Not forbidden. July 16, 2014
Posted by ourfriendben in Reiki, Reiki wisdom.Tags: duality, enlightenment, Five Reiki Ideals, Five Reiki Precepts, Five Reiki Principles, Mikao Usui, non-duality, Reiki, Reiki and enlightenment, satori, Usui Founder
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“Everything not forbidden is compulsory.”
—Quantum mechanics principle, Nobel laureate and physicist Murray Gell-Mann
“Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.”
—Nikola Tesla
“If we believe that happiness arises only when some external condition is fulfilled, we consign ourselves to a perpetual state of discontent.”
—Sri Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By
“When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.”
—Lao Tzu (Laozi)
“Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.”
—The Buddha
“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
—Dogen Zenji
A Buddhist walked into a bar and told the bartender, “Make me One with everything.”
Duality and non-duality define the conflict between our mental and spiritual lives. Duality, dividing things into opposites, seems to be our native, reflexive state: this or that, this and that, this not that, this plus that, this minus that. Rich and poor, ugly and attractive, educated and ignorant, delicious and disgusting, old and young, fat and thin, athletic and indolent, pleasant and unpleasant, gifted and hopeless: The list of our dualities goes on and on.
And it is so hard to get away from them, even when we try as hard as we can. They may just be knee-jerk reactions brought on by cultural conditioning, or they may be hardwired into our system as a primitive survival mechanism that we just haven’t been able to ditch as we’ve evolved. Whatever the case, they stand between us and unity with the All, with all there is.
Every time we see a celebrity in a skimpy bikini and think something bad about her, or see a genuinely talented movie star posing in skimpy attire and wonder why women are still compelled to do that, whatever their acting gifts, and men aren’t, or curse an industry that promotes youth and anorexia as beauty while dissing and dismissing age and normal weight as hideous and unnatural, we’re following our natural human impulses. Ditto for cheering on one team and booing another, palling around with one coworker and avoiding another, spending way too much on a hot new car or tech toy rather than buying a sturdy, reliable used model.
Non-duality urges us to rise above all this, to see Kim Kardashian and Mother Teresa as one, Donald Trump and the Dalai Lama as one, Usui Founder and Hitler as one. To see the man who tortures helpless animals or, like Charles Manson, orders his followers to rip a pregnant woman’s baby from her womb, or, like the Taliban, cut the ears and noses off beautiful Afghan women simply because they’re beautiful, in the same light as we see Saint Francis, Rumi, or the Lord Jesus. Can we be, are we as humans, capable of this?
This state of non-duality is the very definition of sainthood, of enlightenment, satori. Its difficulty of achievement is why there are so few saints, so few enlightened ones. Blessed Mother Teresa was able to see in every human, however destitute, however ancient or ill, however hideous, “Christ in His distressing disguise.” She made no distinctions, she saw no duality. Her love was great enough to encompass all, even the rich and superficial.
As followers of the Reiki Way, we have the help of Usui Founder in our striving to move from duality (judgment) to non-duality (acceptance of all), through our practice of the Five Reiki Principles (aka Precepts, Ideals): “Just for today, don’t worry. Don’t get angry. Be grateful. Work hard. Be kind.” If we go through our day practicing the Principles as hard as we can, whenever we can, we will be moving further away from duality and closer, ever closer, to non-duality. Supplemental practices like meditation, chanting, and Reiki exercises such as deep (Hado) breathing, visualizations, and Hatsurei-Ho, also further our progress towards experiencing non-duality.
Let’s hit the (Reiki) road!
Just for today, follow the Principles.
Stillness and peace. June 21, 2014
Posted by ourfriendben in Reiki, Reiki wisdom.Tags: Bhagavad Gita, enlightenment, Hyakuten Inamoto, Komyo Reiki, Mikao Usui, Mount Kurama, Reiki, Reiki Principles, satori, Usui Founder
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“For those who wish to climb the mountain of spiritual awareness, the path is selfless work. For those who have attained the summit of union with the Lord, the path is stillness and peace.”
—Bhagavad Gita
This passage brings to mind Usui Founder’s climb to the summit of Mount Kurama and 21-day fasting meditation there in a grove of ancient trees. I have a great Reiki book on Mount Kurama, Reiki’s Birthplace: A Guide to Kurama Mountain by Jessica A. Miller, which of course has lots of photos of the mountain. I’d recommend it to anyone who follows the Reiki path. But until I studied Komyo Reiki, the Reiki of Enlightenment, with Hyakuten Inamoto Sensei, I didn’t realize what climbing Mount Kurama actually entailed.
