When I contemplate about how Reiki has influenced my life positively, one of the most remarkable benefits I have received is that in receiving or giving Reiki, I go into a deeper state of meditation. By going into this deeper state of meditation I find my center, my mind quiets and the feeling of peace and harmony abounds. There is both a yin and yang to the Reiki experience.
The Yin is the receptivity of experiencing Reiki whether one is lying on a table receiving it through the healing touch hands of a practitioner or one is the practitioner and allowing the energy to flow, like a soft summer’s breeze through them. The yin is the reception to the flow and to be guided as to where to place your hands and move intuitively to apply the Reiki. The yin aspect of opening to the intuitive flow of Reiki as to placement of hands and length of time applying, can be akin to the swirling of wind that knows where to move, at times there may be bursts and strong gushes, and other times warm tropical breezes that stay. As when we receive Reiki, I like to think that it is similar to when a flower opens to the light it does so easily and naturally, without concern.
The Yang is the intention of symbols and the turning on of the Reiki. The Yang is not a forceful yang but an intention that after attunement one can with practice simply intends, asserts that now is the time to place hands on or above someone else or self. The Yang is not dominant as there is not much “doing” in Reiki but more the act of allowing.
Reiki is an act of meditation because the yang is the intention to allow Reiki and the yin is the receptivity to experience it. Meditation follows intention to reception – yang to yin. When one regularly combines Reiki with meditation (gass-ho) the experience itself can be one of enlightenment – connecting source to source as the flowing of the ki mingles with the centeredness of meditation resulting in a timeless feeling of inner peace, not easily explained but once felt, incomparable.
Sometimes people new to Reiki think in terms of the yang, the “doing” part of Reiki, and how they can do it, where, to whom, when, hand positions, is there enough energy flowing and if they are doing it correctly. But Reiki perceived as a form of meditation with a prevailing “yin” approach has the effect of teaching us not only how to generate the energy easily, but how to allow and let go, practices that are needed to be relearned in these busy times. We let go when in Reiki, and in that letting go we become more open and more aware of being in the present. Reiki when perceived and utilized as a form of meditation allows the practitioner and recipient to release the busy mind and to settle into the flow of energy, like a bamboo raft flowing down a creek carried by an easy current while nestled within the raft is a butterfly flapping its wings to a song playing in its soul.
Reiki is the methodology of harnessing universal energy and in that universal energy exists the connection to each other and our higher consciousness, allowing the state of blissful peacefulness of meditation to emerge. When we do Reiki for others we openly share in the hope and possibility of healing, support and harmony, when we do Reiki for ourselves we take us back to source, where all healing, harmony and spirit resides.
Reiki is a form of meditation, practiced together, the union of the yin and yang, we become a centered state of being in concert with music of the universe.
