ORIGINAL
REIKI
HISTORY
Mikao Usui
Mikao
Usui is the man responsible for developing the healing technique that is
now known as 'Reiki'. He was born on August 15, 1865 in the village of
Yago in the Yamagata district of Gifu prefecture, Japan, and he died on
March 9th, 1926. Reiki seems to have come into being in about 1919.
Usui grew up at a time when Japanese society and culture
was going through a period of rapid change. It was not until the 1850s
that Japan opened itself up to the Western world; before that time Japan
had been a closed society. It was the United States that finally forced
Japan to open its borders and its economy to the outside world. This
event led to a great flood of new ideas and traditions coming into Japan
from all over the world.
Not only that, but Japan underwent a period of rapid
industrialisation, transforming itself from a feudal society into an
industrialised nation - able to compete with the West on an equal
footing - within a period of only 30-40 years. Such a period of rapid
change created a real climate of 'wanting to keep hold of traditional
culture' and wanting to rekindle and maintain ancient traditions. Usui
grew up during this period: Japan was a melting pot of new ideas, with
many new spiritual systems and healing techniques being developed. Reiki
was one of these systems.
Mikao Usui had an interesting life. As a child, he seems
to have entered a Tendai Buddhist monastery near Mt. Kurama ("Horse
Saddle Mountain"). He would have studied 'kiko' (the Japanese version of
Chi Kung) to an advanced level - and maybe practised projection healings
- and he was exposed to martial arts from about 12 years of age. In
adulthood, he seems to have been a monk for a while - not a cloistered
monk, but a monk who lives in the community - and worked as a
businessman and as a diplomatic aide. It is during his time in
diplomatic service that he may have had the opportunity to travel to
other countries, and it seems that he travelled to America, Europe and
China.
Usui Sensei was interested in a great many things and seems to have
studied voraciously. There was a large University library in Kyoto, and
Japanese sources believe that he would have done most of his research
there, where sacred texts from all over the world would have been held.
He seems to have studied traditional Chinese medicine and Western
medicine (though not on a formal basis), numerology and astrology,
psychic and clairvoyant development, and he was a member of 'Rei Jyutsu
Kai', which was a high-level spiritual development group.
But what prompted Usui to pursue all these studies?
Well, according to Hiroshi Doi, a member of Usui's Reiki Association in
Japan, Mikao Usui was wondering what the ultimate purpose of life was,
and set out to try to understand this. After some time he finally
experienced an enlightenment: the ultimate life purpose was 'Anshin
Rytsu Mei' - the state of your mind being totally in peace, knowing what
to do with your life, being bothered by nothing. Doi says that with this
revelation, Usui researched harder, for 3 years, trying to achieve this
goal. Finally, he turned to a Zen master for advice on how to attain
this life purpose. The master replied "If you want to know; die!" Usui-sensei
lost hope at this and thought, "My life is over". He then went to Mt.
Kurama and decided to fast until he died.
Whether or not this story is completely accurate, it
seems that Usui was looking for a way of knowing one's life's purpose
and to be content, and despite all his exhaustive research, he could not
find the answer to this question. He was prompted him to go to Mount
Kurama and to carry out a 21-day meditation and fast called 'Lotus
Repentance Meditation', which derives from Tendai Buddhism. Usui carried
out the meditation and, according to his memorial stone, he experienced
an enlightenment or 'sartori' that led to the development of Reiki,
though there is some evidence that Usui had actually been teaching his
spiritual system for several years before carrying out the meditation at
Mount Kurama. One definition of the word 'Reiki' is 'a system that has
come into being through a moment of enlightenment'. Originally, Usui
referred to his system as 'teate' (pronounced tee-ah-tay') which means
'hand healing' or 'hand application'. The name 'Reiki' came later. In
fact, there is a long tradition of 'palm healing' in Japan, and this is
one of the traditions that Usui drew upon in creating what is now called
Reiki.
Reiki is a technique or method that is based firmly on
the esoteric principles that were represented in Japan in the early part
of last century. It is based on the principles of Traditional Chinese
Medicine and energy transfer techniques like Chi Kung. Even martial
arts, at which Usui excelled, develop into healing systems at the
highest levels. Reiki draws upon 'mystical' Tendai Buddhism and
Shintoism in terms of the use of symbols within Reiki, and Tendai
Buddhism in terms of the energy exercises and traditional empowerments
that are now emerging from Japan. Usui brought together all these
various strands in a unique way. His technique allows anyone to be
connected permanently to a source of healing energy. Once attuned, you
can channel this energy without having to dedicate yourself to many
years of practice, and it is possible for anyone to learn how to bestow
this ability on others through a simple connection ritual.
