Reiki is the only teaching I’m aware of that combines meditation and healing in a direct, practical, and immediately applicable way.

It does so in a self-reliant manner, in the context of self-practice. In other words, the Reiki practitioner is able to practice on their own, without having to go to someone else, or rely on an outside source, other items, or facilities.

Similar Teachings

Yoga and Ayurveda are twin teachings, one being more about spirituality and consciousness, and the other more related to wellness. Each requires a great amount of study, practice and mastery, not that there isn’t mastery in Reiki.

I don’t want to make this simplistic. It’s not easy to quantify such substantial teachings in a few words. This isn’t an exhaustive look at all the wisdom traditions of the world. Neither is it an expert or scholarly analysis of these teachings. I’ve enormous admiration and respect for the world’s authentic teachings. They’re all priceless, and each is very effective.

Kundalini Yoga has meditative and healing elements. Some of these practices are esoteric and complex, and many require high development before being truly effective. And there are so many of them, sometimes it’s challenging to know which one you may need. I enjoy Kundalini Yoga, but only with an experienced teacher in a live setting.

Hatha yoga can be practiced at home after some experience in class or with videos. It’s only one aspect of Yoga and incomplete without other aspects. Therefore it requires a solid teaching organization. Ayurveda usually requires you to go to a seasoned practitioner and involves, herbs, oils, mantras and a solid understanding of body types. Mantras are big in Yoga as well and they can be fairly straightforward, but there’s also a lot of secrecy about them and many are only available from a teacher.

Tai Chi is a kind of moving meditation with spiritual and healing implications, which actually began as a martial art. Qi Gong is in fact a component of traditional Chinese medicine that involves movement, meditation and controlled breathing.

Buddhism, Sufism, and Yoga all have a strong psychological component as well. It addresses the mind and emotions, understanding that healing isn’t just for the body, but this is only accomplished within the larger context of these vast teachings and their practices.

Reiki Meditation and Healing

meditation seatAs a practitioner and teacher of Reiki for 20 years now, of course Reiki is special to me.

What I’d like to highlight here is how Reiki distinguishes and sets itself apart amongst the world’s wisdom teachings, and is genuinely unique.

In the authentic Japanese teachings of Reiki (and not its westernized derivations), meditation is the primary practice. Meditation in Reiki is not only foundational, it’s Reiki’s defining practice.

Reiki meditations are specific routines with specific steps designed to evolve the practitioner’s heart-mind consciousness, and optimize his/her vessel for the greatest conduction of cosmic vibration. They are based on sound universal principles and are an equal contributor to the august archive of world meditative traditions.

One of the great advantages of Reiki is how wonderfully integrated its meditation and healing practices are, forming a unified whole. Healing in Reiki is applied with one’s own hands in a certain sequence of hand placements on the body. This of course brings physical healing, but because Reiki is spiritually-sourced, it heals emotionally, mentally and by default spiritually as well.

There’s a health and wellness aspect to Reiki healing, and it goes further to encourage whole-person balance and harmony.

What’s often missed about regularly giving yourself Reiki is that it prepares you for meditation, laying the foundation and enhancing meditation as a parallel practice in an ongoing manner. Meditation has its challenges. We all need extra help in benefiting from the full potentials of meditation.

This is how giving yourself Reiki helps when it’s time to sit for meditation:

  • Makes deeply relaxed states familiar to the practitioner
  • Helps practitioner learn to remain aware even when deeply relaxed
  • Removes physical and mental tensions
  • Heals physical and emotional traumas that prevent meditation
  • Familiarizes practitioner with meditative states of mind
  • Allows practitioner to have relationship with exalted spiritual qualities and states

Most of us come to meditation from a place of pain and suffering. We’re restless and anxious. We have mental and emotional afflictions. There are ways to work through these within meditation. But for the novice and those particularly bad days, it’s much more pleasant and encouraging if there’s a way to condition the mind and body for meditation.

Reiki requires a live class with an experienced teacher who’s connected to the roots of Reiki in Japan. The teacher’s role doesn’t end after the class, and since Reiki is learned in levels, there are more classes later on. However, each level of Reiki is self-contained and the student is immediately empowered to apply its teachings and practices.

For the daily practice of Reiki, whether it’s hands-on or meditation, your teacher doesn’t have to be there. Hopefully, your teacher is available to you, provides good mentoring and has ongoing support like a blog. Once you’ve received quality training, you need nothing else to practice Reiki except your hands, and in the case of meditation, your consciousness. This also makes Reiki portable. On vacation, at work or in a grocery line, it’s available to you.

Practicing Reiki is utter simplicity. For healing you follow a hands-on sequence starting on the head and moving down the body. You simply place your hands on yourself and the experience unfolds from there! Nothing else is required of you.

Reiki Meditations ask for 20 minutes of your time. You follow a user-friendly breathing pattern depending on which meditation is being practiced, and again the experience and benefits unfold. These meditations are straightforward.

Belying Reiki’s facile meditations is just how profound an effect they can have and lead you to real inner transformation, and a shift into spiritual consciousness.

Oneness

Meditation by its very nature taps into oneness all the time. This then becomes an informational field to which you have access. There’s overlap between Reiki’s meditative and healing practices. The more we heal, the more expansive our spirituality and consciousness becomes. The more we meditate, the better we heal (and better help others). In Reiki we need meditation to ensure that our healing is based on wisdom. And we need healing because wounding is just part of life.

The dual practices of Reiki behave like checks and balances. Reaching too high meditatively before groundwork has been done is fraught with failure and dangers. Healing without meditation can be superficial and flighty. Reiki is a complete teaching that gives you a wisdom path to have under your feet, and guidance to take it in the direction that best serves you.

The ultimate destination is Oneness. Along the way there are bypaths, diversions, pit stops, plateaus and peaks. With Reiki you have an uncomplicated, powerful and reliable navigator. (See Reiki and Oneness.)

Related

Reiki Primer (includes audio)

Reiki Training Classes

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How the Dual Practices of Reiki Lead to Oneness