Have you ever noticed how its the little things that seem to persistently seem to stand in the way of progress? Kind of keeps us on our toes, I guess!

At any rate, I do believe our little Reiki Healing Application for Facebook is finally ready for prime time <insert sound of applause here> and you, my faithful (and oh so patient) readers will have first crack at it.

I’d like to say that all the bugs have been worked out, but since every computer makes different demands on any particular application I don’t know if this is humanly possible. I’ve tested it as much as I can, and as a wise man once said… “sometimes good enough is good enough”… even though I personally feel this application far exceeds the quality rating of “good enough”… naturally.

I will, in the future be making a more detailed “how to” guide for those in need, and there are several other features in the works (such as a wishlist) but I think there is more than enough there to get started… so without further adieu, head on over to facebook, sign into your account (or create one if you haven’t done so already) and go HERE to access this new addition to Reikidom. Also be sure to click the Fan Us Link at the top to join the Fan Page where you can comment on the application directly and interact with other Reiki Practitioners using the Reiki Healing Application for Facebook.

Certain obvious restrictions are in place (like the need to be a Level 2 Practitioner in order to send distance healing, and being a Reiki Master in order to send distance attunements) but there is little control over what people actually do with it and, in this case, freedom is more of a priority than security IMHO. There are other Reiki Applications out there, and in its development I’ve aspired to make this one a cut above… and as the sub-headline on the application says… its Serious Reiki Power For Serious Reiki Practitioners, as opposed to the more casual user.

It is also my hope that people will actually be sending these healings and attunements as they click on the buttons but, again, that is not something that is within my control. Only you will know if you have actually sent the Reiki and only you will know (hopefully) if you’ve received it.

I’m counting on you guys to let me know if there are any problems so that I can tend to them immediately and would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve it. In the meantime… enjoy!!!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Hey Gang! I’ve got some really exciting news for you, and if you use Facebook, I have a feeling you will be just as excited as I am.

First, <insert standard apology here for taking so long between posts>.

Now that we got that out of the way, on to the exciting news.

One of my excuses for not having written in so long is that I have been hard at work creating (among other things) a Facebook Application for Reiki… its almost ready for the unveiling.

The Reiki Application for Facebook is a FREE Facebook App that allows you to quickly & easily send & receive Reiki to any and all of your Facebook friends. How cool is that! You click on an item in the library of what you would like to send, be it Reiki Healing or a Reiki Attunement, then choose someone to send it to, et voila, they are notified that they have received Reiki from you.

Pretty neat, huh?

At present, here are the Reiki healings you can send:

• • Physical Healing
• • Mental/Emotional Healing
• • 12 Position Distance Healing
• • Reiji-Ho

… and here are the attunements you can send:

• • Reiki Spiritual Attunement
• • Level 1 Attunement
• • Level 2 Attunement
• • Level 3 Attunement
• • Reiju

When you would like to send Reiki, just click on the Reiki you would like to send, choose who to send it to, and then just send the Reiki as usual.

There are a few minor rules and regulations (such as you must obviously have received a Reiki Master Attunement before you can send an Attunement of any level) and we are still working out a few minor bugs, but it should be ready to roll within the next few days and of course, members here will get first crack at it.

There are plans to add additional features in the future and of course your comments and recommendations will be greatly appreciated as we strive to make this the best application in the whole Facebook library.

My next post will tell you how to get up and running so stay tuned as we get closer to launch date and get ready for a truly great Reiki experience. Oh yeah, did I happen to mention that its FREE!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

I‘d like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a most happy, healthy, prosperous, and Reiki filled New Year!!!  As you all take whatever time is needed to write down your New Year’s Resolutions (and yes, be sure to write them down… it adds tremendously to the intent and power they manifest) be sure to include a healthy dose of Reiki in them. As you think about all the ways your life has changed because of the presence of Reiki, imagine how it might help others in the same way throughout the course of the next year. Recall the pageantry, wonder and splendor of that first realization that Reiki might just possibly hold the keys to the kingdom of glory… heaven on Earth… no matter what your understanding or interpretation of heaven may be.