Reiki is generally promoted within the West as a healing
system. However, it seems that the original impetus for the development
of Reiki was the personal benefits that would be experienced if one
could come to know one's true purpose in life and be content. It seems
that there are further spiritual exercises within the original system of
Reiki that have yet to be passed to the West. The healing benefits were
a useful extra. In its original form, Reiki was a path to enlightenment.
Mount Kurama, where Usui experienced his sartori, is a
holy mountain. It is near Kyoto, the former capital of Japan, a place
which I heard described on a recent television travel programme as being
'the spiritual heart of Japan' - a place with a thousand temples
representing a whole range of deities. Mount Kurama is also important
from a martial arts perspective, being the place where mountain spirits
are said to have given the secrets of fighting to the Samurai.
According to Usui's Memorial stone, a translation of
which you can read, Usui was a very well-known and popular healer, and
he taught a large number of students all over Japan. In 1922 Usui opened
a 'seat of learning' in Tokyo, though there is evidence of him having
taught as early as 1915. Most of his many students started out as
patients. If they wanted to treat themselves in-between appointments
then Usui would give them empowerments so that they were connected to
Reiki permanently. If they wanted to take things further then they could
begin an open-ended programme of training in the Reiki technique, and
adopt Reiki as a spiritual path: a path to enlightenment. The system was
all about giving healings to people, teaching people how to heal
themselves, providing spiritual exercises and spiritual teachings.
Usui's way of doing things seems quite open-ended, based on an ongoing
commitment to weekly training sessions, rather in the way that martial
arts is taught. This was soon to change: after his death his clinic was
passed to three of his students, one of whom was a retired surgeon
commander from the Imperial Navy: Dr Chujiro Hayashi.
Dr. Chujiro Hayashi
Dr Hayashi received his Reiki Master training from Mikao
Usui in about 1925, when he was 47 years old. He only trained with Usui
for perhaps 9 months, so it is unlikely that he had been taught the full
Reiki system. Although he achieved Mastership with Usui, it seems that
Usui taught Reiki at different 'depths'. This short period of time would
not be long enough for Dr Hayashi to have received the full Oriental
system. Others took many years to achieve even the basic levels of Reiki
with Usui. Dr Hayashi was responsible, with a couple of other Imperial
Officers, for setting up the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Usui's Reiki
Healing System Association) after Usui's death, though he left after a
while, it seems because of the many changes that the other officers were
making to Usui's system. Though he had not learned everything from Usui,
he wanted to remain true to what he had learned, so he renamed the
system and went out on his own. The other naval officers were also some
of Usui's less experienced students.
Dr Hayashi seemed to have left out most of the spiritual
aspects of Reiki from his teachings, and focused more on the healing
potential of the system rather than the 'path to enlightenment'. The
fact that he was a Christian, and his military and particularly his
medical background, may have influenced this change of direction. He
seemed to have introduced a more structured approach to the practice and
teaching of Reiki. He used what appears to be a more complicated
attunement process which involved the use of the Reiki symbols, which
Usui's empowerments did not, his training courses were for a fixed
period rather than being open-ended, and he developed a more complicated
set of hand positions that could be used by multiple practitioners in
his clinic. Dr Hayashi seems to have kept detailed records of the
treatments that were given, and used this information to create his
'standard' hand positions for different ailments. However, he still
expected his students to be able to use advanced scanning or intuitive
techniques to work out their hand positions, with his 'standard'
positions as a fallback position.
Usui's approach seems to be more simple and intuitive,
with students making an open-ended commitment to regular weekly training
sessions where they would receive spiritual empowerments and learn to
allow the energy to guide their hands. Dr Hayashi would teach First
Degree over a five-day structured course, with each day's training
taking 90 minutes, and students would receive his more complicated
attunements on four occasions during this training, by way of echoing
Usui's weekly empowerment sessions. There seems to have been nothing
significant in the number four: it was nice to do a few, and it probably
fitted in nicely with his schedule.
