If you know anime and manga, you've almost certainly seen it: characters who lock their fingers into signs at lightning speed and wake invisible forces. Many people sense there must be more behind these gestures than an idea from an animation studio. And they're right. Behind the hand signs is a real spiritual tradition, Kuji Kiri, with roots in the esoteric Buddhism of Shingon, in Shugendō, in Shintō and in shamanic Daoism.
In this article I'd like to explain what the nine characters mean, where they come from, which beings of light belong to them and what's behind the famous legend of the monk Kakuban. And yes, the ninja come up too.
What Kuji Kiri means 九字切り
九字切り Kuji Kiri literally means "cutting the nine characters." In their Japanese form the nine characters are 臨兵闘者皆陣列在前, pronounced rin, pyō, tō, sha, kai, jin, retsu, zai, zen. On its own, the second character 兵 is read hyō, but in the sequence it becomes pyō, which is why you'll see both spellings. Roughly, the line can be read as "The warriors who face the battle all stand in ranks before me." Strictly speaking, though, these are nine separate characters, and in practice each one stands on its own.
Each character has its own hand sign (Sanskrit: mudrā; Japanese: in 印), its own mantra and its own inner image. The hand signs on their own are also called kuji-in 九字印, while cutting the characters into the air with the sword hand sign is the actual kuji kiri. Each character is associated with a particular quality:
These names sound a bit like superpowers, and anime likes to show them that way. What's actually meant is the development of perception and inner strength that you find in many spiritual traditions: presence, intuition, compassion and focus. There's one point I want to clear up right away, because it's often presented wrongly. The nine levels of the Kuji Kiri Master Path don't each correspond to one of these characters. All nine characters are part of the practice from the second level on, and each level adds a new layer to them.
The nine characters and their hand signs 九字印
In the pictures below you can see the nine hand signs. For each one I've added a short note on what the character itself means, because, as so often, a look in the character dictionary pays off. How the hand signs are formed in detail, combined with mantra and inner image, and practiced belongs in the initiation, because that's where it's passed on in the right context.
Strengthening body and mind
The character 臨 means something like "to stand before something" or "to face something." As the first of the nine, it stands for strengthening body and mind.
Directing energy
兵 means soldier or warrior. This character is associated with directing energy.
Harmony with the universe
闘 means to fight. Interestingly, this very character is associated with harmony with the universe, since in the spiritual sense the fight is above all one with yourself.
Regeneration for yourself and others
者 means person, or someone who does something. This character is associated with regeneration for yourself and others.
Intuition, sensing danger early
皆 means all. This character stands for intuition, for sensing danger early.
Access to spiritual knowledge
陣 means battle formation or camp. This character is associated with access to spiritual knowledge and with perceiving the thoughts and feelings of others.
Perceiving space and time
列 means row or rank. This character stands for perceiving space and time.
The elements
在 means to be there, to be present. This character is associated with the elements.
Wholeness and enlightenment
前 means front or before. As the last of the nine, it stands for wholeness and enlightenment, unfolding level by level.
Where Kuji Kiri comes from 起源
The first sources on the nine characters come from China. From there they reached Japan in several waves over centuries through exchange with China. In Japan they were then developed, over further centuries, into a system that exists only there. Put simply, Japanese Kuji Kiri is a blend of Daoism, Japanese folk magic and the esoteric Buddhism of Shingon (Japanese: mikkyō 密教).
The mountain ascetics of Shugendō, the yamabushi, played a big part in this. They practiced in the mountains with fasting, waterfall austerities and rituals, and brought together the powers of buddhas, kami and mountain spirits. Shintō left its mark as well. That's very typical of Japan, where the old isn't thrown out when something new arrives. It lives on alongside it and over time blends with it. So Kuji Kiri is neither a purely Buddhist nor a purely Daoist ritual.
Kakuban and the legend of the bleeding Fudō 覚鑁
In the 12th century the monk Kakuban 覚鑁 (1095–1143) lived on Kōyasan, the sacred mountain of the Shingon school. He was an important reformer of Shingon, and in 1134 he became abbot of Kongōbu-ji and Daidenbō-in. His reforms made him enemies, though, and in 1140 monks of Kongōbu-ji attacked his temple. Kakuban then withdrew with his followers to Mount Negoro, where Negoro-ji was later built. All of this is well documented.
A legend grew up around the attack, recorded in the temple chronicle Mitsugon Shōnin engi. Kakuban is said to have been performing a ritual of Fudō Myōō, the Immovable Wisdom King and a great protector in Shingon and Tendai, when the attackers stormed the hall. Instead of Kakuban they found two identical figures of Fudō Myōō. To find out which one was Kakuban, they wounded both at the knee, and one of them began to bleed. Kakuban himself escaped. It's said that the bleeding Fudō had protected him. Whether or not you take the story literally, it shows very nicely how much protective power Fudō Myōō is credited with in Japan.