New Years is a time of new beginnings, of wiping the slate clean and having another go at the trials and tribulations awaiting you at every turn. Your New Year’s Resolutions provide a constant reminder of something you want to get right this time around, just as your Akashic Record provides an account of something you want to get right in this lifetime. Write it down and post it prominently and not only should you give that Resolution Reiki after you right it (use the power symbol for added oomph <technical term>) but feel free to shoot it some more Reiki whenever you get the chance. Alternately you might keep it in your Reiki Box if you have one, and give it Reiki on a regular basis.

In the 30 Day Reiki Challenge we discuss the importance of setting both long term and short term goals for your Reiki practice and your New Year’s Resolution is a great place for tracking them. Never be afraid to change them if they prove too difficult (or too easy) during the year and refer to them often, as we tend to overlook or forget the little things without a little nudge from time to time.

New Year’s, being a time of new beginnings, presents you with the opportunity (for those who need it) of practicing the Zen Art of Mindfulness, i.e., seeing your world through the mind of a child.  Remember the first time you saw snow, or bit into a ripe red apple, or experienced the joy of Reiki healing? How magical it was! Bring back that magic by emptying your mind of all the clutter you have accumulated over the year(s), all the presuppositions, all the filters, all the biases, prejudices, matter-of-factedness and expectations you’ve collected and see your world anew.

Not to get too political here, but Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, stressed the need for every generation to revolt against the previous one as only in the aftermath of such a revolution could things be rebuilt from scratch with an emphasis on new priorities and preferences rather than continuing to cater to the priorities and preferences of past generations. New Year’s presents a time for you to have your own mini-revolution in your mind and replace outdated notions with current state of the art ones. And adding Reiki to the mix makes it all the more potent.

I’ll be the first to admit that change can be painful… but it is only through change that we actually evolve. So allow your Reiki to evolve, don’t be afraid of change and direct your life as if you are the conductor of life’s greatest symphony… which you are! And while you’re at it… enjoy yourself and have a wonderful new year… a Total Reiki New Year!!!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

My goodness… its Christmastime again! Time sure flies when you are pretending that time doesn’t actually exist.

Speaking of time, it has been far too long since my last post… life has a way of getting in the way at times, however, if there ever was a time for Reiki it would certainly be during the holidays. Alleviating just a fraction of the stress would make it worth all that effort in memorizing the Distance Reiki symbol. And I’m quite sure Santa would appreciate a little Reiki after Christmas… I’d imagine his back must be a wreck what with all that bending down and chimney sliding. Mercy!

Wow! Sounded a little like Roy Orbison there for a minute… sorry about that! Won’t happen again.

If you missed my post on Reiki For The Holidays you might want to have a quick look for some tips in dealing with certain situations that might call for a bit of Reiki. I would also recommend my post on Laughter Reiki as a holiday without joy and laughter is just like any other day of the year.

And finally, I’d like to wish you all the happiest of holidays, full of warmth, giving and love and if you add a dash of Reiki to the mix you will surely have achieved Total Christmas Mastery! Reiki blessings to us, everyone!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

I read an article the other day that I have been trying to relocate, but thus-far have been unable to. At first reading I though it was just some guy complaining about the current state of spirituality, but as I thought about it some more his message began to sink in. Please allow me to explain…

Basically the article was about how hard spirituality really is. Much of the literature devoted to it recently makes it sound like it is so easy… just listen to the tibetan bells every day for an hour and you will be enlightened… just imagine you are enlightened and you will be… just follow the Reiki Path to the best of your ability and each step will take you closer to your ultimate destination, which is the ultimate liberation.

