About Reiki

Reiki is a wonderful holistic system of hands-on healing, which helps to relax the body, balance the emotions and clear the mind.

The techniques, once learned, last a lifetime and enhance any other forms of complimentary therapy. With Reiki, you could heal members of your family, including pets, when they are stressed or ill. Anyone can learn and benefit from Reiki.

How Reiki is taught

Reiki One: First Degree
This is a two-day workshop. It is the level for treating family, friends and most importantly, yourself. You will be introduced to the history of Reiki, the chakra system and how to perform a healing on yourself and others. You will receive a manual and certificate.

At Level 1, the attunement opens the student to the flow of Reiki. Traditionally in Usui Reki the outer focus of Level 1 is on hands-on therapy at a purely physical level – both for self-treatment and the treating of others.

However the inner focus of Reiki at Level 1 is about learning to become a clear channel for Reiki. Level 1 is about learning to 'let go' and let the energy flow – about learning to override the desire of one's conscious mind to interfere in the therapeutic process and instead simply let the Reiki happen.

The attitude should be one of compassion and detachment – sitting quietly, not doing, not seeking outcomes – just letting Reiki energy flow without our conscious mind getting in the way. If healing happens it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. The decision is not ours to make.

Reiki always acts for the good of the recipient. The way that good manifests is not ours to control or to try to manipulate. We are merely channels of the healing energy. Our good intent, compassion and detachment are all that are needed.

Reiki Two: Second Degree
This is the Practitioner's level at which you can offer healing to the public. This is of benefit to existing therapists who wish to add Reiki to the therapies they already offer. This is also a two-day workshop with manual and certificate provided.

Reiki Master/Teacher: Third Degree
This is a three-day residential workshop for those students committed to Reiki and with a real desire to pass Reiki to others.

Mindfulness & Compassion

Mindfulness and compassion, we believe are two essential components of Reiki practice. Whether we are treating others, working on ourselves, empowering others or living our lives with Reiki, we should grow to embody those two states, the essence of Reiki principles.

According to Usui Sensei's surviving students, mindfulness was taught at First Degree level, and emphasised further to Second Degree. Mindfulness is a state of living in the moment, of being relaxed, calm and fully-engaged in what we are doing. Mindfulness is being aware of what is happening right now and giving ourselves completely to our task without distraction. By learning how to enjoy and be in the present moment we can find peace within ourselves.

I believe we are exhorted to achieve this status by the principles, where 'just for today' we release anger and worry. These are distractions. We don't dwell on the past and beat ourselves up for things that did not go the way we wanted, we do not think about the future and worry about things that have not yet happened. Our reality is illusion. We can learn to release our attachments to the past and the future and just 'be' now, content and accepting in the moment. The principles both represent a goal to work towards and a description of the effects that Reiki can produce within us, over time, if we work with the energy in a committed, dedicated way.

The final principle, that of being 'compassionate towards ourselves and others' is an exhortation to be gentle with ourselves, to be patient, to be light-hearted, not to take ourselves quite so seriously and above all to be forgiving – first of all to ourselves but also of others. By accepting and forgiving ourselves we start to release our anger and our worry, and move towards a state of contentment in the moment.

The original system was a spiritual path, a path to enlightenment, and the principles were what the Usui system was all about. These principles are a foundation for everything we do with Reiki; the states of mindfulness and compassion arise from following the principles and from working with Reiki.

For example, how do you feel when we carry out a Reiki treatment? Treating someone with Reiki is a special gift. We feel a closeness, an intimacy, a merging with the recipient, we receive trust and experience compassion. Ideally we should just be there in the moment, with the energy, with the recipient, with no expectations. We do not treat someone with the intention to resolve their problems or eliminate their headache. We just merge with the energy and allow Reiki to do its work. We create a sacred space for healing to occur, if our mind wanders, as it may do, then we notice this and gently but firmly bring our attention back to the present and what we are doing. We become one with the energy as it flows through us, and we become one with the recipient, and we experience that blissful contentment that is the moment.

Though some are taught that you can hold a conversation with someone you treat, or watch television at the same time, this really will not lead to the best being given to the recipient. To be the most effective channel we can be, we need to be there with the energy, fully and gently engaged in our work giving ourselves fully to the task without distration.

Those same principles apply when working on ourselves. The state we should seek to achieve is that of being fully engaged in the endeavour, of being with the energy without distraction, merged, aware and simply existing in the moment, with a gentle feeling of forgiveness, love and compassion towards ourselves.

So both mindfulness and compassion are fundamental to our lives with Reiki. That is the essence of the treatments, the principles and the essence of our life with Reiki.