The Reiki Story
This is the story of Dr. Mikao Usui, originator of the Usui Reiki System of Natural Healing. The only history we have was put on tape by a Mrs. Takata, a Reiki Master trained by a Dr. Havashi who was taught by and worked with Dr. Usui. Dr. Usui was apparently a genius, a great philosopher and scholar. He was a Christian minister and the principal of the Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.
The Challenge
As he took the podium one Sunday in the late 1800’s, Dr. Usui noticed a half dozen students in the front pew. Usually students sat at the back. One of the students immediately raised a hand. He stated that the six were to graduate in two months, but before leaving they wanted to settle an issue. First they wanted to know if Dr. Usui had absolute faith in the Bible as it reads. “Yes.” Then did he believe that Jesus could heal by laying on hands? Again, Dr. Usui said he did believe. The student said that he and the others also wanted to believe and would Dr. Usui please give them one demonstration. Would he please heal the blind or cure the lame or just simply walk on water? Dr. Usui said that although he believed these things had been done, he himself had not learned to do them.
The spokesman said, “Thank you very much. We can only say that your belief in the Bible is a blind faith, and we do not want to have a blind faith.” Dr. Usui’s response was that he could not demonstrate at that time but would someday like to prove it. He said he would find how to do it, then come back to show them. With that he resigned, on the spot. The next day he made plans to study the Bible in a Christian country.
The Search
Dr. Usui chose America. He entered a university, possibly University of Chicago, but no one is certain. He found that the Bible teachings were not significantly different from what he had studied in Japan. No one he met there knew how Jesus healed. However, while at the university, he studied other philosophies, and he found in Buddhism a passage saying Buddha healed by laying-on-of-hands. So, for the remainder of his seven years in the United States, he concentrated on Buddhism, hoping to find a formula for the healing arts. He didn’t. He left there to study in a Buddhist country – Japan. He returned to his own city of Kyoto. Kyoto had the most people and the biggest monasteries in Japan. He decided to visit all the monasteries starting with the largest, the Shin.
At the Shin, Usui asked a monk if the Buddhist Sutras gave accounts of Buddha healing. “Yes.” He asked if the Shin monks had mastered the art of healing the body. He was told, “We monks do not have time for the physical in reaching the spiritual growth. Spiritual healing is first.” Usui walked away into the jungle to visit other temples. Their stories were the same. None of the monastery monks could heal. His last stop was at the Zen temple. Here he heard again that the monks were very, very busy and had little time for the body healing – but they were sure that someday, during meditation, they would receive that great light and then they would know how to heal. Dr. Usui decided to stay on and study all their secrets. He spent the next three years studying the Sutras but without success. He then got permission to stay on at the Zen temple to do independent research.
Dr. Usui learned Chinese, because the Japanese Sutras were translated from Chinese. He then mastered Sanskrit, because Buddha was a Hindu. While working on Sanskrit he found a healing formula. There was no mistaking what it was, but the 2,500 year old formula had to be interpreted and tested. He told himself, “I cannot guarantee myself whether I will live through it, but if I don’t try the test, years of study will be wasted.” He talked about his plan with the head Zen monk. The monk said Usui was a courageous man, and he could perform the test at the monastery. Usui said he would rather do it on Mount Koriyama, a mountain known as an excellent place for meditation.
The Meditation
Dr. Usui told the monk, “I will test myself for twenty-one days. If I do not come back on the night of the twenty-first day, on the twenty-second morning, send out a search party to find my body, I will be dead.” Before departing he told the monks, “I shall go through this meditation without food – only water.” He climbed the mountain.
On the mountain he found an old pine near the stream. He piled up twenty-one rocks and watered them. (I don’t know why.) He sat with his back to the tree with the rocks before him. He threw one rock away, then began his first meditation. He expected a phenomenon of some sort but had no idea what it might be or when. He read scripture, chanted, meditated, and drank water. He had no food with him. Days and nights came and went. The pile of stones dwindled. There was no phenomenon. Nothing.
On the twenty-first day, he woke before dawn and threw away the last stone. The morning black was near absolute – no moon, no stars. Dr. Usui meditated, knowing it was the last time. He opened his eyes expecting to see nothing, but there, on the horizon, he glimpsed a flicker of light, like a candle! He instinctively knew this was the phenomenon he had hoped for – and feared. Dr. Usui braced himself, “It is happening and I am not going to even shut my eyes. I shall open them as wide as I can and witness what happens to the light.”
