that good, it was too hot or it was too cold, and then we stop actually being grateful for that present moment and we lose it. Then of course we create worry and anger. Then we cannot be true to our way and our being since there is no compassion at all, we lose the whole thing. This is also why, within the Precepts (you can see them in Japanese behind me), I like the word “Shin Shin Kaizen” – mind body harmony. We cannot even say that the body is in the present moment because we cannot find the present moment, right? The body is also not in the past or in the future. As you were saying, if I drink a cup of tea, the body is doing that and my mind is somewhere else. So there is a big disconnection between mind and body. We see this also in hands-on healing, you see so many people doing hands-on healing on their body, Shin Shin Kaizen (harmony of mind and body), and yet their mind is not in harmony with their body at all! They just drift or think about something else. They’re not here, they’re in their heads and therefore there is no fresh moment, there is no compassion or luminosity. This is really what Mikao Usui pointed out, there’s all these different layers and we have to integrate them in our daily life in every action we do, right at that moment. We can say it is the “present moment”, but is that a second, a millisecond, two seconds or a minute? If we pull that down it also frees us up and then that beautiful (no “he or she”) lightness comes through.
Brighitta: Yeah.
Frans: I read this wonderful quote the other day from a zen master, and it said, “Your luminosity has no gender”.
Brighitta: It’s so true though! When you’re aware of that self, that expanded self, there’s no edge to it, there’s no gender, no personality – there’s nothing. No identity, it’s the no self that we’re supposed to really try to cultivate. In Reiki that’s the ultimate goal, to understand that there is no self. When I’m sharing a Reiju, I’m not giving, as as you said so beautifully. It’s not giving a Reiju, we’re sharing this experience, this open space where we are the same. I love that feeling. There are these layers as you go about your life as a Reiki teacher – you start by really sitting with the teachings as a student and then you get to a certain layer where you feel like you’re ready to teach. But then the real learning, for me, has happened since then.
Frans: Oh absolutely, yeah.
Brighitta: It’s amazing! So the experience of giving Reiju, an attunement, I can’t even put words to that experience. The students always ask afterwards – what’s happening! I just don’t even know how to explain it.
Frans: It’s inexplainable! This is the beauty of it. This is why people like Mikao Usui used “symbolic language” or poetry, like the Precepts, to express it. He was trying to express the inexpressible! This is so beautiful, for example, when you sit in that open space and when I look at your background, it’s very clear, it’s very open. The singing bowls are also open and that’s why they resonate so beautifully. If we put all sorts of stuff in your room, more posters, candles, books etc. it’s like a full mind. It’s just full with all sorts of stuff. When we put stuff in those singing bowls the resonance stops.
Brighitta: That’s so true. They’re only singing because they’re empty.
Frans: Absolutely! And your room is only useful because it’s empty, your window is only useful because it’s empty.
Brighitta: Yeah so true.
Frans: And a door is only useful because it’s empty, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get in!
Brighitta: Yeah, exactly! That’s really what we’re doing during an attunement. You’re being the window – the light is moving through you, you’re feeling it and it’s not doing, it’s very much the opposite. You’re just opening, just being.
Frans: I think this is really what I like in Reiki books, it’s just really clean and clear. Like your room! I don’t have much in my room, I like it that way. It’s quite zen and open. Too many things make me crazy. And I also see that in the way people write. This is why, if you were to look on my bookshelf, most of my books are by (what I would classify as) real masters from Tibetan Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism like Suzuki, Tulku Urgyen, Katagiri etc. What I like about them is that their writing is so clear. It’s not convoluted, it’s straight to the point and direct. You don’t read one thing on page 35 and on page 50 you think, hang on, that doesn’t make sense because on page 35 they say this and now on page 60 they’re saying the complete opposite! There is actually contradiction in the book that doesn’t make sense! When we write, create, paint, make love or whatever, we do it from this really empty space, then everything becomes clear. Someone asked me, “Frans, tell me about your book”. I said I don’t know! He says, “But you just wrote it, right?” Well, yes. I describe it a bit like this – I can’t write if someone orders me to write, it needs to percolate. It’s like I suddenly feel I need to go to the toilet. I can’t wait a little longer, I need to go now, I really need to go to the toilet. This means I really need to write what is in my mind and it needs to come out right now. Once I’ve gone to the toilet and I flush – it’s gone. I don’t have to put my hand back in it and investigate!