It is said that Dr Hayashi wanted to pass Reiki on to
someone who was not going to be called up to fight in the War, and
fortunately a Japanese-American lady called Hawayo Takata turned up in
his clinic…
Hawayo Takata
Hawayo
Takata was born in 1900 on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. She came to Dr
Hayashi's clinic suffering from a number of serious medical conditions
that were resolved through Reiki, but she was originally intending to
receive conventional Western medical treatments for her tumour,
gallstones and appendicitis. The story goes, though, that on the
operating table (just before the surgery was about to start) Mrs Takata
heard a voice that said "The operation is not necessary". She is said to
have refused the operation, and asked her Doctor if he knew of any other
way to restore her health. The doctor referred her to Dr. Hayashi and
she began receiving a course of treatments.
Mrs Takata was quite sceptical about Reiki. She felt so
much heat from the practitioners' hands that she was sure they were
using some sort of electrical equipment - maybe little electric heaters
secreted in the palms of their hands! She looked in the large sleeves of
their Japanese kimonos, under the treatment table, but there was nothing
there. Her scepticism turned into belief as her health problems
resolved, and she decided that she wanted to learn Reiki for herself.
Dr Hayashi wanted to teach Reiki to another woman
besides his wife, and since Mrs. Takata was so persistent he decided to
teach her to Master level. This happened in 1938. Dr Hayashi gave Mrs
Takata permission to teach Reiki in the West, and she did so in the USA.
She was the 13th and probably the last Reiki Master that Dr. Hayashi
initiated, and between 1970 and her death in 1980 Mrs Takata taught 22
Reiki Masters. Until quite recently, all Reiki practitioners in the
Western world derived their Reiki from this lady, and could trace their
'lineage' through her to Dr Hayashi and Mikao Usui. You can see your
lineage elsewhere in this manual.
The original twenty-two teachers have passed on the
Reiki tradition, and Reiki has spread throughout North and South
America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia to many parts of the world.
It is almost impossible to estimate the number of Reiki Masters and
practitioners in the world, but it must run into tens of thousands, and
millions, respectively.
But is cannot have been easy for Mrs Takata, teaching a
Japanese healing technique in the United States, after the Second World
War, with memories of Pearl Harbour still in everyone's minds. The
American population was not particularly well disposed towards anything
connected with Japan. Nowadays people are exposed continually to
magazine articles about feng shui, tai chi and other energy cultivation
techniques, ideas of traditional Chinese medicine, meridians, chi and
the like, and alternative medicine in general. When Mrs Takata was
teaching Reiki, these ideas must have seemed to have come from another
planet! Mrs Takata was trying to transmit her whole culture, and it was
a totally alien one as far as her students were concerned.
For this reason, Hawayo Takata was forced to modify,
simplify and change the Reiki that she had been taught by Chujiro
Hayashi, in order for it to be acceptable to the Westerners that she
dealt with. The Reiki that she had been taught by Dr Hayashi had already
been modified by him after he had been taught by Mikao Usui. Not only
did Mrs Takata have to modify the practices of Reiki, but she also felt
obliged to fabricate a story about the history of Reiki to make it more
acceptable to a hostile American public. Out went Mikao Usui, Tendai
Buddhist, and in came Dr Mikao Usui, Christian theologian, who travelled
the world on a great quest to discover a healing system that explained
the healing miracles that Jesus performed. So stories about Usui being a
Christian Doctor, going on a world-wide quest, and studying theology at
various Universities along they way, are just fabrication. Despite this,
they are repeated again and again in Reiki books, even ones that have
been published recently.
As well as putting together a Reiki ‘fable’, Mrs Takata
ended up being referred to as ‘Grand Master’ of Reiki, to make a
distinction between herself and the Masters that she taught. This is an
office, position or title that was not envisioned by Mikao Usui. In fact
Usui’s original Reiki Association (the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai) is still
going strong in Japan and has had a list of presidents over the years.
The idea of a Grand Master in Reiki is nonsense. Reiki is a gentle and
powerful healing technique that can be passed as a gift from one person
to another, and is not based on the idea of gurus or great masters to
whom one has to pay homage. Unfortunately, some people in the Reiki
community are greatly wedded to the idea of 'The Office of Grand Master'
and the narrow and dogmatic view of Reiki that is approved by the
current incumbent, Mrs Takata's grand-daughter, Phyllis Lei Furumoto.
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