The light moved toward him. It seemed to be accelerating as it approached. Usui became frightened, his courage faltered. “Oh, the light! Now I have a chance to avoid the light, to dodge! What shall I do!? If the light strikes me, I might burn!” But he began to brace himself. “This is best. I am not going to run away! I’m going to face it! Come! If this must be, hit me!! I am ready!” And with that, he relaxed and, with eyes wide open, he saw the light strike in the center of his forehead. “I made contact,” he said as he fell backward from the force. When he came to, he thought that he had died because at first he couldn’t see and he felt nothing. The light was gone. He heard roosters in the distance and knew it would soon be dawn.
Dr. Usui sat, dazed. Then, off to his right, colored bubbles seemed to rise from the earth. Millions and millions of bubbles in rainbow colors danced before him, then moved to his left. Usui counted seven colors. “This is phenomena! I was blessed today!” A great white light came from his right. Golden symbols appeared, one after another. They radiated out in front of him, like on a movie screen, as if to say, “Remember! Remember!” He didn’t read them so much with his eyes as with his mind. He studied and studied, then said, “Yes!” He recalled all he had learned in Sanskrit as the symbols moved in front of him as if they were saying, “This is it, this is it. Remember, remember.”
After the phenomena had passed, he said, “I must close my eyes, and for the last meditation, please give me a vision.” He closed his eyes and saw the golden symbols in front of him.
The Miracles
It was over. “Now, I can open my eyes.” As he regained awareness of his body, he was surprised to find no pain or hunger. “I feel my body is good. I’m going to stand up.” He stood. “My legs and feet are strong. I fast for twenty-one days, and still I feel I can walk back to Kyoto.” His body felt well fed, “Well, this is a miracle – I’m not hungry. And I feel very light.” He dusted himself off, picked up his cane and straw hat, then took the first steps of his twenty-five mile trek to Kyoto. The Zen monks were expecting him by sundown.
Near the foot of the mountain, Dr. Usui stubbed a big toe on a rock. The blow lifted the toenail. Blood spurted out. It hurt. The pain thumped with his heartbeat. He sat down and held the toe in his hands. The pain subsided. The bleeding stopped. “Is it okay?” He continued to hold it till there was no more pain. When he looked at the toe, he was amazed and delighted to see the nail back in its normal position. There was no indication of injury except dried blood. “This is a second miracle!”
A short distance later, he came upon a traditional mat and ashtray, which means in Japan there is an eating place near by and that all are welcome. He approached an old, unshaven man who was starting a fire in a hibachi, “Good morning old man.” “Good morning, my dear monk, you are early.” “Yes, I know, but may I have some leftover rice and some tea, and that piece of nori you just made? And I would like to have some salted cabbage and also some dried fish, if you have some.” (This is a typical Japanese breakfast.) But the old gentleman was wise. He had served many monks after their extended meditations on this famous mountain. He knew the appearance of a seven day beard. He knew this monk had been without food for a much longer time. “I cannot let you have this rice and hot soup and all those other things because you are going to have a huge indigestion. I have no medicine and cannot help you. Kyoto is far away. You will have to wait until I make a soft gruel.”
“Thank you. You are very kind, but I think I shall try it.” Dr. Usui was feeling weak as he moved to a table to wait for the food. The old man thought, “Well, if he wants to do it this way, fine. I am not responsible.” Soon, the man’s fifteen year old granddaughter brought a tray with lots of food. She was crying and had a towel wrapped under her chin, tied in rabbit ears on top of her head. “My dear young girl, why do you cry?”
The child sobbed, “Oh, my dear monk, three days and three nights I have a toothache so bad that I cannot stop my tears, and I cannot eat the whole time. The dentist is too far away, so I just suffer and cry.” Dr. Usui’s heart opened to the child. He stood and put a hand on her swollen cheek. The girl began to blink her eyes. Dr. Usui soon had both hands on her face. She suddenly cried out, “My dear monk, you have just made magic! The toothache is gone!” Usui could hardly believe it. He hadn’t really known what to expect from his impulsive action. “Is it really? Are you telling me the truth?” It was true. She quickly removed the rabbit ears and was radiantly happy. Usui said, “Yes, now I believe you are well.”
The beaming child thanked him, then she ran off to her grandfather. “Look, grandfather, I took off my rabbit ears! The toothache is gone! He is not an ordinary monk, he makes magic!”
The grandfather, wiping his hands on his apron, walked over to Dr. Usui, “My dear monk, you did us a great service. We are grateful. We do not have money, but for our gratitude, there is no charge for the food. This is all we can offer.” Dr. Usui said, “Thank you! I will accept your gratitude. Thank you, very much. Now for my food.” With that he turned to his food and eagerly shoveled it with chopsticks. He ate happily. The people watched and hoped this magic monk wouldn’t suffer any kind of indigestion.
