Reiki and Sensuality

Reiki and sensuality — for many this sounds like a contradiction. In the West, spiritual practice is often tied to asceticism, restraint, the overcoming of the body. But in the Japanese tradition that Reiki comes from, sensuality means something fundamentally different. Here, sensuality does not mean pleasure for its own sake. It means the senses as gateways to reality. The ability to perceive — with the whole body — what happens beneath the surface. Close your senses and you close yourself off from the world. Close yourself off from the world and the energy stays closed too.

In most Reiki lineages, energy is passed on almost sterilely — as if distance were more professional than presence. The hands rest in place, but the senses are not involved. There is a scheme, a sequence, a technique. What is missing is the living encounter. Shingon Reiki goes a different way. Subtle abilities only develop where the senses are awake. The quality of the connection between two people determines the depth of the effect. That is not theory. That is experience drawn from decades of practice.

The five senses in Shingon Buddhism 感覚

In some ascetic traditions, the senses count as distraction — something to be overcome on the way to awakening. The Shingon tradition sees it exactly the other way around. Here the five senses are not obstacles on the path. They are the path itself. The body is not a prison of the mind. It is the mind's most precious instrument.

The whole practice of esoteric Buddhism is built on the senses. The Three Mysteries — Sanmitsu 三密 — work directly through the body and its perception. Mudra activates touch and body awareness when the fingers shape themselves into sacred gestures. Mantra activates hearing when the sound vibrates through the body. And inner visualisation activates sight — not the outer eye, but the inner gaze that lets images of radiant clarity arise.

But it does not stop with those three. Anyone who has stepped inside a Shingon temple knows: nothing there is left to chance. The scent of incense — sandalwood, aloeswood, frankincense — does not fill the room as decoration. It is ritual practice. Every incense has its meaning, its assignment, its effect on the mind. The sense of smell 香 becomes a gateway. Even taste has its place. The ritual water that cleanses the mouth, the tea after meditation — none of this is incidental. They are conscious sensual acts that bring the mind into the present.

Touch as energy 触

In Western Reiki, touch is standardised. Place the hands, hold the position, move on. The hands are tools that transmit energy — so the idea goes. But the idea falls short. In Shingon Reiki, the position of the hands is not the decisive thing. It is the quality of the touch.

What does that mean in practice? It means: how you place your hands changes everything. Do you place them mechanically because the scheme says so? Or do you place them because you feel they are needed exactly here? Is your attention already at the next position — or are you fully present in this moment, at this spot? The hands feel the difference. The person receiving feels the difference. The energy feels the difference.

In Shingon Buddhism, touch is a form of communication between the visible and the invisible. The mudras — the ritual hand gestures — are the purest expression of this. When the fingers form a mudra, it is no symbolic action. The fingers touch each other and a circuit comes into being. Energy flows through the fingertips, through the palms, through the whole body. The same quality of touch — attentive, present, alive — carries the Reiki practice as well.

A Reiki application is not a technique. It is an encounter. Two people, connected through the touch of hands, opening a space in which energy can flow. The more awake the senses of the practitioner, the deeper the connection. The deeper the connection, the deeper the experience — for both.

Sound resonance and Kotodama 音

The second great sense in Shingon practice is hearing. Mantras are not simply words you recite. They are sound that pervades the body. Anyone who has sat in a temple while monks chant the Heart Sutra Hannya Shingyō knows: this sound does not pass through the ears into the head. It passes through the ears into the chest, into the belly, into the bones. The body becomes a resonating chamber.

Japan has a word for this that reaches deeper than any translation: Kotodama 言霊 — the soul force of words. In the Japanese tradition, words are not mere carriers of information. Every word, every syllable carries its own force, its own vibration, that acts upon reality. The Reiki symbols passed on at the second level have not only a visual form — they have a sound. And that sound is not their name. It is their essence.

The tradition of Shōmyō 声明 — the ritual intonation of esoteric Buddhism — shows this with particular clarity. Shōmyō chant is not heard as music in the Western sense. It is not performed, not consumed. It is experienced. The monks intone mantras and sutras in a way that involves the entire body — the vibration in the throat, the resonance in the chest, the lingering in the silence. Sound here becomes a bridge between the audible and the inaudible. For more on the power of words and sounds in the Reiki tradition, see the article on Kotodama — the soul force of words.

Why Western Reiki lost the senses 香

When Reiki found its way from Japan to the West in the 1930s and 1940s, something happened that is not unusual in the history of spiritual traditions: the practice was simplified. The sensual experience — the scent, the sound, the quality of touch — was reduced to a mechanical scheme. Hand positions were fixed. Time intervals were defined. The intention was understandable: Reiki was to be accessible to everyone, without years of preparation. But the price was high.

What was lost was not only a method. What was lost was an entire dimension of perception. In the Japan of Mikao Usui, Reiki was embedded in a culture where the senses counted as instruments of knowing. The tea ceremony trains taste and attention. Calligraphy trains seeing and posture. Ikebana trains the eye for the essential. Reiki, as Usui practised it, was part of this sensual universe. It was never a technique that could be exercised detached from the body and its senses.