Brighitta: Lovely, lovely metaphor.
Frans: Because then, in reality, if we do that, life becomes shit!
Brighitta: You have such a way!
Frans: Because then we lose that freshness! Like when you play your bowl and afterwards you analyse it, oh this was good, this was bad, this was so-so. Then it loses the freshness.
Brighitta: What’s beautiful is when it’s done, it’s done. The space opens for you.
Frans: What’s done, is done! And now you do the next thing.
Brighitta: Yeah, you do the next thing or you just sit and enjoy the silence. After you chant, after you play a bowl, it is the best bit.
Frans: Absolutely!
Brighitta: There is silence, that you’re aware of with other people that weren’t aware of it before. It’s the tension that’s holding the canvas, that holds all the paint, and we forget all about the canvas all the time! For me, that canvas is the same as Reiki, it’s the same.
Frans: Indeed.
Brighitta: Sometimes people call that space ‘the ground of being’. We just get so distracted by all the things and all the the thoughts. It’s the same, isn’t it? Every practice is really showing us the same thing.
Frans: I have a little singing bowl here, if I go like this [continuously taps bowl] and this is me writing the book, drinking my cup of tea or walking and doing whatever. Then if straight away afterwards I go like this [abruptly cuts off sound], and um and ah over it, then it’s already gone. The freshness is the vibration which is already gone, the compassion is gone, the openness. But, as you said, if afterwards I just sit in it [lets bowl ring out], there is no need to analyse it, no debating it, no need to distinguish and label it. Let it be free of all of that. That is exactly what I did with my book! I just wrote it and then flushed it to the to the publisher. And now I am enjoying it! I don’t need to elaborate or re-read it, this is my way! I write it once, then I go read it one more time and that’s it!
Brighitta: Wow, so that tells me how you’ve been able to write so many books.
Frans: Yeah, because I feel that if I read it again, then I will see more and more things that I think needs to be changed. Then I start to change it too much. My way feels very caught up in that freshness but then it would cease to be fresh. It’s the same as if I buy a new top or if I’m cooking – I taste it once, it tastes nice but maybe needs a bit more pepper, but then you go umm, ahh, umm and by the end your meal is fucking burnt! You lose that freshness.
Brighitta: So when you sit down to write a book are you sitting down to write a book? Is that it? Because I didn’t do that! So for years I was writing little bits, the reason it’s structured the way it is is because I wrote little bits at a time. I would be writing and then it’s like I would feel a shift of energy, there’s something else happening now, that sort of emptiness somehow coming through the words. I can’t make that happen.
Frans: No.
Brighitta: I set the scene first. For me it’s usually going for a long walk that sets the scene. I know what you mean, what you said before – the percolating. So when I decided, okay this is a book and I’m going to finish it over lockdown, this is happening and I’m gonna do it now, it’s been seven years in the making! I would go for a walk and I would start hearing the threads of a sentence. So I would get my phone and write in the notes, I was just trying to record it as it comes through. Then I’d go home and work with what was coming through. It wasn’t like I was deciding to sit down. It’s so different! So I probably read my book about 50 times! Before I decided, this is it I’m finishing, I would write maybe 40,000 words and then I would cut about 30. I would think – no this isn’t it. It’s like I was sculpting, I was chipping away trying to find the thing underneath.
Frans: That’s great!
Brighitta: So I love that it’s just so different! But I completely understand now how you’re able to write so much. You don’t sit there and peel it apart, analyse it and cut and paste.
Frans: No. For example, if someone asks me write an article for a magazine, I often decline, because I cannot sit down and go, “let me write something up”. It needs to come from that percolation, from my direct experience. So for a long time, earlier in lockdown last year, I wasn’t writing at all, and then one moment not so long ago I go “hmmm”. Maybe two or three times I said to myself and other people, “I think I need to write a book again”. Then all of a sudden – now! Now it has to be done, now is that clicking moment. I did the same with ‘The Inner Heart of Reiki’. If felt like I needed to sit down and do it to get it out of my system once and for all. Flush it! So this is how I do it. For this one I would wake up at 6/6:30, write a couple of emails and then sit down to write until late in evening. Then go to bed and the next day the same again. In the meantime if I felt a bit distracted I’d watch Netflix, read another zen book or something else. Of course I was doing a little bit of, I guess you can kind of call it, research. With my books, you would have seen it with ‘The Inner Heart of Reiki’, I like my quotes. Why do I do this? It is to emphasise that all these teachers in Japan teach exactly the same thing. They all point out exactly the same thing, this is not unique to my way or your way, but, as you said, it is a common spiritual practice. It all leads to this non-dual luminosity and that is a universal truth that cannot be hidden. That’s what I like about your book as well, you’re really trying the same – here I’ve just picked up a random page, “Each of our journeys is an articulation of the great cosmic energy”. I love it!
