Japan - The birthplace of Reiki

History

In March 1922, Mikao Usui retreated to Mount Kurama, north of Kyoto, to meditate. He fasted and meditated in the gassho position (prayer hands) for twenty days.

On the last day of his journey, a great energy, described as a lightning bolt, entered his forehead, and he became unconscious.

When he came back to consciousness, his whole body thrummed with energy and vitality.

He climbed down the mountain, and in the nearby village, he broke his fast. There, he encountered a girl with a toothache. He laid his hands on her and cured the ache. This made him realize that this energy running through him ran through all living beings: Reiki.

Mikao Usui did not invent Reiki. He figured out how to channel it, focus it, and use it for healing.

In Tokyo, he founded the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Usui Healing Method Association)

Usui Sensei transmitted his knowledge of Reiki to Chujiro Hayashi.

In the 1930s, Hawayo Takata, a Japanese American living in Hawaii, got sick with a life-threatening disease. She traveled to Japan to get an operation, but when she was lying on the operating table, she heard a voice telling her, "This operation is not necessary." She heard this three times and left the operating room. She asked her physician if there were any alternatives to surgery. The physician introduced her to Chujiro Hayashi.

After several months of treatment at his clinic in Tokyo, she was cured and started her own path of learning Reiki.

Mount Kurama

My motivation for coming to Japan was to walk in the footsteps of Mikao Usui. I felt called to see the place he chose to retreat and meditate.

Mount Kurama is conveniently accessible from Kyoto via public transportation.

The hike up Mount Kurama is easy and serene. It combines nature, culture, and spirituality: my favorites. I made a reel of my climb up, which you can find here.

This is the place I longed to see. The very place where Mikao Usui received the Reiki healing codes.

I start walking up through paths lined with red lamp posts and going under intricate wooden gates. I hike past mossy groves, trickling waters, and charming pagodas. Colorful ribbons encircle the sacred cedars. Dragon sculptures spit out sacred spring water. On the steps leading up, I am greeted by flowers on stone posts and deer. I stop at Kurama temple (pictured below) to admire the view. I stand on its diamond terrace to take in the energy of the place. This is not the top, however, and I keep going, stopping by the bell tower. When I reached the very top, I nestled in the cedar roots to meditate.

Coincidentally (or not), I was writing Root at the time, the first tome of The Chakras Chronicles, and while I sat within this ancient, visible root system, I received information to make the book better.

Jikiden Reiki

Arriving in Kyoto, I emailed the Jikiden Reiki Institute. Jikiden Reiki is the form in which Reiki was first taught. It is a technique free from Western influence, simple, pure, and grounded.

I went to the institute in Kyoto when I didn't receive a response to my email, only to find out that they only offer classes in Japanese.

This was my lucky day, however, for I met Amanda Jayne and Silke Kleeman.

On a rainy day in Kyoto, we chatted around a cup of warm tea.

Amanda Jayne offers Jikiden Reiki training in English; you can find all the details here. Before teaching Jikiden Reiki in the West, she needs to give ample context because it is so reliant on Japanese culture.

They taught me so much about Reiki.

Book references

• Light on the Origins of Reiki by Tadao Yamaguchi

• This is Reiki by Frank Arjavan Petter

• Women in Reiki: Lifetimes dedicated to healing in 1930s Japan and today by Amanda Jayne and Silke Kleeman

Chiyoko Yamaguchi

Amanda studied Reiki from Chiyoko Yamaguchi, who learned it directly from Chujiro Hayashi. Chiyoko raised her children with Reiki and insisted that Reiki was simple. In her youth, Reiki was a community modality. When one person got sick or injured, many people gathered around to give treatment. Chiyoko, along with her son Tadao, founded the Jikiden Reiki Institute in Kyoto to teach Reiki in the original, Japanese style.

Reiki attunement process

​In the United States, I have followed a three-part attunement process to become a Reiki healer.

• Reiki level one: Self-healing

• Reiki level two: Healing others

• Reiki level three: Distance healing and teaching

In Jikiden Reiki, the process consists of five levels:

• Shoden - to learn physical treatment for yourself and others

• Okuden - to learn psychological and distant treatments

• Shihankaku - to become an assistant teacher

• Shihan - to become a full teacher

• Daihihan - to become a teacher of teachers

Difficulties finding Reiki practitioners in Japan

I came to Japan expecting to find many practitioners to learn from. It was not so. The only Reiki healers I met were foreigners. How could it be, in the very city where this modality was invented?

When I met Amanda and Silke, my stay in Japan was coming to an end. After a month in Kyoto, I was desperate to find the research partners I craved.

They explained that after World War 2, Reiki went underground in Japan. One of the sanctions of the West on Japan was that they would now use Western medicine instead of their indigenous medicine.

Reiki was essentially banned from that point on, and the Japanese public seems to regard it as a cult today.

Chujiro Hayashi taught Reiki to Hawayo Takata in the 1930s. She returned to Hawaii but only started teaching Reiki in the 1970s, giving us the Western style of Reiki we know today.