One method — and one misunderstanding
When most people hear the word "Reiki" today, they think of relaxation. Warm hands. Maybe a wellness session somewhere between yoga and singing bowls.
That isn't wrong. But it's a bit like calling the ocean a paddling pool. The surface is right — but underneath lies an entire world.
Mikao Usui did not develop Reiki so people could unwind. He developed a method that touches the whole human being: body, mind, soul — and capacities that reach beyond all three.
What the memorial stone actually says
In Tokyo there is a stone. It was erected in 1927, one year after Usui's death, by his successor Okada Masayuki. Carved into that stone is what Usui wanted, who he was, and how his method came to be.
I have read this text in the Japanese original and translated it. What it says surprises most people who know Reiki only through Western books.
"The spiritual method should not be limited to the treatment of illness and bad habits alone. The decisive point is that the supernatural abilities of natural endowment form the ground that moves the adept to perfect the spiritual heart, to keep the body in good health, and to embrace a life in prosperity."
Usui memorial stone, Tokyo · translation: Dr. Mark HosakNot relaxation. Not hands-on healing as an end in itself. Rather: the unfolding of supernatural abilities as the foundation on which the spiritual heart is matured.
That is a very different thing from what Reiki has often become in the West.
Who Usui actually was
Mikao Usui was born on 15 August 1865 in the village of Taniai in Gifu Prefecture. His Buddhist name was Gyōhan. The memorial stone describes him as a man with natural talent, great curiosity, and a real passion for reading historical records.
He was at home in medical literature, in Buddhist sutras, and in the sacred texts of East Asia — Buddhism, Daoism, Shinto. The stone is explicit: "From the realms of knowledge of the soul, the methods of mountain hermits with supernatural powers, the magic of incantation and binding formulas, divination with oracle sticks, and the art of reading the future from the face — there was nothing he had not studied."
This is not the profile of a man looking for a wellness technique. This is the profile of a researcher trying to penetrate the hidden forces of life.
Usui was not a healer who stumbled onto a technique by accident. He was a deeply educated researcher of the spiritual traditions of Japan — and his method grew out of years of engagement with esoteric practice, meditation, and the inner teachings of esoteric Buddhism, shamanic Daoism, Shugendō and Shintō.
Three weeks on Mount Kurama
The Kurama range lies north of Kyoto. Japanese makes no distinction between singular and plural — which is why most translations say "Mount Kurama". In reality it is an entire range, several peaks linked by saddle-shaped dips. The name Kurama means horse saddle, and that is exactly what it looks like: between two heights the ridge only sinks slightly, like a saddle, so you can move from peak to peak without descending deep into the valley.
The Kurama range has held countless sites for ascetic practice for centuries — places used to awaken spiritual capacity. This was well known in Usui's day. He most likely chose this place because the tradition held that the energies there were particularly favourable for such an undertaking.
Usui fasted and meditated on Kurama for three weeks. In the night between the twentieth and twenty-first day he felt, above the navel point, a striking mystical energy — 靈氣, Reiki. The memorial stone records: "All at once he received the method of natural healing of spiritual life-energy."
But the decisive point is this: what happened on Kurama was not a chance discovery. It was the fruit of a long, deliberate, years-long search. Usui knew what he was looking for. And Kurama was a place where, since the eighth century, people had been having moments of awakening.
The five life principles — not friendly advice
In the West, Usui's life principles are often read as gentle recommendations. Five sentences to hang on the wall. But the memorial stone sets them in a very different context.
- 一 Today, do not be angry.
- 二 Do not give in to sorrow.
- 三 Be grateful.
- 四 Devote yourself to your karma.
- 五 Practise being kind to all beings and to your own soul.
And then the memorial stone says something decisive:
"This is, in truth, a most important teaching for the cultivation of the power of the mind. This is the one way taught by the saints and sages of old."
Usui memorial stone · translation: Dr. Mark HosakThe five principles are not recommendations. They are the method for developing the power of the mind. The word in the original describes exactly that: cultivating the force of consciousness, unfolding subtle perception. The principles are the tool that does the work.
Usui asked his companions to kneel morning and evening, fold their hands at the heart, recite the five life principles aloud, and turn the attention inward. Body, speech, and mind — the three mysteries, as they have been practised in esoteric Buddhism for centuries.
What was lost on the way west
When Reiki travelled through Hawai'i and into the West, almost everything beyond the laying-on of hands fell away. The life principles became gentle suggestions. The spirits — the Medicine Buddha, Senju Kannon, Bishamonten — were forgotten. The Buddhist-shamanic dimension disappeared.
What remained was a method that works — but that shows only a fragment of what Usui actually intended.
The memorial stone leaves no doubt: "Looking back, this spiritual method should not be limited to the treatment of illness and bad habits alone."
Usui wanted a complete path. A path that opens the capacities of mind. A path on which practice and initiation walk hand in hand. That is what still lives in Shingon Reiki — because we begin where the Western lineage stopped.
Why bodhisattvas, not just symbols
At Kurama-dera, three spirits are venerated as a trinity: Senju Kannon, the thousand-armed bodhisattva of compassion. Bishamonten, guardian of the light. Maōson, the source of Japanese dragon shamanism.
Together they stand for love, light, and life-force.
And this is where it becomes interesting. The Reiki symbols — Choku Rei, Seiheki, Honshazeshōnen, Daikōmyō — have their origin in the veneration of these spirits and in the ritual traditions of Japan. Choku Rei is a ritual instruction for honouring heaven and earth — their joining and merging, which calls the spiritual forces into form. Seiheki goes back to the Siddham syllable HRIH (Japanese: Kiriku), the seed-syllable of Senju Kannon. Honshazeshōnen is a stylised pagoda — the symbol for the connection of all beings with the great solar buddha Dainichi Nyorai.
In Shingon Reiki we do not practise only with symbols. We practise with the spirits themselves — through initiation, through meditation, through the three mysteries of body, speech, and mind. Just as Usui experienced it.
Continue Usui's path
Shingon Reiki begins where the Western lineage stopped. If you sense there is more — that may be exactly what Usui meant.