Brighitta: Thank you!
Frans: It is just a simple phrase, but for me it’s so much more. “Each of our journeys” – you’re not saying that you have to follow my journey or your journey. “It’s an articulation of the great cosmic energy” – we are all articulated in a very different way! So when I read this I can find a depth in it, it’s poetry, it’s a really beautiful expression. To tell the truth I mainly don’t read Reiki books, but yours was an exception because I thought that it was different. This is a different way just how I like to see it, not copy and pasted. “Here’s a Reiki book on hands-on healing. Let me do this too! Here they talk about the first symbol – let me do this too.” All of these are often just copy and pasted, they give some of their own wording to it but that is just like being a parrot. You write something unique from your heart, from your essence, and because it’s from that essence it resonates. Do you know what I’m saying?
Brighitta: Yes, that’s the idea! That if I write from that space you will also find that space as you’re reading it.
Frans: Absolutely!
Brighitta: You’ll think, there it is! Thank you. It’s really true though, if you think about ‘we are the universe’, you have a face that’s different than mine but it’s still the universe. I’m looking at you and you’re looking at me but we are the universe looking at each other!
Frans: That’s it.
Brighitta: It’s looking in a mirror, we’re just these different articulations. So for me, that’s the bit that takes forever, is finding that right word to express this thing that doesn’t have a word.
Frans: That is it. How can we express the inexpressible? That is so difficult.
Brighitta: Yeah wow.
Frans: For me that is a good teacher. We are clearly without all of this other extra stuff, we can express the inexpressible. Again, in my book, I write about san mitsu (which we also see within the Precepts) – mind body speech. So that needs to be in harmony. We can often see this with peoples writing, you read it and go, what are you trying to say? There’s no clarity in it. This is also when people speak, their speech becomes convoluted – “Um, yeah okay, let me, uh… okay now I want to actually talk about… um what I was, yeah.” What are you trying to say!? Where is your mind? That is san mitsu, when we’re in harmony with mind-body speech and that is so essential for a good teacher, for a good practitioner, painter or writer. Then we can see that clarity. Again, we can see this very clearly in your room, your bowls are not saying “oh that that bowl over there is better than mine”, “I make a better sound than you” or “oh that bowl is bigger/has a better colour”. No the bowl is just a bowl that rings and is empty of this labelling. It is just completely free and that for me is where our writing, our art, our expression and ultimately our daily lives need to come from. Then we are resonating the whole day and we don’t fill the bowl with shit, with attachments, labels, anger, worry or fear. Then everything resonates, it resonates through your painting and through your pages. It resonates through you because of the clarity. Only then can we resonate. That for me is the system of Reiki.
Brighitta: Yeah exactly. It helps us resonate the pure sound of who we are so we can just express our unique tone.
Frans: Yeah and that is love! We can say, “that bowl is different from that bowl” or “Brighitta is different to Frans”, but we’re not looking at the canvas, we’re looking at the paint. But the canvas underneath is emptiness, if it is not an empty canvas then we can’t paint and create. First of all, for every creation, comes this emptiness. This is what I also like about the Japanese arts – flower arrangements, calligraphy or these paintings. In that art they really point out the emptiness.
Brighitta: Yeah and also, for me, the groundedness.
Frans: Absolutely.
Brighitta: Those practices, the first thing is that you’re here and you’re mindful, and then it’s like a little sacred pause before you go to create. Because they don’t just grab the flowers and move quickly, they’re so conscious and mindful of every movement. It is so graceful, and the same with calligraphy. It’s like when you’re learning to draw you have to take the time, you’re holding a calligraphy brush and you have to imagine that slow pace with it. There’s another Japanese word, I wrote about it in my book because I love it, it is ‘kokoro’. Do you know that word?
Frans: It’s so beautiful, yeah.