The author’s response to all these suggestions that this stuff is so easy is that whoever is espousing such a notion is dead wrong in that achieving the ultimate liberation is much more difficult than just seeking it. He (and I’m going by memory here, so I’m not even positive it was a he) felt that teachers teaching that this stuff is easy are doing a terrible injustice to their students in that a tremendous amount of discipline and hard work is required before even getting a glimpse of what you are working towards.

To me it just sounded at first like he was just complaining about how new age authors are just making it all sound so easy. But as I thought about it I realized there is quite a bit of truth in what he was saying. Putting no effort at all into one’s spiritual practice will, in all likelihood, yield quite limited results and if you are looking for something more, well, no pain… no gain!

The author wasn’t talking about Reiki, but as I tend to view just about everything I experience through a Reiki filter any talk of spirituality for me, equates with Reiki and so at first, even though he never mentioned Reiki, I felt like it was an attack on Reiki but now I see it as more of an admonition as in “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap“.

Some spiritual seekers have spent their lifetimes seeking liberation or true enlightenment and so to suggest that one can achieve the same results is rather simplistic. 

On the other hand…

Many of those spiritual seekers were going under the assumption that they only had one lifetime to get things right and that they needed to either achieve enlightenment in this lifetime or be lost to the swirls of time. Other spiritual seekers feel that this lifetime is only a stepping stone and the further you get in this life the less you will have to achieve in the next. Yet others feel that this mystique of difficulty is an illusion and with the information that has come to light in the past 50 years or so it is that illusion alone that is preventing spiritual seekers from succeeding in their spiritual quests.

So who is right?

I really wish I could give you a definitive answer to that question, but alas, I am but a pilgrim in these lands myself. I would, however, love to hear what y’all think about this and would appreciate your weighing in on the issue… perhaps your opinions will help others in their own quests. So please submit your comments below and maybe we can figure things out here.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

‘Tis Typhoon season again here in Japan and with the damage recently inflicted by Typhoon Parma in the Philippines it really got me to thinking about it… from a Reiki perspective… and here is what I came up with.

Before I begin I’d like to encourage all of my readers to take a moment to send some Reiki to the Philippines… there is a lot of cleaning up to do, a lot of hurt to heal and a lot of pain to soothe. And I know there will be a lot of appreciation if you do… so go ahead… I’ll wait… <insert sound of fingers drumming> THANKS!

Typhoon Reiki

Now turning to Typhoon Reiki (no this isn’t yet another style of Reiki) it seems to me that typhoon, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. are very angry. Whether Mother Nature is actually angry at us for continuing to destroy the natural beauty all around us on a daily basis or if the anger just resides in my over active imagination is regardless… thoughts have tremendous power, with or without adding Reiki to them, and the damage being inflicted, on many levels, is very real.

That is why, in addition to sending Reiki to the people and places damaged by these tropical storms I also encourage you to send Reiki to the typhoon itself… but as intention must be focused in order to be effective it must be done a certain way… and that is by focusing on the anger aspect.

Just as in using Reiki to deal with any other emotion issue, use the mental/emotional healing symbol and send it directly to the anger the typhoon is emanating. Those Reiki practitioners who make it a habit to empathize with their recipients need to be very careful, because the level of anger in a storm is vastly more powerful than that felt by a human, and I wouldn’t advice attempting to do so unless you are quite practiced in it.

In one school of Hawaiian Shamanism (Huna) there is a practice called grokking where the healer “becomes one” with  the storm and slowly guides it away from the region. This is a very advanced practice, and quite dangerous for the inexperienced, but the principle is based around the idea that the storm has consciousness and that consciousness can be directly influenced. Since consciousness requires thought, and thought requires a thinker, it follows that there are also emotions that are possibly attached to that thinker. That is the level that we are concerned with here.

Hopefully, by understanding the mechanisms involved you will be able to direct your Reiki much more efficiently. While sending Reiki to the storm in general, it is much more effective if you focus it internally and send a Reiki Blast to the causes of the storm… which is the anger and violence it seems to be manifesting.