Sensei takes groups of dedicated Reiki students to Mount Kurama regularly, and shows them the Buddhist temples and other sites that are relevant to Usui Founder’s enlightenment and revelation of Reiki, including the amazing trees he was sitting under when the beam of light struck his forehead on the morning of the 21st day and resulted in satori, enlightenment, and the resulting birth of Reiki. And Sensei gives slideshows during his classes and lectures that let the rest of us join him on that epic journey.
These slideshows really were eye-opening for me in terms of what the climb up Mount Kurama really entailed, especially in the heat and humidity or bitter cold that often prevail. We’re talking about thousands of steps here. I’d have passed out and fallen off the mountain long before reaching even a quarter of the climb. (For those who, like me, have no heat and humidity tolerance and aren’t in great mountain-climbing shape, there’s a “cheating” alternative—a sort of ski lift—but since I’m deathly afraid of heights and ski lifts swing you over the drop, that’s not an option for me either.)
So, even though the literal climb is beyond me, the figurative climb via the photos and Sensei’s description was phenomenal. Looking at the tree under which Usui Founder received enlightenment, with its great roots spreading over the earth rather than hiding beneath it, was just incredible. Which brings me back to the Gita.
In many ways, Usui Founder was climbing this mountain, the “mountain of spiritual awareness,” his whole life. Born into a Samurai family who practiced Tendai, “Pure Land,” Buddhism, his first encounters with spiritual awareness were within the Pure Land beliefs and those of Shinto, the national religion of Japan, which honors nature and respects all its aspects as sacred.
This aspect of Japanese spiritual life, practicing different faiths simultaneously without seeing a contradiction but rather an expansion, is quite alien to many Western, and even Eastern, practices. (“I’m a Presbyterian. I’m an Orthodox Jew. I’m a Sunni Muslim. I’m a Tibetan Buddhist. I’m a Catholic.”) But it enabled Usui Founder to investigate many religions, including Christianity, without having to feel that he had to choose between them. His natural curiosity and passion for the divine led him on his spiritual quest, placing his feet on the steps carved in the spiritual mountain long before he encountered the literal Mount Kurama.
But eventually, thanks to his monastic Buddhist mentors and after his world travels, Usui Founder did climb the literal mountain, Mount Kurama. And he did attain satori, enlightenment. And he came down from the mountain and spent the rest of his life doing “selfless work,” healing the victims of the great Tokyo earthquake and innumerable others, attracting thousands of followers and teaching them how to practice Reiki, for physical and spiritual healing of themselves and others.
Did this marvelous, selfless work bring Usui Founder stillness and peace? I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone living does. But I hope so with all my heart. Because I believe with all my heart that the Reiki path leads to stillness and peace. May each of you who walks or climbs it find this true pot of gold and the incredible contentment that it brings.
Just for today, practice your Reiki Principles and keep your feet on the path. It’s a long climb, but it’s worth it.
Hit the road. May 7, 2014
Posted by ourfriendben in Reiki, Reiki wisdom.Tags: Buddha, Chujiro Hayashi, Chujiro Hayashi-sensei, Dogen, Dogen Zenji, enlightenment, Mikao Usui, Reiki, satori, Soto Zen, spirituality, Sri Eknath Easwaran, the Buddha, The Reiki Way, Usui Founder, words to live by, Zen
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“As the Buddha was fond of saying, the spiritual teacher only points the way; we must do our own travelling.”
—Sri Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By
This is such a valuable lesson. Spiritual teachers, including Reiki teachers, can set our feet upon the path, but it’s up to us to find our own Reiki Way rather than clinging to our teacher(s) for continual guidance. Usui Founder, himself a Buddhist, was very aware of this, and he sent the students he felt were ready, such as Chujiro Hayashi Sensei, out into the world to find their own Way and transmit it to others, as he himself had done after his momentous satori (enlightenment) experience on Mount Kurama.
There is a beautiful story in the movie “Zen” about how Dogen Zenji, the 13th-century founder of the foremost Zen school, Soto Zen, is asked to come to the rescue of the leader of Japan, who’s suffering from a nervous breakdown because of all the horrible deaths he’s inflicted on his enemies. Dogen agrees, because he, like the lord who asked him, is convinced that all Japan will disintegrate into chaos if this ruler can’t keep his grip on the reigns of rule.
After arriving, Dogen asks the ruler if he can cut up the reflection of the moon in the water outside his castle. Well of course I can, the ruler replies, grabbing his sword and hacking into the water. The image of the moon splits in half. But, even as the ruler is smirking in triumph, the ripples his sword made in the water calm, and the image of the moon reforms, whole and pristine as ever.