Brighitta: I love that word. It is the ‘heart mind’. When I was researching, it was for these words and these places that I didn’t really understand, but I know that that word is really transmitting this understanding of that one thing – the heart mind soul. It’s not in the west, we talk about the the heart and the mind and how these are often in different places, but this is talking about the mind in the heart. Even scientifically they’ve discovered there’s so much more information that moves from the heart to the head than from the head to the heart. There is so much more and they are really communicating. I think it’s interesting to see how much of our healing really is around the heart as a as a society, as a collective of human family.
Frans: I think so, we are very emotionally based. I remember years ago when I lived in the Himalayas, this Tibetan man who had been teaching in the west said to me, “It’s so different! These westerners are so emotional!” I think if you compare us to the people in Tibet at that time, they were so much more grounded and interconnected with the Earth. We live in these urban cities and we’ve become so mind/head focussed. We’re always intellectualising, always thinking, always asking why, why, why, why. Man, I get so tired of it.
Brighitta: I wonder if you get the same questions as me, probably. You have the same questions every course, you can almost predict it.
Frans: Yeah, indeed.
Brighitta: Every single Reiki One course somebody will ask, “What am I supposed to be thinking about?”
Frans: Yep!
Brighitta: It’s really interesting, this is really the healing that we need. It is to understand that just because you’re not thinking, it doesn’t mean something’s not happening. It actually happens so much stronger when we’re not thinking. You can really feel this energy moving, you can feel so much that you can just enjoy without thought, just witnessing. You don’t even have to make it happen!
Frans: This is it!
Brighitta: You’re not doing anything!
Frans: I find two different ways in that, of course. As you say, it’s always “what am I thinking about”, and I see it too in a lot of these practices. In a lot of our own practices we constantly analyse, “What am I feeling? I’m not feeling. What does this mean? What does that mean?” and then we’re already distracted! We’ve already put convoluted thoughts in that singing bowl and therefore the resonation stopped. But to be empty, this is also a tricky one, because I hear so many people in Reiki classes also say, “just surrender” or “just be Reiki”. I think, well that’s all good and well to say, but to just surrender and just to be Reiki, man, that takes effort. To be effortless we first need to put a lot of effort into it.
Brighitta: It takes practice.
Frans: Because it’s not easy to let go of the past, present and future. Only then have we truly surrendered, then we are truly being Reiki. But if I stand there and say, “I’m now surrendering, I’m now being Reiki”, while at the same moment I’m thinking about yesterday (or tomorrow) or analysing my treatment, my cup of tea and what I’m doing. Then that is definitely not surrendering. Like with my book, I wrote with a very specific idea that I wanted to show people. That if we plant a seed in a garden we first need to prepare the land. So first there is preparation – what is the right preparation? Because if I want that seed to grow fruit of ‘no mind’, emptiness, surrender or being Reiki, then I first need to prepare the land. I need to put the right seed in the ground because if I put an apple seed in I won’t get pears! So I need to get the right seed, then we need to water it and we need to look after and maintain it. It needs sunlight – so have I put it in the right place or is it too moist of a space or too dry. All of these things need doing and only then do we get the right fruit. But if we don’t prepare right, if we want an apple tree and we plant a pear seed then we won’t get the right results. This, for me, is really what my book is about. How can we prepare ourselves. What is the right seed. How do we maintain it, how do we look after the seed and make it grow. Then hopefully we can bear the fruit.
Brighitta: The magic of the seed, the germinating and growing, is happening in the dark. You can’t open up the soil and look.
Frans: No.
Brighitta: You would disturb it and the magic would stop. Part of it I think is also that desire to change. Sometimes they’re craving transformation. They keep checking and they’re not feeling it so therefore it’s “not working”. Already we’re getting very attached to the outcome that we had in mind when we signed up for this Reiki class. We want this specific thing to happen.
Frans: That’s it, yeah.
Brighitta: When actually just showing up and watering that seed every day, not knowing if it’s going to sprout or not, but just showing up and just doing it for the joy, is the best way.
Frans: That is it.
Brighitta: It’s so simple. That’s the thing with the western mind and western Reiki. Modern Reiki is so complicated! It really invites more mental activity than is required.
Frans: Absolutely! But that is because we’re constantly asking what, why, how etc. instead of just watering it. Just water it. But it’s the same in a relationship, it is the same as when I go into my daily life. Just water it. Don’t constantly ask about how or where, just enjoy. Be grateful for that cup of tea, for the rain, the sun. Be grateful for whatever happens in your life and let go of that labelling, analysing and distinguishing. Then we can really be that playful creative manifestation of luminosity that can manifest itself. Some people express it by painting, writing, dancing or somebody just going through life and that, for me, is really what is described here within the Precepts. So can you give me a page number from your book?