By the way, Kakuban also wrote an important treatise on the five elements, the Gorin kuji myō himitsu shaku 五輪九字明秘密釈. The "nine syllables" in the title don't refer to the nine characters of Kuji Kiri, though, but to Amida Buddha's nine-syllable mantra. You'll find more on this in the article on chakras in Reiki.
Some books on the ninja claim that Kakuban found refuge with the ninja at Mount Negoro and initiated them into Kuji Kiri in return. It's an exciting story, but I haven't been able to find any evidence for it in the historical sources. So I'd treat it as legend.
Fudō Myōō, the Immovable 不動明王
At the center of Kuji Kiri practice is the Immovable Wisdom King Fudō Myōō 不動明王. Myōō literally means "king of light," and light here means wisdom. As you can easily tell from the statues, he holds a sword in his right hand and a rope in his left, and a halo of flames blazes behind him. With the sword he cuts through ignorance and attachment, with the rope he binds whatever pulls a person off the path, and his fire burns away illusion.
The sword hand sign used to cut the nine characters into the air is closely tied to him. The cuts form a grid of five horizontal and four vertical lines. In Shingon and Shugendō this ritual serves above all for purification and protection.
Other beings of light in Kuji Kiri 諸尊
Fudō Myōō isn't alone. On the Kuji Kiri Master Path you meet other beings of light as well, and I'd like to briefly introduce three of them here.
Kongōsatta 金剛薩埵 (Sanskrit: Vajrasattva) is regarded as the second patriarch of the Shingon lineage. According to tradition, Nāgārjuna opened an iron stupa in South India and received the esoteric teachings from Kongōsatta there, teachings that later reached Kūkai by way of China. More in the article on Kongōsatta.
Marishiten 摩利支天 is a protective deity who stands for the light that runs ahead of the sun. You can see that light but never grasp it, which is why she's associated with invisibility and protection. In Japan the samurai held her in high regard, and she shows up often in ninja literature too. Her seed syllable is ma.
Nitten 日天 is the sun deva, one of the twelve heavenly guardians (Japanese: jūniten 十二天) of esoteric Buddhism. He stands for the light of the sun that drives away deception and darkness.
The foundation before the nine characters 護身法
Shingon has a practice that comes before almost every ritual, the goshinbō 護身法, literally "the method of protecting the body." It purifies and protects on the three levels of body, speech and mind. The Kuji Kiri Master Path doesn't begin with the hand signs either, but with the foundation. Kuji Kiri 1 centers on Shingon meditations, purification and strong energetic protection, a safe space for everything that follows. It's a bit like building a house, where you don't start with the roof either.
Kuji Kiri and the ninja 忍
The ninja were in close contact with the yamabushi, and that's how Kuji Kiri became part of their tradition too. It's the reason it's so closely tied to the image of the ninja today. For them it was less a fighting technique than spiritual protection and a way to gather mind and focus. What anime made of it is a spectacular simplification. What happens there in seconds rests, in the real tradition, on long practice and on initiation.
I'm the successor of Grandmaster Taguchi in the Taguchi line of Ninjutsu, so I know the martial arts side from my own practice as well. More in the article on Ninjutsu.
The three mysteries 三密
As throughout esoteric Buddhism, Kuji Kiri works with the three mysteries (Japanese: sanmitsu 三密): the body with the hand sign, speech with the mantra and the mind with the inner image. Kūkai brought this principle from China to Japan at the beginning of the 9th century. So Kuji Kiri and Shingon Reiki draw on the same sources, which is why they complement each other so well.
The Kurama mountains, north of Kyōto, where Usui had the meditation experience that Reiki grew out of, fit into this picture too. Kurama has long been home to the tengu, the mountain spirits with long noses or bird beaks. According to legend, the tengu Sōjōbō taught the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune the martial arts there. More in the article on Kurama.
Kuji Kiri in Shingon Reiki 修行
Maybe you saw the hand signs in an anime as a kid and tried to copy them. Lots of people did, and the feeling that there's something real behind them isn't wrong. But Kuji Kiri can't be picked up from a book or a video, because the practice starts with an initiation and grows with guidance. In my research I've spent a lot of time on these roots, and on the Kuji Kiri Master Path I pass them on level by level. What draws you most to the nine characters?
The Kuji Kiri Master Path
If you like, take your time and see how the path is structured.
To the Kuji Kiri Master Path