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CHAPTER 1

Precepts are Instructions

At the heart of the system of Reiki are the precepts:

Do not be angry Do not worry Be grateful Practice this diligently Show compassion to yourself and others
There are many layers within the precepts and one of these layers is instruction, as the word precept also means instruction. Not only are they instructing us to not be angry and worried, but as the heart of the system of Reiki, the precepts also instruct us how to utilize all other practices within this system.

These other practices are meditation techniques, hands-on healing, symbols and mantras, and the reiju/initiation/attunement.

Let's take a closer look at these instructions and how they relate to some of the practices.

Say we are doing hands-on healing on someone and afterwards they say, "I did not like this session." Often we might get angry or worried, but the precepts instruct us just to let it be.

We often use the word "giving" when we perform hands-on healing on others, or even in connection to the reiju/initiation/attunement. But if we follow the instruction of compassion, then there is nothing to give. Within real compassion there is no giver, gift, and receiver – just being. We also can see this in the kanji of Reiju. Ju means both to give and receive at the same time. Spiritual giving is letting go of the "I" who is giving in the first place. This kind of giving is a natural giving, so natural that we do not even have to call it giving. It is being as natural as the sun; the sun just shines and is not thinking, "I am giving this light to the birds, the people," and so on. It is just shining naturally. So we are not "giving" so much as we are "being" Reiki.

The precepts also are instructing us that we need to practice diligently. Thus we need to practice daily the meditation techniques, practice daily meditations on the symbols and mantras, practice daily hands-on healing on ourselves, practice all aspects of the system of Reiki to deepen our experiences with it.

Being grateful means that we need to be grateful for all of the experiences we have during the practices, no matter if we label them good or bad.

Following these instructions therefore helps us to become more compassionate during our practice, teachings, and daily life.

The Precepts are for Healing Yourself

Within the Reiki community, we often see just handson healing as a means for healing ourselves. But in reality it is not just hands-on healing; the whole system of Reiki consists of tools for healing ourselves.

Healing ourselves means to make whole, and this doesn't always mean fixing a physical issue. Wholeness is a state of mind: a mind in which we feel happy, content, at peace, and full of compassion and insights.

For example, let's look at the Reiki precepts:

Do not anger Do not worry Be grateful Be true to your way and your being Show compassion to yourself and others
We can just say the precepts three times once a day, which is wonderful. Or we can sit down in meditation and meditate upon the precepts. By meditating on the precepts we start to gain a direct insight into why we get angry, why we get worried, why we do not feel grateful even if we have so many things to appreciate in our lives, why we find it hard to be true to our way and our being, and why we find it difficult to be compassionate to ourselves and others.

But sitting down in meditation takes up more time than just saying the precepts three times, and this is why it is not often taught in a class as a form of healing ourselves.

However, as the precepts are the foundation of the system of Reiki, meditating on the precepts is a very important element of Mikao Usui's teachings as a means for healing ourselves.

What starts to happen when we gain a direct insight into our anger and worry? We start to see why we get angry and worried in the first place. And by seeing this we can take action to soften our anger and worry. If we do not see that we get angry or worried, if we are blind to our own anger and worry, then we cannot do anything about it. Thus a direct insight into our anger and worry helps us to soften the grip on our anger and worry. Instead of clinging tightly to it, we can allow ourselves to feel the anger or worry; we can acknowledge it, and then let it go.

By softening our grip on anger and worry, we start to feel more grateful. And this will move into being more true to our way and our being. By taking that a step further, now we also will become more compassionate to ourselves and others.

Thus we can see that meditating on the precepts is a method for healing ourselves. This in turn will help us to create a more compassionate mind/heart, therefore allowing us to be more compassionate to the world around us. The precepts are directly about healing ourselves, which indirectly has a healing effect on the world around us.

If we look at each practice within Mikao Usui's teachings in this way, we can start to see that meditating on the symbols and mantras is about healing ourselves, that practicing the meditation practices like joshin kokyu ho is about healing ourselves, that the reiju/initiation/attunement is about healing ourselves, and that hands-on healing on ourselves and others is about healing ourselves. But remember, healing ourselves is not just physical healing. Real healing – wholeness – is a state of mind/heart in which we have found inner peace, a state of mind/heart filled with compassion and insight.

On the Wall or In Your Heart?

The precepts are the most important element within the system of Reiki; they are the foundation of the system. Without understanding the foundation, the whole system will crumble like a house without a good solid base.

