Questions - Open to discussion

Hello Forum,

I hope everyone is doing great. and wish everyone a very healthy year ahead.
Anyway, I have a few questions. I hope to have guidance and good discussion from the masters and practitioners.

1. What would you call Reiki - a healing or a meditation method or both. Please comment on your understanding of it from your experience (and not from your teacher or any book)
2. When one uses different hand positions, instead of thinking positive thoughts, how about just being equanimous of the sensations and observe them and let the Reiki do its work? If this is acceptable then it becomes so much similar to a Buddhist meditation technique - Vipassana. Please comment.
3. Why does one have to be attuned to receive a cosmic energy? Every one has life in him/her. Everyone is aware of his/her existence. So, I believe the moment he/she closes the eyes and intends, more and more life force energy would start flowing through. Do you agree?
4. Do you believe Reiki to be the path to enlightenment?
5. We may use Reiki for the betterment of ourselves, our dear ones, society, earth or the universe. But do you think at a very subtle level, we might be promoting attachment to these things by doing so. Intellectually, I believe and want to practice 'Detachment' from the worldly/mundane matters. But I get confused because these practices look contradictory to some extent. Any guidance is highly appreciated.

SankhyaYogi wrote:Hello Forum,

I hope everyone is doing great. and wish everyone a very healthy year ahead.
Anyway, I have a few questions. I hope to have guidance and good discussion from the masters and practitioners.

A healthy New year to
you with Reiki Blessings
I look forward to RLL members
responses to your questions

1. What would you call Reiki - a healing or a meditation method or both. Please comment on your understanding of it from your experience (and not from your teacher or any book)

A self-healing modality

2. When one uses different hand positions, instead of thinking positive thoughts, how about just being equanimous of the sensations and observe them and let the Reiki do its work? If this is acceptable then it becomes so much similar to a Buddhist meditation technique - Vipassana. Please comment.

At first most folks follow
their Reiki Teacher and with
practice everyone eventually
develops their own comfort zone
according to their personal beliefs.

3. Why does one have to be attuned to receive a cosmic energy? Every one has life in him/her. Everyone is aware of his/her existence. So, I believe the moment he/she closes the eyes and intends, more and more life force energy would start flowing through. Do you agree?

We have many skills undeveloped
The awareness of our own self-
healing also goes un-noticed as
folks rely on the medical profession
to heal them.

4. Do you believe Reiki to be the path to enlightenment?

Reiki is a system that uses life
force energy that can assist us
to open doors and unblock stuck
energy in the mind,body & spirit,
especially when we practice the
5 precepts. I am referring to the
precepts being integrated into one's
daily practice not just saying them

5. We may use Reiki for the betterment of ourselves, our dear ones, society, earth or the universe. But do you think at a very subtle level, we might be promoting attachment to these things by doing so. Intellectually, I believe and want to practice 'Detachment' from the worldly/mundane matters. But I get confused because these practices look contradictory to some extent. Any guidance is highly appreciated.

not quite sure what it is you mean

Everyone is responsible for them
selves. As a practitioner I am a
facilitator and I am never attached
to my clients. They are the ones who
heal themselves. We each do our share
of helping prevent/reverse illness and
keeping the earth a safe and healthy
place to live.

SankhyaYogi wrote:
1. What would you call Reiki - a healing or a meditation method or both. Please comment on your understanding of it from your experience (and not from your teacher or any book)

A healing method, definitely.

SankhyaYogi wrote:2. When one uses different hand positions, instead of thinking positive thoughts, how about just being equanimous of the sensations and observe them and let the Reiki do its work? If this is acceptable then it becomes so much similar to a Buddhist meditation technique - Vipassana. Please comment.

That's exactly how I do it. I don't try to make my thoughts positive (and don't try to make them negative, either--I just don't try to make myself think anything). I just let random thoughts come and go as they will. The reiki still moves through me.

SankhyaYogi wrote:3. Why does one have to be attuned to receive a cosmic energy? Every one has life in him/her. Everyone is aware of his/her existence. So, I believe the moment he/she closes the eyes and intends, more and more life force energy would start flowing through. Do you agree?

You don't have to be attuned to receive cosmic energy. That is, as you say, available to all of us and can be used with intention. But for intention to work, there needs to be a tool to utilize it. In some cases, pure intention may be enough, but even then, there needs to be a focus.

Reiki is a particular tool for using cosmic energy. Attunement is the process of receiving that tool. People who have never been reiki attuned can use cosmic energy, and they may be able to use it in ways just as effective as reiki, but they don't have the particular tool that is reiki--just as a carpenter doesn't have a sewing needle and a seamstress doesn't have a hammer.