The more you practice this particular technique the easier and more automatic it will become… and doing so will take you a long way towards achieving Total Reiki Mastery.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

I have to thank my 8-year old daughter Nikki (yes, that’s her pictured) for the inspiration behind this post. It’s amazing how something so simple can carry such profound implications. Allow me to explain…

This afternoon after school my daughter was watching her favorite video (for this month anyway) and had a very tiny little box of candy sitting next to her with which to enjoy the movie. It was smaller than a pack of tic-tacs, with 6 or 7 little candies in it which I’m sure were made of nothing but sugar, but it was the size that made me laugh. Each candy was about half the size of an M&M and were it me, the whole package would’ve been gone in one bite. Toward the end of the end of the movie I came back in and she still had 2 or 3 of them left. She made that little box of candy last throughout the whole movie… and that’s what got me to thinking.

Again, if it were me the whole thing would’ve been devoured in one bite, or even less, since they were those dissolving little candies that didn’t even need the added effort of chewing for them to be made gone. That’s when it struck me, about how many Reiki books, exercises and learnings I’ve devoured over the years that I might allowed to last and enjoy a bit longer were I not in such a hurry to assimilate the knowledge and move on to the next great thing.

Does this ring true for anyone else?

I know people who savor each and every one of life’s experiences to the absolute fullest, and I know others, like myself, who never seem to take enough time to stop and smell the roses. As with most things, I think a balance is in order. Those that spend too much time sniffing roses will not pack as many experiences into what ultimately amounts to too short of a life while, on the other hand, those that don’t spend enough time will be missing some of the depth that makes life so vibrant.

Reiki Ruts

We develop patterns and routines in our lives that become just the way we do things, and once established form ruts that become more and more difficult to maneuver out of. The deeper the ruts, the more effort it takes to free ourselves from them… difficult, but rarely impossible.

In regard to Reiki, how many such ruts have we dug for ourselves? How many lessons could have been savored a bit more? How many more times being reminded of this will it take for us to do something about it? Even right now… are you savoring this post, or are you scanning it and already on to the next thing?

While life is much too short to waste, it is also too long not to enjoy it as much as we can. So what we can do is to notice the things that are out of balance. Notice what we are skimming too quickly and what we are spending too much time on. Noticing is the first step… once we do we can then do something about it. After all, who doesn’t want a richer, deeper, longer lasting Reiki experience?

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Okay, I’ll admit it… the new Dan Brown book has me quite intrigued and once again, my imagination is running rampant. Not since Indiana Jones and the Lost Reiki Journal of Dr. Usui have I considered the possibility of missing information… at least not publicly… but riddle me this, if you will, if there were a unifying symbol for Reiki, one that summed everything up and brought everything together… what would it look like? Well, I’ve got a theory… let’s see if it holds water.

In The Lost Symbol, one quote in particular got me to thinking. There was a non-religious discussion taking place on the many variations of the Man as God paradigm, such as, “Know ye not that ye are gods?” and “The kingdom of God is within you” where one interpretation was given as:

Abandon the search for God… instead, take yourself as the starting place. – Monoimus

Whereupon I immediately abandoned the whole discussion and got on with my day, but that thought lingered in the back of my mind and while scouring the web for useful Reiki thoughts this thought wedged itself in my mind and proved itself to be quite stubborn as I attempted to dislodge it… the result being this post.

The Lost Reiki Symbol

The idea of a unifying symbol (or at least concept with a graphical representation) had me stumped at first.. but then it struck me. Unification, in the case of Reiki does not mean something that pulls everything together, but on the contrary something that pulls everything apart. Reiki, being a spiritual path, knows no one way… there are many possible paths and we each take the one that we most (largely unconsciously) resonate with. So, while being on the Reiki path, we are unified in the sense that we are all together on the Reiki path, but we do not share a common path.

“Hey, you’re on the Reiki Path? So am I!” smacks of unification as we are both on the same, i.e., the Reiki Path… but the paths will be unique depending on our own interpretations, experiences, preferences, etc. And they will meander in their own direction until finally they all meet again at the end… enlightenment! Make sense?

