I was particularly thinking about my experience with Reiki and how this has deepened my understanding of some of the more esoteric references in taoist literature (and slightly frustrated me). I was introduced to reiki a while ago, one of the t'ai chi students in newhaven had previously practiced it and this was where I heard the name. On and off for a few years I read a little bit here and a little there on the subject and earlier this year came accross this site. Reiki is essentially an energy healing technique from Japan and is only decades old rather than the centuries or millenia of the other arts and practices I have discussed here.
I don't have time to discuss the art in great detail, and arguably I am not qualified to do so. However, there are two bits of interest to me here:
- The method by which the art is transmitted
- The way in which the first practitioner acquired this ability
Firstly, it is transmitted not by words but by ritual. The theory goes that a master can give the knowledge to a student and that knowledge and understanding will unfold in the student. The message is passed as energy (as far as my understanding goes) and inserted into the unconcious. Now if we accept that this is possible then this makes sense of a great deal of the taoist practices. Unfortunately this means to get a truely deep understanding of taoist practices I must find a willing teacher/master at some point in my life.
Secondly, the way Usui discovered the art is most interesting. He spent many years in search of a quick way to attain the healing ability accredited to monks who spent many decades in meditation. He like me believed that there was some method by which a person could heal another through touch or some action, and had observed enlightened individuals doing this. After many years he felt that he had failed and went into the wilderness to meditate, intending not to eat and not to come back - an honourable act in those days. After some days he recounts a feeling of a great energy like a ball of light descending into him and feeling his body infused with energy. When he came back from his journey he found that he had discovered what he was looking and could heal people.
I will not go into the full history here as 1. I don't know it and 2. the thingy in my temple is telling me i have sat here too long already, but this event reminds me of a number of similar ones that happened with holy people of the Christian tradition, where God or the Holy Spirit appears as a ball of light and the individual is imbued with special powers or enlightened as a result. Here I betray to you my view that the stories of the tao, of the holy spirit and god all talk about the same phenomenon. This got me thinking about the early christian traditions. There is a point when Jesus becomes aware he will die and calls together his disciples for a last supper. If I were aware that I was about to die and knew of a method to pass on my knowledge and part of myself to my students then I would do just that. If Jesus' power to heal was similar to that of these enlightened people then is this what the last supper did, the wording seems to suggest it? In this way, through repeating this ritual as Christians do so this same energy and knowledge could be passed through the church, providing the person performing the ritual was in line from the early christians or a holy person. The act of blessing and the laying of hands are also acts that occur in all three traditions.
In my youth I turned my back because I did not find the answers there and felt hypocritical repeating the dogma each mass. Could then the christian tradition and the sunday mass which I left behind be a mechanism for passing this knowledge of God in both words and something else? Is this where my mum found the power to heal herself?
Amusing and ironic it will be if my path takes me back to my origins, but in keeping with the nature of things. One cannot see the forest until one leaves it and wanders up a nearby hill.
I think my current path is valid and that the taoist writings and traditions whilst often cryptic feel for me closer to the truth at this time. An odd observation I made on the bus this morning that I wanted to share.
search google for reiki
