The Japanese Art of Reiki (Transcript of Washington, DC talk 2009) Q & A Part II

Following on from Frans Stiene’s talk on the Japanese Art of Reiki he answered questions from the audience. In Part II he talks at length about Reiki Treatments and their place in the system of Reiki. Read Part I here.

Sometimes my clients feel a lot of energy shifting after the treatments, why is this?

The body is like a sponge – like when you mop up some water.  The sponge stays wet – it’s not like you mopped up the water and it immediately becomes dry again. Before the sponge becomes dry again, it might take an hour or two, or a day or two depending on the quality of the sponge.  It is the same for us.  We soak up the energy and we feel some relief, but the energy keeps going through our body.  Have you ever experienced  someone  doing a treatment on your legs and then move to another position, and you continued to feel your hands on your legs? When we move our hands, it  doesn’t necessarily mean the energy healing stops at that spot.  Your client has activated a healing process. So, sometimes the healing might be with you for a day or week or two weeks.  But you continue to grow through certain clearings and certain shifts within yourself.  And I think that is why it is so important not to judge.  When you judge and say this needs to happen in the healing or that needs to happen, then we are sticking it in a box.  But when we leave it nice and open then the person can say: Oh, I feel some relief here, then notice the pain comes back.  Don’t judge it as bad or good. There are definitely shifts in the energy and sometimes it will be to the next day when you awaken and feel fantastic, whereas the previous day your body was going in and out of pain. Or it may remain and you will need to have another treatment. We always need to remember not to judge the healing and say this needs to happen.  Be really open in your mind. 

How important are the specific set of hand positions?

{when someone has a particular ailment which is not part of your hand positions, how important is it to treat that specific area}

I did a treatment on someone today and afterwards this person said to me how interesting you don’t stick to the ‘normal’ hand positions. In the system of Reiki we learn standard hand positions though these vary school to school. Some say twelve positions, some say ten, some say fourteen, whatever. Some start at the head, others start at the feet, some start at the stomach.  When we learn Reiki I we need to stick to a certain routine.  When we grow energetically and that is why it is so important to practice on ourselves – when we grow energetically things start to change.  You may become more intuitive. After a while you may feel a little more and  begin to place your hands where you feel the energy. You slowly begin moving away from these kind of rigid hand positions.  They are not really rigid, they are there as a tool,  as a stepping stone.  In Reiki III,  I personally  think you need to chuck all these hand positions out of the window, still use them somewhere in the back of your mind, but you’ve got to listen to your hands, you’ve got to listen to this body.  Because if I do these exact hand positions on this lady and on this person and on that person, their issues are not exactly the same.  Maybe this person needs a little bit more healing on her head, and this person needs extra healing on the knee, and the other person on their left shoulder. I can view them exactly the same, we can, but it is very basic – but we want to grow as a Reiki practitioner. When we practice in level III we can let go more and more of these hand positions and feel intuitively where the hands need to go.

After doing a demonstration of Reiki on a client for a group of people, someone said ‘but that is not Reiki – you are not doing the specific hand positions’.  I said ‘what is Reiki about? – it’s about healing.  Ask this person who I just did a hands on healing session on.’ The client gets up feeling calm and relaxed with increased energy.  If, as a Reiki practitioner  who has  been working for 15 years with the system of Reiki, I am still stuck with these 14 hand positions I learned at the beginning, then in reality I haven’t  grown.  If I am going to learn how to play the violin and after five years I am doing the same thing I did in my first class, my teacher would let me know this is not for me.  You are still at the same level.  If I am a carpenter and do a week-end workshop in beginning carpentry and start to hammer and hit my finger and after five years I still do exactly the same, my boss will let me know that carpentry is not for me.  No matter what we learn, there is always change as we practice more and more. We get better at what we do.  If we play the violin we first learn the notes. After two years or more practice I can throw away these notes and just play the violin.  The notes are the symbols and the mantras. The notes are the hands on healing.  The more we improve the more we can place our hands anywhere.  The whole body is one potential hand position.