Later, Dr. Usui reflected on these miracles, the third and fourth. Placing his hands on the child had again healed almost instantly, and he had suffered no ill effects from breaking a twenty-one day fast with a huge meal. “Now, I am ready for my hike to the Zen temple. I shall be there by sundown according to schedule.” And so he was.
The doctor was met at the temple gate by a young page boy. Dr. Usui asked, “How is our dear monk?” “Oh, he’s suffering from arthritis and back ache. He is in bed near the chapel stove.” Before going to visit the monk, Usui went to his own room to bathe and put on clean clothes. He was then taken to the monk. “My dear monk, I am back. My meditation was a success.” The ailing monk was excited by this news and wanted the details. Dr. Usui said, “Yes, of course, and while I talk, may I place my hands on your silk covers?” It was late at night when the doctor shared the last happy detail. He was about to leave when the old monk spoke up, “And by the way, my pain is all gone. I can sleep now. I don’t need the stove, and my body feels wonderful – you say this is called Reiki?” (In English, Reiki means Universal Life Energy.)
The Reiki Experiment
Dr. Usui slept in a bed for the first time in three weeks. Next morning, after breakfast, Dr. Usui presented a question to all the temple monks. “What shall I do to experiment with this Reiki?” After much discussion it was decided that the best way to experiment was to go into one of the very big slums of Kyoto. The slums were playgrounds for most every kind of injury and disease including leprosy. They chose the largest slum.
Dr. Usui walked into the slum as a monk vegetable peddler – dressed as a monk with two baskets of vegetables hanging from a pole. The beggars assembled quickly. Usui told them, “Please I would be one of you. I would like to live here.” In turn, he was told, “If you want to stay here, we have a chief. We shall call him.” Shortly the chief beggar made his appearance. “I understand that you want to live here and become one of us.” Usui answered yes. “In that case, give us vegetables. And there is no need to wear new clothes here. We will give you initiation clothes.” They undressed Dr. Usui and found his money belt. The chief beggar said he had known the belt was there and that it would also have to be forfeited. Dr. Usui was then allowed to dress in his beggar initiation costume – dirty, smelly rags.
The chief asked what Dr. Usui was going to do in the slum. “I would like you to provide me with food and a cottage by myself. Then you can send me your sick and I will heal them.” The chief found that to be a very good trade. “We have all kinds of diseases, even tuberculosis and leprosy. You are not afraid to touch them?” The doctor said as a healer he was not afraid of disease and promised to work sunup to sundown, so he would want meals delivered to the cottage. Agreed!
The next day many appeared at his door. Based on his own theory, the doctor categorized the sick. He believed disease was an effect resulting from some inner cause. He felt that in the younger patients the cause should be shallow and more easily treated. And this is the way it worked out. The older slum dwellers required more Reiki treatments and recovery sometimes took months. The young healed quickly. Usui sent healed patients to the Zen temple where they received a new name and a job in the city. He told them to become honest citizens, to forget the slums.
One evening, after seven long, hard years of Reiki healing, he was out walking through the slums when he spied a vaguely familiar face. “Who are you?” “Oh, you should remember. I was one of the first healed. The temple monks gave me a new name and found me a job. But now I am back. Begging is easier than hustling by myself.” This was the greatest shock of the doctor’s life. He threw himself to the ground and cried, cried like a heart broken child.
Most of his former patients returned to the slums. Dr. Usui now realized that after all the years of searching for a healing formula and these years in the slums, he had become preoccupied with the physical side of life; he had forgotten the spiritual. “Oh, what did I do? I did not save a soul. So the physical is number two and the spiritual is number one. All the churches were right. I was wrong. No beggars, no more beggars, no more beggars. It is my fault that they come back, I did not teach them gratitude. They are here because they are greedy, greedy people. Want, want, want – nothing in return. If I had taught them the spiritual side first, then healed the body, it would have been effective. No more beggars. No more healing.” Dr. Usui turned his back on the slums and walked away.
The Crusade
The doctor then launched a crusade to help unhappy, depressed people. He wanted to brighten their hearts and cleanse their characters, minds and bodies. He traveled on foot to every temple in Japan. At each he invited locals to attend his lectures. (I assume he worked on the spiritual side then healed the physical.) After one of his lectures, he met Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, a forty-five year old retired military man. Hayashi stayed with Dr. Usui until Usui’s death. Before his transition, Usui announced that Dr. Hayashi was to continue this Usui System in the Art of Healing.
Dr. Hayashi later trained Mrs. Takata. Between 1945 and 1970, she was the only living Reiki Master in the world. Between 1970 and 1980, she trained twenty-one Reiki Masters. She was about eighty when she made her transition. Both Dr. Hayashi and Mrs. Takata practiced and taught Reiki just as it had been passed on by the dear monk, Dr. Mikao Usui.