Brighitta: Oh a page number? 263.
Frans: 263. Let me have a look.
Brighitta: My favourite bit of the book.
Frans: Oh it’s the end! 263!
Brighitta: I always think, I hope, people make it through the book to this bit!
Frans: Oh that is beautiful! Oh, wow. Shall I? I’m not that good.
Brighitta: Oh you want to read it to me? That would be very nice!
Frans: Do you want to read it? Or do you want me to read it?
Brighitta: Oh I don’t mind! I mean, it would be very nice to hear you read it.
Frans: Okay.
Brighitta: Okay!
Frans: “Come closer. Can you see me? I’m the child and the mother. Drink me in, I’m liquid love. The sweet waters of your healing well. My presence is the medicine, I am the healing. Rest in me, let me embrace the confusion, the upset, the frustration. I am the electricity that gushes through your meridians. I am the ignition. I am the one you have been waiting for. I am the changeless ever expanding light of your soul. I am the limitless. I am the highest expression of who she came here to be. I am the indomitable essence of who she is. I am she who is. I am the one beneath the surface, the one who never leaves. I am the warm energy you sense in those cold nights of pristine darkness, when you catch the enormity of the cosmos. I am the stillness you feel washing over you in the midst of an ancient forest. I am what arises to greet your presence, I am the whisperer within the chambers of your heart. Can you hear me? I’ve watched you, darling, precious human, marvelling at your growth, your triumphs, your heartbreaks. I’ve heard the delight of your laughter, always the one listening as you sing to yourself. I’ve been there when you felt alone, lost and in need of the love that you are. That I am. I’ve been there when you looked the other way, when you sought to feel that sore emptiness the forgetting of me creates. I’m found in the deep space of that emptiness. When you remember me we chant together in sublime harmony with all of creation. We are the inexhaustible discipline of life, here to express all that we are, have been and ever will be. I met you in the dark of your mother’s womb. I will be there as we release to the great beyond. I hear the last beat of your heart as you let go to my embrace. I’m deathless, worthless, ancient, ageless. I’m unbreakable, untouchable I’m everywhere and nowhere. I reside within every recess of your humanity, feel my presence. Together we are the quest and the answer. My desire is to deeply submerge into this beautiful body, befriend it, articulate it and realise it. Embodied. This is all you have ever searched for. Though you may have looked elsewhere for something, you knew not what. I was here. I was always here as the magic to unlock a map and a treasure. I’m your majesty. You feel your inherent sacredness. I’m all that you are. Come closer.” That is beautiful.
Brighitta: Thank you.
Frans: This is why on, on the back, I wrote about Brighitta’s book, “A journey with beautiful poetic language which nurtures your soul. I felt a deep sense of peace and joy within myself as her words seeped into my consciousness and nurtured my being.” When I read that excerpt, it felt like that, it touched me. You talk about the luminosity in such a beautiful and poetic way which can trigger healing in lots of people.
Frans: Aw thank you. I hope it does.
Brighitta: Reading aloud is not my strong point, but I enjoy it. I wasn’t grateful for how I read, I know.
Brighitta: I’m grateful for both of us.
Frans: Let it go! Let it go!
Brighitta: It was wonderful Frans, so surreal. You know I’ve loved your teachings for so long. Honestly, when I first found your work, it was like this real moment of an epiphany. It was like I was swimming on the bottom of a pool and then found this trapdoor that opened into the ocean. From there it was amazing! So that was very surreal for me to hear you reading that back to me. I’m so grateful for you and all of your work and dedication to everything that Reiki is and everything that Mikao Usui tried to leave us, but didn’t realise what a western mind would pick up. So you’ve really helped westerners get back over into the foundation of where he was. It’s so far away from our modern lives, his way of seeing the world – that’s the beauty of what you’ve given. You’re a huge contribution to the system of Reiki.
Frans: Thank you, thanks. Wow, fantastic. Thank you for talking and thank you for writing your book! I hope to show my book when it’s out.
Brighitta: I can’t wait, I’m like a mega fan! I can’t wait to read it, well I have it, so to see it as a book, you know.
Frans: Thank you so much.
Brighitta: Thank you Frans, lovely to talk to you today.
