Kenyoku, Byōsen, Reiji Hō, Hatsurei Hō: hear these names for the first time and you can already tell there's a whole world of practices behind Reiki. Some work with the hands, others with the eyes or the breath, and the mind is involved in all of them.
Every Reiki lineage has found its own emphasis. In many forms today, hands-on practice is at the center, often as a set sequence of positions. Others work more with breath, posture, the life principles and with the smaller techniques this article is about. None of that makes for a ranking. I've written about how the lineages connect in Western vs. Japanese Reiki. Here, the focus is on the techniques themselves.
Where the techniques come from 由来
Mikao Usui, whose Buddhist name was Gyōhan 暁帆, fasted and meditated for three weeks in the Kurama mountains north of Kyoto. On the twenty-first day he felt a tremendous spiritual energy above the crown of his head. From 1922 he passed on his method in Tokyo, until his death in 1926. According to sources from his successors' circle, he brought around twenty people to the master level (Japanese: shihan 師範). Among those known by name are Jūzaburō Ushida, Kan’ichi Taketomi, and Chūjirō Hayashi.
Usui drew from four roots that have been intertwined in Japan for centuries: esoteric Buddhism (Shingon), Shugendō, Shinto, and shamanic Daoism. If you look closely, you can find those roots in the techniques.
When it comes to the sources, though, we have to be honest. The 1927 memorial stone doesn't name any of these techniques. Most of what we know today about Kenyoku, Reiji Hō, or Hatsurei Hō comes from the circle of the Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai, the society Usui founded in 1922. Much of it only became public in the late 1990s. Which techniques Usui practiced in exactly this form, and which took their present shape under his successors, can't always be said for sure. So for each technique, you'll find a short note on what the sources actually support.
Kenyoku Hō — Dry-bathing the energy body 乾浴法
Ken 乾 — dry. Yoku 浴 — to bathe. Hō 法 — method. Literally, that's "the method of dry bathing." It sounds odd at first, but the idea is simple: you cleanse your energy body, just without water.
So it's a cleansing in which the hands stroke over the body. Many people feel lingering impressions fall away, such as other people's moods or the heaviness of a crowded room. Exactly how Kenyoku is done belongs in the practice itself, and that's where I show it.
Kenyoku has a lovely parallel in Shinto: the purification rites misogi and harae, which free a person from kegare 穢れ, spiritual impurity. In Shinto this happens under a waterfall or through ritual prayer; with Kenyoku, you use your hands.
In the sources from the Gakkai's circle, Kenyoku is part of Hatsurei Hō, the basic daily practice. Many practitioners also use it before and after a Reiki session: before, to clear themselves; after, to brush off the impressions of the session. Other lineages have their own ways of doing this, like smoothing the aura or washing the hands, and the principle behind them is the same.
On the sources: Kenyoku comes down to us through the Gakkai. Whether Usui practiced it in exactly this form isn't directly documented.
Byōsen — Recognizing where something isn't right 病腺
Byō 病 — literally illness, here in the sense of imbalance. Sen 腺 — gland, line. Going by the characters, byōsen is about scanning for illness in the body, mind or soul, the ability to notice ahead of time where something is out of balance and then act on it, for example by laying on hands. That works in the energy system and at a distance too. This has nothing to do with a medical diagnosis. It's a form of perception that grows finer with practice.
The sensations vary a lot: tingling, warmth, coolness, pulsing, a magnetic pull, sometimes a faint prickling. There's a beautiful word for that feeling in the hand: hibiki 響き, the ringing and vibrating of a bell. When you give Reiki, byōsen and hibiki happen at the same time, and behind both is the long experience of the masters. More on that in Hibiki and Byōsen.
What's fascinating about Byōsen is that it doesn't run through thinking. You put your hands down without analyzing what you're feeling, and they drift, almost on their own, to where something responds. Some compare it to the moment you know, without looking, that someone is standing behind you.
Hand positions, by the way, exist in Japan too. The Reiki Ryōhō Hikkei, the Gakkai's handbook, includes a guide to hand positions for different areas of the body. In the Hayashi–Takata lineage this often became a set sequence that's reliable and easy to pass on. Other lineages put more weight on letting the hands follow perception. The two fit together nicely: the positions give you a framework, and Byōsen shows you where, within that framework, something responds.
On the sources: The term Byōsen is documented in Japanese Reiki sources from the Gakkai's circle.
Reiji Hō — Intuitive hand guidance 靈示法
Rei 靈 — spirit, spiritual power. Ji 示 — to show, to point. Hō 法 — method. Literally, "the method in which the spirit shows the way." In Reiji Hō you let your hands be guided by the Reiki energy itself, without consciously steering and without a set pattern.
Put simply, you don't move the hands yourself, you let the power guide them. That may sound a little philosophical, and in fact it's best understood in shared practice.
Reiji Hō and Byōsen belong together. Many practitioners find that the guidance comes more easily as their perception grows finer.
Esoteric Buddhism has a related principle: kaji 加持. Kūkai uses it to describe the meeting between the Buddha's power and the open heart of a human being. The Buddha's power is reflected in the practitioner's heart the way the sun is reflected in still water. Reiji Hō follows the same idea.