Some people just stick the precepts on the wall, may recite them a few times a day and that is about it. Some teachers even insist that you must always perform the reiju/initiation/attunement in front of the precepts as they hang on the wall. But merely hanging the precepts on the wall doesn't bring them into your heart.

The real reason the precepts are there is for us to learn to embody them in our hearts. We can only do this by embodying all of the other elements within the system of Reiki. How do we embody them? We do this by meditating upon them. Simply repeating them three times is not enough; we must contemplate what they mean and what their inner secret is. This is not always that easy.

So Mikao Usui also added different tools within his teachings to help us to bring the precepts in our hearts. These tools are meditations: meditating on the mantras and the symbols, meditating with the hand positions, being in a meditative state of mind while performing and receiving the reiju/initiation/attunement, and meditating with techniques like hatsurei ho and joshin kokyu ho.

If we get too attached to the idea of needing the precepts on the wall to recite, or to see when we do a reiju/initiation/attunement, then we cannot take the wisdom of the precepts out into the big, wide world. When we go out, we are not always carrying the precepts with us on a piece of paper in our pocket. But more importantly, when we carry the precepts in our hearts, we are always ready to be Reiki with others. And to perform reijus/spiritual blessings, we need to embody the precepts in our hearts.

The real secret of the system of Reiki is therefore meditation. And it is by practicing these meditation techniques that we start to bring the precepts from the wall into our hearts, where they really belong.

Chanting or Reciting the Precepts

One day a student asked me what would be more beneficial, chanting the precepts or reciting them? A complete version follows in English and Japanese, with the words that came before and after the precepts themselves:

The secret method to invite blessings The spiritual medicine of 10,000 illnesses Today only Do not anger Do not worry Be grateful Practice diligently Show compassion to yourself and others
We often are told to recite the precepts three times, either in Japanese or in our own language. But we all know that just by reciting the precepts three times we will not really embody them. If it were that simple, then by now the whole world would have no more anger and worry, and always would be filled with gratitude and compassion. We would just ask everybody to recite the precepts three times and presto! The world becomes a better place. But as we all know, it is not that simple.

Don't get me wrong; reciting is great. But to recite is to speak from memory, so this can become merely an intellectual experience. Reciting mainly comes from our throat and from our intellectual mind; in the background, our memory/mind tells us "this is the first precept, which is followed by the second precept" and so on. Often this means that reciting only triggers some energy within our heads.

However, Mikao Usui suggested within the precepts themselves that we bear them deeply in our mind/heart. This is done through chanting them. As the precepts say, "Every morning and evening, join your hands in prayer (gassho). Bear deeply in your mind/heart and chant these words with your mouth."

To chant the precepts is something very different from simple recitation. In this case the precepts are seen as a mantra. The word mantra means "protection for the mind."

It protects the mind from not straying into the past, present, and future. This helps keep the mind from getting angry or worried and helps us become more compassionate.

Within Shoden Reiki Level I we learn the meditation joshin kokyu ho in which we breathe deeply into the hara/tanden. This practice, called okinagaho in Japanese, triggers deep, long breathing and helps to increase power in the physical body. This power can then be used, for example, to help us not get angry or worried and to be compassionate to ourselves and others.

The deep long breathing also ensures that when we use the precepts as a mantra, the sound emanates from the center of our being, from the hara/tanden. Thus the energy being released through chanting can travel throughout our whole being, not just within our head. This way we start to bear the precepts deeply in our mind/heart, and not just in our memory.

But even if we chant the mantra just three times like this, that doesn't make much change either. Therefore to really bear the precepts in our mind/heart we need to chant them for a prolonged period of time, maybe 20 minutes for example. This will help to rest our mind on our hara/tanden because of the deep long breathing, which in turn helps us to become more grounded and centered. This in turn helps us to become less angry and worried. You see all the practices within the system of Reiki are interrelated.

Of course we can say it is semantics, recite vs. chant, but that depends on how we recite. If we recite with the deep long breathing pattern from our hara/tanden, then reciting becomes mantra.

So which is better, chanting or reciting? Both are good as long as we recite or chant for a prolonged period of time and the sounds come from our hara/tanden, our center. This will help us to embody the precepts more and more so that we can become the precepts.

When an experienced practitioner talks, his words have a blessed energy. He may be talking about the same thing the scholars are, but the way he expresses himself touches your heart. The talk of those without experience is like the empty wind whistling about your ears.