The ruler realizes that Dogen is pointing the way, and begs him to stay and continue to teach him. But Dogen knows his work lies back at his modest monastery far away, so he resists all the ruler’s promises of vast wealth and influence and a huge monastery and goes his way. As he departs, the ruler recites one of Dogen’s own poems, proving that he, too, is ready to do his own travelling.
Did the ruler stay in touch with Dogen? The film doesn’t say, though it shows all of his closest disciples finding their own and varied Ways after his death. Should we stay in touch with our Reiki teachers? Absolutely. Should we find our own Way? Absolutely. Are these things incompatible? Absolutely not. The spiritual teacher sets our feet on the path, but we are the ones who have to walk it.
Just for today, keep walking.
Let in the light, let the light out. April 9, 2014
Posted by ourfriendben in Reiki, Reiki wisdom.Tags: enlightenment, Five Reiki Ideals, Five Reiki Precepts, Five Reiki Principles, Fra Giovanni, happiness, Jesus, Mikao Usui, Nirvana, Rabindranath Tagore, Reiki, Reiki and happiness, satori, the Buddha, Usui Founder
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“Nirvana is not the extinguishing of a candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.”
—Rabindranath Tagore
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
—The Buddha
I love these two quotes about candles, and how they guide us on our Reiki Way. The first reminds me of Usui Founder’s description of Reiki as “a torch in daylight.” Who needs a torch when the light is already here? How much brighter a torch burns in the darkness! In the daylight, it’s hardly visible. And yet, it still burns. Usui Founder reminds us that our work in the world, on ourselves and others, is important, even if it’s barely seen, and that it will remain important until, in the beautiful Christmas prayer of Fra Giovanni, “the day breaks and the shadows flee away.” Then, when the true light breaks fully in our hearts, we can embrace nirvana (enlightenment, satori) and blow our candles out.
The Buddha’s quote about happiness brings to mind Usui Founder’s Five Reiki Principles (aka Precepts, Ideals), which he described as “the secret method for inviting happiness.” The Buddha sums this up by urging us to share, not hoard, our joy. Lord Jesus said much the same when he told the parable about hiding one’s light (candle) under a bushel (basket). The Buddha points out that sharing happiness with others will not diminish our own happiness in any way, even if we share it with thousands, with everyone we meet. It is when we try to store happiness that it slips away.
Just for today, remember that happiness is meant to be shared.
Finding the truth. March 20, 2014
Posted by ourfriendben in Reiki, Reiki wisdom.Tags: Dogen Zenji, Eckhart Tolle, enlightenment, finding truth, Five Reiki Ideals, Five Reiki Precepts, Five Reiki Principles, Mikao Usui, Mother Teresa, Ram Dass, Reiki, Reiki and enlightenment, satori, Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, Usui Founder
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“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
—Dogen Zenji
“Each being is itself pure source, and pure source is nothing but each being.”
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
“I believe in person to person. Every person is Christ to me, and since there is only one Jesus, the person is the one person in the world at that moment.”
—Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“Be here now.”
—Ram Dass
All these spiritual teachers, and many others, such as Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, understood this great truth. Enlightenment does not come from outside, it comes from within. It comes from being fully present to each moment, to everyone and everything that presents itself to us.
This is much harder to do than to go on a spiritual pilgrimage to “find” the truth, to find enlightenment, satori. How great to head off to Sedona or Stonehenge or the Vatican or a Buddhist temple or Zen monastery or Reiki cruise or you name it to find peace and enlightenment. How terribly hard to be a dishwasher in a restaurant, working over scalding water on your feet for hours, paid minimum wage and expected to work as fast as humanly possible, and find truth where you are. How hard to be Mother Teresa, pulling maggot-eaten, abandoned, starved bodies from the gutters of Calcutta, and find the face of her Lord in every single one.
To be here now, to find the power of now, which is truth, freedom, and enlightenment, you must learn to give all of yourself in every moment to the now, to what is before you, be it a body in the gutter or a boring colleague who’s droning on and on, or making tonight’s supper or watering plants and dusting shelves or doing hands-on Reiki or reading an uplifting book.
To help you focus and go deeper, to slow down time so each second stretches to infinity, Usui Founder gave us the Five Reiki Principles (aka Precepts, Ideals). He began them with “Just for today” not just because he realized how hard it was to actually practice them, but to remind us to be in the moment, in the now. Maybe we forgot and got angry a moment ago, or we caught ourselves worrying about that performance review or a bill coming due. But Usui Founder in his wisdom reminds us that we shouldn’t waste time beating ourselves up, we should just get back to the now, the present moment, and try to focus on the Principles.
The past is past. The present is here. We are who and where we are. Let’s look for the truth right here, right now, inside ourselves, and in everything and everyone we encounter moment by moment on this earthly plane.
Just for today, find your truth.
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