On the sources: Reiji Hō comes down to us through the Gakkai and became public in the late 1990s. There's no direct written record of it from Usui's own lifetime.
Jakikiri Jōka Hō — Cleansing objects 邪気切り浄化法
Jaki 邪気 — negative energy, harmful influence. Kiri 切り — to cut. Jōka 浄化 — purification. Hō — method. It's a practice for clearing objects, rooms or places of negative energy, with a hand movement reminiscent of a cut.
The movement looks like a sword stroke, and that's no accident. In esoteric Buddhism and Shugendō, the sword is a spiritual instrument of purification. Fudō Myōō, the Immovable Wisdom King and a great protector in Shingon and Tendai, carries a flaming sword that's understood as a tool of transformation. It cuts through whatever clouds the mind, and in Jakikiri Jōka Hō, your hand takes over that job.
The idea behind it is very Japanese. A room or an object can carry something with it too, so you cleanse it before using it for something new. You know this in Japan from the purification rites at shrines as well.
On the sources: Jakikiri Jōka Hō is described in later publications from the Gakkai's circle. No record from Usui's lifetime is known.
Nentatsu Hō — Energy and intention 念達法
Nen 念 — thought, intention, inner focus. Tatsu 達 — to reach, to deliver. Hō — method. Nentatsu Hō joins the Reiki power with a conscious intention, conveyed with the hands at the head.
In Shingon, the power of intention is a ritual principle: the third of the three mysteries, i-mitsu 意密, the mystery of mind. When body (mudra), speech (mantra), and mind (visualization) come together, the full power unfolds. Nentatsu Hō works with exactly that third level.
If you come from another Reiki lineage, this may look familiar, since working with intention and the second symbol exists in many forms there too.
On the sources: Nentatsu Hō is described in later publications from the Gakkai's circle.
Gyōshi Hō and Kōki Hō — With the eyes and the breath 凝視法 · 呼気法
Two techniques that show how many layers this practice has: Gyōshi Hō 凝視法, the method of the focused gaze, and Kōki Hō 呼気法, the method of the out-breath.
In Gyōshi Hō, Reiki flows through the eyes instead of the hands. Shingon has a meditation that comes to mind here, gachirinkan 月輪観, the moon-disc meditation, which centers on a luminous moon disc. More in the article on the moon-disc meditation.
In Kōki Hō, the transmission happens through the breath. This has roots in shamanic Daoism, where the breath is seen as a carrier of qi 気. And in Shingon, the breath carries the mantra. It belongs to ku-mitsu 口密, the mystery of speech.
On the sources: Both techniques are described in later publications from the Gakkai's circle. The links to gachirinkan and to Daoist breathwork are parallels, not a documented line of descent.
If you look at the techniques as a whole, you'll see hands, eyes, breath and mind working together. In that they mirror the three mysteries of Shingon: body, speech, and mind. Hands-on practice is shin-mitsu 身密, the mystery of body. Breath and mantra are ku-mitsu, the mystery of speech. Intention and visualization are i-mitsu, the mystery of mind. Together they form sanmitsu 三密, the foundation of Shingon Reiki.
Hatsurei Hō — The daily practice 発靈法
Hatsu 発 — to call forth, to set off, to unfold. Rei 靈 — spirit, spiritual power. Hatsurei Hō is actually a whole sequence: Kenyoku for cleansing, Jōshin Kokyū Hō 浄心呼吸法, the breathing that clears the heart, then gasshō and quietly gathering the mind, and reciting Usui's five life principles.
The name already tells you a lot: spiritual power is called forth, because it's already there, and the practice simply clears away what covers it. That fits the core idea of Shingon very well, namely that Buddha nature is inherent in every being and only needs to be uncovered. It's a bit like finding a diamond in the ground and cleaning and polishing it until its beauty shows.
One part of this clearly goes back to Usui himself: the life principles are to be held in the heart and recited aloud, morning and evening, with the hands in gasshō. That's written in the traditional text of the principles itself. I've explored what it means in What Mikao Usui Actually Meant.
How Hatsurei Hō is practiced in detail belongs in the initiation, the live events and the community. I put my hands on myself every morning as soon as I wake up. It wakes me up and gets me into the day relaxed and motivated.
On the sources: Hatsurei Hō as a fixed sequence comes down to us through the Gakkai. Whether it already existed in this form in Usui's lifetime or was put together by his successors is an open question.
Where Shingon Reiki stands 真言靈氣
I developed Shingon Reiki over many years, following the path of my heart. It grew out of my research as a Japanologist, my years in Kyoto, and my own practice in Japanese temples.
It goes straight back to the sources Usui himself drew from: esoteric Buddhism (Shingon), Shugendō, Shinto, and shamanic Daoism. Many of the elements in this article show up in Shingon Reiki alongside mantra, mudra, and meditation, which is where they have their roots.
That doesn't make it better than other paths. It's simply clear about where it comes from. And if you come from another lineage, everything you've received and experienced is still yours.
Which of these techniques speaks to you?
Experience the Japanese techniques
If you're curious how this practice is lived in Shingon Reiki, with initiation, mantra and meditation, feel free to take a look around.
Your path into Shingon Reiki Reiki and Meditation