Reiki Mindfulness Practice is the Powerful Twin of Mindfulness Meditation
The original word for what has been translated as “Mindfulness”, is “Sati” in Pali and “Smriti” in Sanskrit. It means awareness from moment to moment, being mindful, remembering to remain aware of both the external surroundings and events, as well as internal experiences, such as thoughts and emotions, the felt sense of the body, proprioception etc. It is about open awareness of what is, about monitoring current experience without reacting to it or judging it.
In practice, this usually means a continuous awareness of one’s breath, bodily sensations, mental & emotional fluctuations and the immediate surroundings.
This greatly helps to stabilise the practitioner’s attention and keep it calm and centred during the Reiki practice.
Reiki shares these practical elements with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction techniques (“MBSR”, developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 out of Buddhist teachings).
Reiki is perhaps the most natural and accessible form of mindfulness practice.
The practice of Reiki and MBSR, and other forms of mindfulness practice, are like different facets of the same thing. The added benefit of Reiki is that it facilitates a greater access to the universal life force (Ki, Qi or Prana) and a sense of connection to the deep wisdom and consciousness of nature (Rei).
Reiki is a mindfulness tool, and mindfulness deepens the experience of Reiki.
Courses in mindfulness practices are being taught at most universities and colleges across the UK, in some for over 20 years now.
For many years now, courses in mindfulness practices have been taught at most universities and colleges across the UK (University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Aberdeen, University of the West of Scotland, Bangor University, University of Exeter, to name a few).
Reiki and mindfulness can help relieve symptoms.
Mindfulness practices can help people to cope with and improve symptoms caused by long-term illness. It can help to relieve various symptoms and conditions, including:
- chronic pain (pain that lasts for more than 3 months)
- stress and anxiety
- sleep problems and daytime tiredness (fatigue)
- headaches
- migraine
- tension headaches
- irritable bowel syndrome
Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6597336/
The same benefits have been observed as a result of practising or receiving Reiki.
Links:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4147026/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187638201630422X
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9326483/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1525505024003196
Reiki in the beginning.
It is now widely accepted that the original Japanese founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui (1865 – 1926) initially taught Reiki as a form of mindfulness practice, to promote spiritual, mental, emotional and physical well-being. The emphasis on the therapeutic application of Reiki as a form of energy healing was introduced later-on by the medical doctor Chujiro Hayashi, one of Usui’s students and his main successor.
The following two books provide an excellent introduction to the concept and practice of mindfulness;
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Miracle-of-Mindfulness-by-Nht-Hanh/9781846041068
Reiki as a form of mindfulness practice.
If you have already completed a Reiki training course and are practising on yourself and others, then you will be familiar with Reiki as a form of mindfulness practice.
Techniques like the “Reiki Breath” (Jap. “Joshin Kokyu Ho”), the commonly felt sensations in the hands and the body (such as heat, tingling, pressure, magnetism, buzzing or fizziness etc., “Byosen” in Japanese), the sense of inner spaciousness and the movements of energy in and around the body- all of these provide “resting places” for our awareness to find calm, peace and mindfulness.
To point to a deeper spiritual dimension of mindfulness, I would like to refer to Ken Wilber’s book “One Taste”, where he describes how the continuous practice of mindfulness evolves into the constant consciousness of the “Silent Witness”, the Spirit (Rei) in all, the “One Taste” that is present in the waking state, and when dreaming and even in deep dreamless sleep.
My own training in mindfulness.
My own first training in mindfulness practices took place in a Zen dojo in Munich when I was 15 years old. It consisted mainly of watching my breathing, my thoughts and feelings, and letting them come and go “like clouds in the sky”, as the teacher used to say.
This is what I teach my Reiki students to do with their mind and their attention during a Reiki session.
During the decades that followed, I continued training with many other mindfulness and meditation teachers, including Sogyal Rinpoche, Ole Nydahl, Paramahamsa Prajnananada, Samual Sagan, Ashok Zaman, Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche and others.