So if you feel this person has cancer on their left toe, you place your hands on the left toe.  But we also remember that everything is interconnected.  People will say the energy goes where it is needed. I agree, absolutely.  But if I have a pain in my neck or back and the person treats me on my head and says the energy goes where you need it, that might feel nice, but it would also feel good where you have the pain.  It would be nice to feel the hands there.  Also what happens is if I have a pain in my knee and you put your hand on my knee? My mind also goes there.  Because my mind goes there, my energy also goes there. So it is not only the energy that comes from the practitioner but also the energy from me goes there.  Because when I feel the touch there, my mind goes there.  So touching the area where there is pain or discomfort is also helpful.

We also need to realize that if I only work on the pain in the knee, I may leave something out.  Maybe the pain in the knee comes from the sciatica nerve and the sciatica pain comes from the kidneys because the kidneys are not very happy because the person has a lot of fear. If I am only working on the knee I am leaving out the pain in the lower back and the fear.  I need to listen to my hands and my intuition – just don’t hurt the person or hurt yourself. It is really good to put your hands at a point of injury or that part of the body where the person has cancer just for the  reassurance you may give the client that you are working on their issue.  You might feel there is nothing happening there, but if you do not place your hands there, the client may feel you are ignoring their issue. 

The more I know about the client the better it is.  One client came into my office and I asked what could I do for her.  She responded ‘you are the Reiki practitioner so you find out.  I do have an issue, but you tell me’.  I said I don’t work that way.  I like my clients to be upfront, it is not guess work.  She said ‘I went to a psychic recently and he knew exactly where my issue was’.  That’s great, I responded.  Tell me what your issue is.  But she didn’t want to tell me.  So she laid down and I gave her a treatment.  At the end of the treatment, she said again where do you think I have an issue.  It’s the other way around for me, I responded.  What did you feel? So I finally said, I think I felt something on your feet and something at your back and something at your head and most I felt it at your stomach.  When I said that she became very animated and said yes, that is where I felt it too and went on to describe the experience when my hands were there.  I said, why do I need to tell you.  You could feel it in you. You do not need me to confirm it.  Sometimes we get people like that.

Sometimes my clients say my energy is cool, warm or even hot and some even it is so hot they could not stand it, can you say something about this?

It is a misunderstanding that Reiki hands need to be hot hands.  I think it is a myth.  Sometimes I get students who do not feel hot hands at all.  They may feel pulsing.  Wherever they  put their hands and where the energy goes more, it starts pulsating.  Another person may say I don’t feel any pulsating, I feel tingling like electricity going through my hands.  For some people their hands get hot.  But in certain circumstances their hands also get cold. But we should not say this is the way it is going to happen.  I’ve felt my hands get really cold and the person may say your hands were so hot.  Or the other way around. My hands are so hot and the person says your hands are so cold. So sometimes when the energy mixes and the energy connects, you get a whole different experience. 

It might also vary from person to person. I might do a treatment on you and feel lots of tingling.  I might do a treatment on you and feel lots of heat.  I might do a treatment on you and feel heat and tingling.  Because it is not only the energy that comes through me but I am also vibrating on a certain level.  And the person is vibrating on a certain level.  So we get together in that space and I am touching her and she’s mixing her energy with mine and my energy mixes with her’s and we have a certain reaction.

If someone says you have cold hands so your Reiki doesn’t work, don’t believe them..  Sometimes the energy needs to be cooler for whatever reason.  When you treat a hot head, it may need to cool down. We can make a whole big theory about it, but it is not necessary.

Do you try to let go of ego during a treatment? 

Yes, but it is not easy. That is why Mikao Usui was very clever because he said let’s work with the precepts.  Do not anger, do not worry, be humble, show compassion to yourself and others.  Work with meditations to keep that ego under control.  Work with hands on healing to make sure you clear yourself. Work with the symbols and mantras to stay grounded.

It’s great to see so many like minded people together.  It is wonderful that no matter where we come from or who we are or what our background is in reality we are all want to be happy – finding that happiness within ourselves. There are many paths leading to this happiness – the system of Reiki, yoga, tai’ chi, whatever.  I hope you can find your path – something you are really connected to. I hope you discover that you are the beautiful Bright Light.  

Watch a Reiki Treatment Demo video with Frans Stiene