The Western simplification turned a living practice into a protocol. Standardisation instead of presence. Scheme instead of encounter. The hands rested in place — but the senses stayed uninvolved. Shingon Reiki gives the practice back what was taken from it on this path. Not as a return to a romanticised past, but as a rediscovery of what was always there: the senses as the foundation of every real energetic experience.

Sensuality as practice — not as concept

What does this mean for daily Reiki practice? It means: begin with your senses. Before you place the hands — do you feel the room? Do you smell what is in the air? Do you hear the silence — or what moves inside it? The quality of a Reiki session does not begin with the first laying-on of hands. It begins in the moment you enter the room and open your senses.

In the Shingon tradition there is a practice for this so simple that it is easily overlooked: mindful incense. Before the actual practice starts, incense is lit. Not as a mood-setter. As a threshold. The scent marks the passage from everyday life into sacred space. The nose perceives. The breath deepens. The mind arrives. And then — only then — the practice begins.

This principle runs through everything in Shingon Reiki. The way you prepare the room is already practice. The way you raise your hands before you place them — slowly, with awareness — is already practice. The way you listen to the breath of the person receiving, the way you feel the warmth under your palms, the way you perceive where the energy is denser and where it flows — all of that is practice. And all of it happens through the senses.

Whoever has understood this never returns to mechanical application. Not because the mechanical is wrong — it is a usable beginning. But because behind it lies a world that only reveals itself to awake senses. A world where every touch is an encounter. Where every sound carries a message. Where the scent of incense is not simply smoke, but a gateway.

The gateway no one talks about 愛

Now comes the point that almost no one in the Reiki world speaks about. And precisely for that reason it has to be said here.

When two people in a Reiki session are truly present — when the senses are open, when touch is not mechanical but a real encounter — something can arise that goes far beyond what most Reiki books describe. The connection becomes more than energetically tangible. It becomes sensual. And yes: that can also include physical attraction. When the energy fields of two people interpenetrate and resonate, when the second, fourth and sixth chakras open and relaxation deepens subtle perception — a magnetism arises that takes hold of the whole person. The physical attraction is no misunderstanding and no weakness. It is the natural result of a deep energetic opening — among other things triggered by oxytocin, the bonding hormone released in real closeness.

My experience over more than 25 years of practice has shown: feeling the person who receives is not just a nice extra. It is the core. It makes the difference between a functional application and a transforming encounter. And this feeling is not limited to the five physical senses. There is a sixth dimension — energetic perception, sensing another energy field as immediately as if you were touching it with your hands, even when you only feel the space between you.

What can happen here surprises many: on both sides — the one giving and the one receiving — something like a feeling of being in love can arise. No confusion. No projection. A real experience — triggered by the opening of the hearts, the merging of energy fields and the magnetism that comes when two people meet at this depth. This is something many people deeply long for. And when it can happen in a safe frame, it is something wonderful.

And right here a gateway opens.

When this opening happens — when both people allow this state instead of controlling or shutting it down — very deep transformation can take place. It is not about merging physically. But this mood, this energy, this magnetic pull — it can be used like a sacred space. A space where more can be moved than one would normally imagine. The allowing itself is the key. Not the technique. Not the hand position. Not the protocol. The willingness to receive and feel this force, instead of switching it off out of fear. Reiki is no sterile application. It is a deeply sensual experience — in the most original, most alive sense of the word.

It does not have to happen in every session. It is no goal to chase, and it cannot be forced. But it is a reality you should not close yourself off from. Whoever denies or suppresses this dimension cuts the practice off from its highest potential.

And here lies the real taboo. The strong attraction that can arise is profoundly meaningful — even though almost no one admits it. In the Western Reiki scene there is an unwritten law: you must not feel anything during this. You must not let yourself in. You must absolutely not fall in love. You must keep professional distance. The senses must be controlled. Touch must stay sterile.

But it is precisely this prohibition that blocks what Reiki makes possible at its deepest. It robs the practice of its transformative force. Not because the boundaries between the one practising and the one receiving should be dissolved — respect and attention always remain the foundation. But because the prohibition of sensation is itself the problem. Whoever believes they must not let themselves in, because it is forbidden or unprofessional, closes precisely the gateway through which the deepest transformation can happen.

In the tantric traditions of esoteric Buddhism — not to be confused with what is marketed in the West as "Neo-Tantra" — this connection is no marginal aspect. It is central. The encounter between two beings who open to each other counts as one of the most direct paths to the experience of non-duality. Aizen Myōō 愛染明王, the wisdom king of love in Shingon Buddhism, embodies exactly this truth: that passion and wisdom are not opposites, but two sides of the same force. Buddhist massage stands in exactly this tradition — touch as spiritual practice that includes the whole person.

What I describe here is no invitation to crossing boundaries. It is an invitation to honesty. Honesty about what can happen in a deep energetic encounter. And honesty about one's own fear of letting it happen. Many people have learned to switch off their sensations — not because it is good for them, but because they were taught that feeling is dangerous. Shingon Reiki shows another way: the senses as allies, sensation as force, and the encounter between two people as what it can be — a space where transformation happens because someone dares to let themselves in.