The hand signs surface again and again in modern Japanese pop culture — and they point at something real. But what you have seen on screen is the shadow of a practice whose depth almost no one suspects.
Kuji Kiri is not a technique. It is a practice carried within the Shingon tradition — more than a thousand years old, transmitted directly, from initiate to initiate. What is shown in films, shows and short clips is the outer image of an inner reality that stays closed without initiation.
Rin · Pyō · Tō · Sha · Kai · Jin · Retsu · Zai · Zen. Nine mudras. Nine mantras. Nine qualities. In combination they act like a deep energetic clearing — channelled through Fudo Myoo, the immovable king of light, who cuts through everything that has lodged itself in.
That is the entry. The first stages. What opens with each further initiation is hard to put into words — because it is direct experience, not description.
Kuji Kiri has roots in shamanic Daoism, in Shugendo, in Shinto, and in the esoteric Buddhism of Japan (Shingon) — drawn from the same source as Shingon Reiki. It is not a ninjutsu trick or a screen element you can copy from a video. It is a living lineage, passed from master to practitioners through direct initiation.
Mark carries this lineage. As a researcher and practitioner of the Shingon tradition, as the successor in a ninjutsu line, as someone who lived three years inside the temples of Kyoto.
The Kuji Kiri Master Path moves through all nine seals — from the first initiation to the full practice. Each stage builds on the one before. Each opens what the previous one prepared.
The foundations of Kuji Kiri are the foundations of Shingon Buddhism: Susokukan, Gachirinkan, and Ajikan — three meditation practices that quiet body, mind, and soul, and open the heart for awakening. Together with the Goshinbo — protection across the three layers of karma — and the Hūmjikan, to release inner anger and rage. These are the conditions for letting the strong purifying force of Fudo Myoo flow through you. Initiations into the spirits who work here: Dainichi Nyorai, Senju Kannon, and Kongosatta.
The three mysteries of Fudo Myoo — mantra, mudra, Siddham. Together with Kanjikan and the Kuji Kiri ritual with the nine signs and the cutting of the grid. The sword mudra, and the initiation into the force of the immovable king of light.
Initiation into the nine mudras — each mudra carries its own force and its own meditation to unfold it. From the refinement of perception to the art of becoming unseen. The highlight: the full Kuji Kiri ritual with the nine mudras — Kuji-in in its original form.
The contents of this and all further stages are transmitted directly within the initiation.
Direct transmission within the initiation.
Direct transmission within the initiation.
Direct transmission within the initiation.
Direct transmission within the initiation.
All nine seals in their complete combination. The completion of the Master Path. What waits here resists description — it has to be lived.
Kuji Kiri and Shingon Reiki come from the same tradition. They belong together — and they amplify each other.
The initiations of Shingon Reiki open the energetic ground on which Kuji Kiri acts. Those who practise Shingon Reiki feel the nine seals at a different level than someone without this foundation. The force flows deeper, clearer, more precise.
Kuji Kiri gives Shingon Reiki another dimension of precision. The clearing through Fudo Myoo, the work with the nine qualities — this completes the Buddhist initiation practice in a way you feel in the body the moment you do it.
"I have been in spiritual practice with Mark for about five years now: Buddhist meditations from the Japanese Shingon school, Qigong, Tai Chi, the Japanese martial art Ninjutsu, calligraphy — a depth I have not found anywhere else."
"A grounded path of depth — Reiki, shamanism and authentic Shingon Buddhism, all the way through to the inner treasures of wisdom. I have not seen anything like it in this form anywhere else."
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If you want to walk into single aspects more carefully — here are the pieces that approach this practice from different angles.