Several years ago I went to a VERY high level Reiki meeting here in Japan (sorry, I’m not allowed to be more specific) and for several weeks prior to the meeting I was filled with speculation and wild imaginings about what was in store for me… I was sorely disappointed and not until formulating this post did I realize why.

I was expecting to discover the lost secrets of Reiki, to be the first Westerner to have access to the mysterious powers of the unknown, the Holy Grail of Reikidom… what I got instead was a bunch of old people who asked more questions than answered and rambled on and on about things that basically had no relationship… to anything. I asked my translator if things were watered down on my account, but she said ‘no… that’s how it always is’. Hatsurei Ho and a few other exercises and then talk, talk, talk. What a let down.

So how does this unified theory bring that into focus? Well, since they were all on different paths, and understood they were all on different paths, they knew there was no point in comparing notes. Even markedly similar experiences would have completely different meanings to different people. So basically the long and short of it is that when you are on the Reiki path you are totally and utterly alone in finding your way. The slightest hint at a suggestion could easily (and in all likelihood) take you years off course.

In Japan, the majority of the Reiki Masters I’ve met, including several members of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai all understand this… whether it was taught to them or not… and so teachings or discussions on how to proceed are avoided… as opposed to teachings in the West whereas the teacher expects you to walk the same exact path they did (even though they are no closer to enlightenment than you are).

So the above symbol, and the concept of a unification theory in Reiki basically says that once you learn all there is to learn, go back to where you started, abandon the idea that there is a one size fits all path, and, beginning where you are… enjoy your unique experiences on the Reiki path. And anyone telling you differently simply doesn’t understand their Einstein.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Which, I think, is exactly the point… the word occult, does not mean what most people believe it to mean. As Robert Langdon, so eloquently put it:

The word occult, despite conjuring images of devil worship, actually means ‘hidden’ or ‘obscured.’ In times of religious oppression, knowledge that was counterdoctrinal had to be kept hidden or ‘occult,’ and because the church felt threatened bu this, they redefined anything ‘occult’ as evil, and the prejudice survived.  – Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

So, looking at Reiki as something hidden, or obscured, while still not totally factual… adds a bit of a twist to it that explains a lot.

First, I think the only real obscuring or hiding of Reiki comes from the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, the organization started by Dr. Usui to proliferate Reiki which instead took it underground and, well, obscured it. Mrs. Takata’s exorbitant fees for learning the deep dark secrets held at the Master level also helped to keep it out of reach of the masses… again, I’m sure this is not what Dr. Usui intended. I’m not sure Dr. Usui charged anything at all for this knowledge, those who sought it were welcomed with open arms… their turning around and selling it was perhaps a bit less cricket, although details of the day are sketchy at best.

Langdon’s synopsis explains people’s negativity towards things like Reiki, which they equate with Occultism out of sheer ignorance as to exactly what Reiki is (and isn’t). This isn’t their fault… it is ours, as Reiki Practitioners, who fail to adequately explain things. In our defense though, Reiki is not the easiest thing in the world to explain, and the harder we try the deeper into “Yup, its occult” Territory we seem to drive it. Perhaps it’s not in the explanation, but in the way we deliver the explanation that is responsible for this. Getting all mysterious when we talk about it will drive it into “Yup, its occult”  Territory, just as surely as getting all holy when we talk about it will drive it deep into “Yup, its religion” Territory. The same holds true with scientific explanations,  artsy-fartsy (as my grandfather put it) explanations, new age mumbo jumbo laced explanations, etc.

Diane Stein, in her Essential Reiki guide was perhaps the first to take the coveted Reiki symbols and put them into print. I remember the outcry at the time as well as similar cries of “foul” when various Websites started putting them right out there for all the world to see. Shouts of “they’re supposed to be secret” or “if you see them before you are attuned to them they will lose their power” or “mass producing them dilutes their energy” or “if non-Reiki people see them they will go blind” (okay, I made that one up) and other such nonsense were being tossed about on all the Reiki forums of the time, and lo and behold… they are still just as powerful as ever.

