When you place your hands on another person, in the first few seconds you usually feel only warmth, the fabric of their clothes and maybe the movement of their breath. After a while that can change. Some people feel a tingling, others a slight pull like a magnet, or a kind of quiet pulsing that doesn't match the heartbeat.

In Reiki this feeling in the hand has a name, hibiki 響き. It goes together with a second term, byōsen 病腺, and it's worth looking at both character by character.

Eileen Wiesmann gives Mark Hosak a Reiki session lying down · Reiki practice
Eileen working with Mark

What does hibiki mean? 響

響
Hibiki is the sound of a bell, the way it rings and vibrates. At the bottom of the character sits 音, sound, and above it 郷, which carries the pronunciation here. Picture a big temple bell that's struck once and keeps humming long afterward.

In Reiki practice, hibiki is the feeling in your hand that rings and vibrates like that when you stroke along the body or move through the aura and come to a spot where something isn't right. To begin with, this is a perception, like warmth on your skin, and not an interpretation. Put simply, the hands notice something before the head has an explanation for it. In my book on Reiki in therapeutic practice I describe hibiki quite plainly as the perception of energy in the hand, for example as tingling, prickling, warmth or cold.

What does byōsen mean? 病腺

病腺
Byō 病 means illness or imbalance, and sen 腺 is the word for gland in modern Japanese. Going by the characters, byōsen is about scanning for illness, in the body, the mind or the soul. It means the ability to notice ahead of time where something is out of balance and then act on it, for example by laying your hands there. That works in the energy system and at a distance as well. It matters to me to be clear that this is what the characters mean, not a diagnosis.

When you give Reiki, byōsen and hibiki happen at the same time. From one position to the next, some spots get really hot, tingle or throb, and you feel a strong flow of energy, while others hardly change. In other words, byōsen is recognizing where something isn't right, and hibiki is what you feel in your hand while you do it.

The experience of the masters 経験

Nobody sat at a desk and invented byōsen and hibiki. Behind them is the experience of masters going back thousands of years, and anyone who practices a lot and becomes a master themselves arrives at the same body of experience. That's why it pays to trust your own hands rather than sort what you feel into a fixed order.

Some spots show up very clearly right away, others stay at a slight warmth, and during a session the sensation can fade again. Very warm hands simply mean that a lot of energy is flowing right then.

Hand positions and perception 手

Many Reiki lineages work with a fixed sequence of hand positions. There's a good reason for that, because at the beginning nothing gets missed and every area of the body receives Reiki. At the same time, a sequence of hand positions is already a kind of scanning, because from one position to the next you notice where it gets hot, tingles or throbs and where it doesn't. In Shingon Reiki we use both, the positions as a foundation and byōsen as a way to grow beyond them.

Byōsen and the three mysteries 三密

Shingon Buddhism speaks of the three mysteries, sanmitsu 三密 in Japanese, meaning body, speech and mind. A complete practice engages all three at once. Byōsen is quite similar. The body perceives through the hands, an inner intention quietly comes along, and the mind stays awake without rushing to interpret everything.

Many practitioners say they feel byōsen more clearly after meditating. That doesn't surprise me, because meditation creates exactly the relaxed openness this perception needs. If you start wondering what exactly you're feeling, it often slips away again.

Dr. Mark Hosak speaking about Shingon Reiki at the institute
Conversation at the institute

How to refine this perception in everyday practice is something you experience in the shared practice in the community and at the live events. You'll find more background in the articles on Reiki scanning and Japanese Reiki techniques. Have you ever felt that kind of tingling or pulsing in your own hands?

Beyond hand positions

Discover the depth of Reiki practice

In Shingon Reiki, perception in the hands is part of the practice from the start. If you like, take a look at which starting point fits you.

Your path into Shingon Reiki Japanese Reiki Techniques