– Lama Thubten Yeshe, When the Chocolate Runs Out

So, as we deepen our practice, we expand our experience. As we expand our experience, our words and the way we express them takes on more and more of this blessed energy, as Lama Thubten Yeshe says. So whether reciting or chanting, let's go deeper in our practice with the precepts. In doing this, our words will touch not only our own heart, but others' hearts as well.

Spiritual Medicine

Within the precepts we see the phrase "spiritual medicine." But what does spiritual medicine stand for?

The secret of inviting happiness through many blessings The spiritual medicine for all illness

For today only:

Do not anger Do not worry Be grateful Practice diligently Be compassionate to yourself and others
One day I was reading though a wonderful book, Immortal Sisters: Secrets of Taoist Women, translated and edited by Thomas Cleary. In it, I came across this interesting quote:

Attentively guard the spiritual medicine, with every breath return to the beginning of the creative.

It goes on to say, "The spiritual medicine is subtle being, and subtle being means true breathing. So attentively guarding the spiritual medicine means keeping the attention on the breathing."

Within this quote they say that the spiritual medicine is subtle being. For me this subtle being is our true self, our essence. But the quote goes even further; to be able to stay in this state of mind of true self/subtle being, we need to keep our attention on the breathing. This is why Mikao Usui not only put meditation practices like joshin kokyu ho and hatsurei ho within his system,but also included mantras in his teachings. When we chant a mantra, we perform deep breathing. Our attention is not just on the sound, but also on the deep breathing which is essential to the mantra.

But why is placing our attention on our breathing so important to guard our spiritual medicine, our true self? When we place our attention on our breathing, we are mindful. We do not stray into the past, present, and future. To guard our spiritual medicine, our true self, we need to be mindful not to cover it up with worry, fear, and anger. And this we do through keeping our attention on our breathing. We get angry or worried because we stray into the past, present, and future. This is really what the precepts are pointing out.

Imagine getting worried; what is our mind doing? It is going into the past or future. But if we are putting our attention on our breathing, it stays in the moment and therefore we are not getting worried.

If we get angry, but then we start to focus on our breathing, what happens? We have created a pause, some patience. By placing our attention on our breathing rather than following our anger, this pause will help us to let go of our anger.

This is why all the breathing practices within the system of Reiki are so important: they all are tied in with the precepts.

To sum it all up, the real spiritual medicine is our true self, and the precepts are pointers. And to help ourselves to embody the precepts, we place our attention on our breathing. This is guarding our spiritual medicine, minding our true self.

Do Not Bear Anger for Anger is an Illusion

Within the system of Reiki, the first precept says this: Do not anger.

However, it is said that Mikao Usui also was teaching a more elaborate precept about anger to some of his Buddhist students. That precept goes like this: Do not bear anger for anger is an illusion.

It is not hard to get an intellectual grasp of what the word "bear" means in this precept. "Do not bear anger" really means do not carry it around with you. Just observe it arising; don't bear it, and it will dissolve all by itself.

However, "anger is an illusion" is much harder to grasp.

In 2016 I met up with Orgyen Chowang in California who wrote a wonderful book called Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness.

In his book he writes very clearly about what illusion means and how this relates to anger. Here is a quote from his book:

Illusoriness is sometimes misunderstood to mean that there is nothing there. If nothing appeared, however, we would not refer to it as an illusion because there would be no object to be an illusion. The point of illusoriness is that there seems to be something there, but doesn't really exist as we think it does. Something appears, and in ordinary mind we are convinced something is real, but what we think it is in actuality does not exist in the way it appears.

"Anger is an illusion" therefore doesn't mean that anger is not there. It is there but it does not exist in the way it appears; it does not exist in the way we may think it does.

Chowang also states: " ... if we pay attention to our anger and other negative emotions, they grow more powerful; if we do not pay attention to them, they disappear." This quote really points to the word "bear." If we pay no attention to our anger it will dissolve. Or in other words, if we do not bear our anger it will dissolve.

Orgyen Chowang continues with, "When we do this, the angry energy fades away into nothingness because it was an illusion. Anger is an illusory appearance like the rainbow and the clouds. Circumstances and our perception make that anger appear. When we look closely at that anger, when we focus on the energy of anger and look directly at it, our perception shifts; we see there is nothing really there that we can identify as 'anger.'"

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Excerpted from "Reiki Insights"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Frans Stiene.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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