So where does that leave us? Occult isn’t a bad thing, but Reiki isn’t really occult, although quite a few people perceive it as such and those same people (as well as most of the planet) tend to perceive occultism as being something demonic and/or evil. Perhaps beginning with an explanation of what ‘occult’ actually means, followed by examples of how mainstream Reiki doesn’t even come close to fitting that description would go a long way towards gaining a receptive open mind to receive your explanation… unless, of course, you prefer the mystique.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

A Torch In Daylight

The generally accepted version of the story is that Dr. Usui used to travel with a burning torch and on one occasion Dr. Hayashi was drawn to it and that led to his study of Reiki. There are dozens of versions of this story each involving someone asking Dr. Usui why he carried the torch in daylight when it was not necessary. Here are some of the accounts of his reply:

• • When people told him he didn’t need a torch in daylight, he answered was he was looking for the few who are interested in improving themselves.
• • That is because I am hunting for people who do not want illness in a home, who do not want to have a lot of big doctors’ bills, who want to learn how to live in a good funfulfilled life.
• • He replied that he was searching for people with a heart full of love and with enlightened hearts, but who are sad and sorrowful and do not know the true Light.
• • When asked why he stood in the streets with the torch, he said he was looking for people in search of the TRUE LIGHT – people who were ill and oppressed and longed to be healed.
• • Anyone who asked why he was carrying a torch in the middle of the day would get invited to a meeting that evening where, he said, they would truly learn about light.
• • People would laugh at him and point out to him that it was already daylight, and there was no need to carry a lighted torch. Usui would reply that if they were interested he could teach them how to have more light, enjoyment and health in their lives.

I must admit I find some of these rather amusing, especially in light <there it is again> of the fact that, when I first encountered them, they seemed so deep and real. 10 years on, they seem like another misinterpretation/mistranslation and/or just another one of Mrs. Takata’s embellishments.

My Torch In Daylight

Let’s take a look at my own understanding now and see if it sheds any light on the subject. First let’s break it down…

For all intents and purposes we basically carry a torch “to light up the darkness and/or otherwise light the way”, “to illuminate that which cannot readily be seen”, and/or “to make ourselves more visible to others in the dark”. I believe these are more along the lines of what Dr. Usui may have been thinking if such a thing actually occurred. That is to say that something was obscured in darkness and in need of illumination.

A torch seems the perfect symbol for Reiki, being first and foremost the spiritual path to enlightenment that it is… and certainly signifies a great deal more than a simple attention getter. I’m sure the enlightenment aspect of the torch would not have gone unnoticed and would have played a large role in its inception.

My own interpretation of events is more along the lines of this… people who are ready to see the torch for what it is, will, while those that aren’t ready will simple see a foolish man walking with a lit torch in the middle of the day. Those who are looking for and ready for illumination, enlightenment, understanding will have an immediate and profound reaction to the situation and will have a satori (glimpse of enlightenment) as a result. For those who are ready, a fire deep inside will be kindled… and it is that flame that is responsible for the unbridled passion many of us have in regard to Reiki.

Please read that last paragraph again. Does it resonate with you? Can you feel it? If so, than you have truly been called to Reiki. If not, there’s always barber college.

If you are truly interested in Total Reiki Mastery, than this Reiki calling is a must. Reiki is a feeling deep down in your soul that connects you to the infinite. And through Reiki there is a genuine understanding of how the universe is here to support us and will unselfishly do so if we only invite it to. There is no limit to the wonder that is Reiki and if you look deep enough into the flame you will see that.

So the next time you chuckle at the thought of the foolish man walking with the torch in daylight, or the foolish man stumbling in the dark without one, remember that they may in fact be the same man, who, just as yourself, is only looking for understanding.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!