What Does it Mean to “Be Reiki”

For many years, I understood Reiki as something I connected to.

I would connect to Reiki before a session. Reiki would flow through me. I would channel Reiki through my hands to another person.

This language is incredibly common within modern Reiki.

I still understand why we use it.

But over time, my relationship with those words has changed.

Through practice, and particularly through a deeper exploration of the Japanese roots of the system, I began to question something very simple.

If Reiki is universal, what exactly am I connecting to?

The idea of separation

When we say that we are connecting to Reiki, there is already an assumption hidden within the sentence.

There is me.

And there is Reiki.

My practice then becomes the thing that joins the two together.

It can be a useful way of understanding Reiki when we first begin, but eventually we can look a little more closely.

What if Reiki was never somewhere else?

What if practice isn’t creating a connection at all?

This is where we begin to encounter the idea of being Reiki.

It can sound rather grand when first heard.

Perhaps even a little mystical.

But I don’t understand it as a claim that a Reiki practitioner becomes something special.

Quite the opposite.

Nothing to become

To be Reiki is not an achievement.

It isn’t something bestowed upon us when we complete enough levels, receive enough attunements or practise for enough years.

It points towards something much simpler.

Reiki is often translated as spiritual or universal energy, but within the practice we can begin to experience it less as a separate substance and more as the interconnected nature of life itself.

There is nowhere we need to reach in order to find that.

Practice simply gives us opportunities to notice how often we create separation.

Me and you.

Practitioner and receiver.

Here and there.

Giving and receiving.

Doing and allowing.

The more quietly we practise, the less convincing some of those divisions can become.

From doing Reiki to practicing Reiki

This has changed the way I think about what it means to practise Reiki.

There is less emphasis on switching something on.

Less emphasis on becoming a clear enough channel.

Less pressure to make something happen through my hands.

Instead, practice becomes an opportunity to settle.

To breathe.

To become quiet enough to notice what is already present.

This doesn’t mean the practices within Reiki become unnecessary.

Quite the opposite.

The Precepts, breath practices, hands-on healing, symbols and Reiju give us form.

We practise the form until we begin to see what the form has been pointing towards.

No giver, no receiver

At deeper levels of practice, we sometimes encounter the phrase:

No giver. No receiver.

This doesn’t mean there are literally no two people sitting in the room.

Nor does it remove the importance of consent, boundaries or our very human experience.

It points instead towards the possibility that Reiki does not originate inside one person and travel into another.

The practitioner is not the source.

The receiver is not an empty vessel waiting to be filled.

For me, this understanding takes pressure away rather than adding anything new.

There is less to perform.

Less to prove.

Less to control.

Already here

Perhaps this is what I now mean when I say we are Reiki.

Not that we have become Reiki.

Not that Reiki belongs to us.

Not even that we have successfully connected to it.

Simply that the separation we imagined between ourselves and Reiki was never quite as solid as we thought.

Practice doesn’t need to manufacture connection.

It allows us to notice it.

And sometimes, for a moment, there is nothing left to do.

If you feel drawn to explore Reiki, I offer Shoden - the first level - several times a year in Coomba Park on the NSW Mid North Coast.