SankhyaYogi wrote:4. Do you believe Reiki to be the path to enlightenment?

No. It's a tool, not a path. Although the process of learning and using reiki may be part of a spiritual path, and spiritual paths often lead to enlightenment.

SankhyaYogi wrote:5. We may use Reiki for the betterment of ourselves, our dear ones, society, earth or the universe. But do you think at a very subtle level, we might be promoting attachment to these things by doing so. Intellectually, I believe and want to practice 'Detachment' from the worldly/mundane matters. But I get confused because these practices look contradictory to some extent. Any guidance is highly appreciated.

Should a flower detach itself from the soil and the sunlight?

Not only is it impossible for a flower to do that, it will die if it is detached from soil and sunlight. Connections to others and to the earth are soil and sunlight for human beings. And connection is not necessarily the same as attachment.

chi_solas and osamenor,
Wonderful answers. Good to know your thoughts.

not quite sure what it is you mean

Everyone is responsible for them
selves. As a practitioner I am a
facilitator and I am never attached
to my clients. They are the ones who
heal themselves. We each do our share
of helping prevent/reverse illness and
keeping the earth a safe and healthy
place to live.

You answered perfectly. That helped. What you explained is exactly the crux of detachment.

That's exactly how I do it. I don't try to make my thoughts positive (and don't try to make them negative, either--I just don't try to make myself think anything). I just let random thoughts come and go as they will. The reiki still moves through me.

Good one. This way, one gets benefited more I believe.

Thanks guys. Any more thoughts are welcome.

SankhyaYogi wrote:
1. What would you call Reiki - a healing or a meditation method or both. Please comment on your understanding of it from your experience (and not from your teacher or any book)

Reiki, to me, is the energy originating from the highest consciousness.
It is the Light, in which all spiritual energy frequencies are present in perfect balance. It is the energy an enlightened person would emanate 24/7.

Reiki is, in my view, not a healing method nor a meditation method.
It is the word used for this specific energy.. the "great bright Light", in which everything is balanced and pure.

Usui-sensei's teachings were spiritual teachings. It's goal was to grow spiritually, to achieve happiness and harmony with yourself and your surroundings and eventually to attain spiritual enlightenment. In other words... his teachings were a way of becoming the great bright Light, becoming Reiki.
And yes, it made use of healing and meditation.

To me Reiki is the great bright Light.
And the teachings are just one of many ways of becoming that Light.

SankhyaYogi wrote:2. When one uses different hand positions, instead of thinking positive thoughts, how about just being equanimous of the sensations and observe them and let the Reiki do its work? If this is acceptable then it becomes so much similar to a Buddhist meditation technique - Vipassana. Please comment.

This is how I do treatments, if I do them (because for me these teachings are not about treating others).

First, I make sure that I'm in the highest state of consciousness I am currently aware of (from time to time this state changes, as I meditate and learn more and more).
Then I lay on my hands and let my hands be guided by the energy. I'm just there. I offer the opportunity for the receiver to receive whatever he/she may need, just by being in this state of mind and energy and letting my hands go wherever they need to go.

SankhyaYogi wrote:3. Why does one have to be attuned to receive a cosmic energy? Every one has life in him/her. Everyone is aware of his/her existence. So, I believe the moment he/she closes the eyes and intends, more and more life force energy would start flowing through. Do you agree?

An attunement is not necessary.
It all depends on ones spiritual development.

I am quite positive the Dalai Lama never received a Reiki attunement. I believe that the energy he emanates is more likely to be Reiki (as in: the great bright Light) than mine.

Because I believe Reiki is just another word for the great bright Light or the energy originating from the highest consciousness I would never say that I could use or give Reiki at all.
I would say that with every step on the way towards spiritual development and enlightenment, my energy becomes more -like- Reiki.

SankhyaYogi wrote:4. Do you believe Reiki to be the path to enlightenment?

As I said before, I believe "Reiki" is just another word for the great bright Light, the energy originating from the highest consciousness, the energy of the enlightened.

I do believe Usui-sensei taught a path to enlightenment.

SankhyaYogi wrote:5. We may use Reiki for the betterment of ourselves, our dear ones, society, earth or the universe. But do you think at a very subtle level, we might be promoting attachment to these things by doing so. Intellectually, I believe and want to practice 'Detachment' from the worldly/mundane matters. But I get confused because these practices look contradictory to some extent. Any guidance is highly appreciated.

Within most Reiki branches I indeed believe attachment is stimulated or at least not discouraged.
I believe Usui-sensei's meditations do result in detachment.

At least, that is what I experience to be the result of practising these meditations.

*Gasshō*
Frank