Reiki and Sensuality

Reiki and sensuality sounds like a contradiction to a lot of people. We tend to link spiritual practice with asceticism, with restraint and with leaving the body behind. In the Japanese tradition Reiki comes from, though, sensuality means something else. What I mean by it is less pleasure for its own sake than the ability to perceive with all your senses what is happening right now, including what's going on beneath the surface.

The name itself gives you a hint. Reiki means spiritual life energy, and to me the spiritual is always something that serves life and makes sense in the long run. The chakras explain this nicely. The root chakra stands for the will to live, and the sacral chakra for desire, joy and sensuality. Without joy in life, at some point you no longer see any meaning or any path, and then the brow chakra also lacks the vision that asks what life is for.

The senses in Shingon Buddhism 感覚

Some ascetic traditions treat the senses as a distraction to be overcome. Shingon Buddhism sees it differently, because here the senses are part of the path. The whole practice of esoteric Buddhism rests on the three mysteries, sanmitsu 三密 in Japanese, meaning body, speech and mind. Mudra involves the sense of touch, mantra involves hearing, and inner visualization involves inner sight.

If you've ever sat in a Shingon temple, you know it doesn't stop there. The scent of incense, sandalwood or aloeswood for example, is part of the ritual and not decoration. The bell, the candlelight and the colors of the mandalas speak to the other senses. Even the water used to rinse the mouth has its place. Put simply, each of these acts brings the mind into the present.

Touch as an encounter 触

Many people first meet Reiki as a fixed sequence of hand positions, and that's a good start. In Shingon Reiki I also put the focus on the quality of the touch. It makes a difference whether you place your hands somewhere because the sequence says so, or because you feel they're needed right here. The person under your hands usually feels that difference too.

In Shingon, the mudras, the ritual hand gestures, are a good example. When the fingers form a mudra, they touch each other, and a kind of circuit forms. The same attentive touch carries Reiki practice. In other words, a Reiki session is always an encounter between two people as well.

Sound and kotodama 音

Hearing plays a big role in Shingon practice. If you sit in a temple while the Heart Sutra (Hannya Shingyō in Japanese) is being recited, you quickly notice that the sound doesn't only arrive through your ears. You feel it in your chest and your belly. Japanese has a word for this, kotodama 言霊, the soul power of words. The idea is that words and syllables carry a force of their own. There's more on this in the article on kotodama.

The ritual chant of esoteric Buddhism, shōmyō 声明, is likewise less performed as music than experienced with the whole body. In Shingon, the beginning is the primordial syllable A 阿, the first sound, which according to this teaching contains all of reality.

The senses in Japanese culture 香

In Mikao Usui's Japan, Reiki was part of a culture that treated the senses as a means of insight. The tea ceremony trains taste and attentiveness, calligraphy trains seeing and posture, and ikebana trains the eye for what matters. When Reiki later spread from Hawaii to America and Europe, fixed hand positions and timings came to the fore so that as many people as possible could find an easy way in. That makes sense, and it's a big part of why Reiki is known around the world. Anyone can bring the senses back into their practice at any time, whatever lineage they practice in.

The topic hardly anyone talks about 愛

When two people are really present during a Reiki session, when the senses are open and the touch happens as a real encounter, the connection can become tangible not only energetically but also sensually. And yes, you read that right, this can include physical attraction. When the energy fields of two people resonate, when the second, fourth and sixth chakras open and relaxation sharpens subtle perception, a kind of magnetism arises that takes hold of the whole person. In my view this attraction is neither a misunderstanding nor a weakness. It's a natural result of a deep energetic opening, and the bonding hormone oxytocin, which the body releases with closeness and tender touch, plays a part in it. You'll find more on this in the article on oxytocin and sensuality.

In my experience, sensing the person receiving is the very core of a session, much more than a nice extra. And this sensing goes beyond the five physical senses. There's also energetic perception, feeling another person's energy field as directly as if you were touching it with your hands, even though all you sense is the space in between.

What can happen then surprises a lot of people. On both sides, for the person giving and the person receiving, a kind of feeling of being in love can come up. I don't think of this as confusion or projection. To me it's a real experience that comes from hearts opening and from the magnetism between two people who meet at this depth. Many people long for exactly this, and when it can happen within a safe setting, I find it wonderful.

When both people allow this state instead of controlling it or shutting it down, a great deal can shift. This isn't about merging physically. But this mood and this pull can be used like a sacred space, one in which more is possible than you'd normally imagine. My own take is that the key lies less in technique or hand positions and more in the willingness to accept this force and feel it, instead of switching it off out of fear. It doesn't have to happen in every session, and since it can't be forced, it's nothing to aim for either. Still, I think it's a reality you shouldn't close yourself off to.

And this is where a taboo sits. In many Reiki circles there's a kind of unwritten rule that you mustn't feel anything, mustn't let yourself in, and must never, ever fall in love. Professional distance matters, and respect and care always remain the foundation. That doesn't change. The problem, as I see it, is the ban on feeling itself. If you believe you mustn't open up because it would be unprofessional, you close the very door through which the most can open in a session.

In the tantric lineages of esoteric Buddhism this connection isn't a side issue. The meeting of two beings who open to each other is seen there as a very direct way to experience non-duality. In Shingon Buddhism this is embodied by Aizen Myōō 愛染明王, the wisdom king of love. He stands for passion and wisdom not being opposites, but two sides of the same force. Buddhist massage belongs to this same tradition of touch as spiritual practice.

What I'm describing here is by no means an invitation to cross boundaries. I'd much rather invite you to be honest about what can happen in a deep energetic encounter, and about your own fear of letting yourself in. Many people have gotten used to switching their feelings off because feeling seemed dangerous. In Shingon Reiki I see the senses as allies and feeling as a source of strength.

How to work with the senses, with incense or with this kind of closeness in practice is best experienced together with others in the community or at a live event. Which of your senses has mattered most to you in Reiki so far?