IN and YO are concepts of duality in Japanese energy and Reiki study. They are similar to the more familiar Chinese concepts of YANG and YIN – which we see as something having a feminine or masculine nature or attributes. In Japanese understanding of duality however, everything has both. IN and YO are two sides of the same coin, more like inner and outer or right and left. We often want to believe they are two different “things” when in truth there is one orginal energy. Electricity is electricity. It has both a positive and negative charge, but the two together are electricity. There is only one energy. Similarly there is IN and YO to everything. Light and dark, hot and cold are two examples of common dualities found in nature. Let’s look at the Reiki Precepts to see how this understanding works in them.
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Archive for Reiki Teaching
Teaching a level two student the subtlety of non-present Reiki is a deep walk into metaphysical spirituality. In Western teaching we get around this by creating a sense of distance. We teach students that Symbol 3 is like using the telephone to dial across distances. We use teddy bears to focus students and teach them how to bring a non-present being into presence symbolically. None of this is bad, it is an outer look at some very difficult concepts for westerners.
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A Wider Context for the Precepts
This morning I pulled an archetype card.
It was a dark circle with clenching hands that gave me a shiver to look at.
Then I noticed a white dove flying up out of the clenched hands and began to wonder what it all meant.
I felt the darkness and heaviness of the black circle, the tension of the clenched holding hands and the lifting of the dove.
This card is called The Vow
Its Roman numeral is LIV …. Live
Read More→I have always been a bit uncomfortable with the concept of lineage,
Usui Sensi, Founder of Reiki
which appears to be something important in our Reiki training, and which for me, with my very English background, draws up images of kings and queens and dukes and ladies – those with prized lineages that allow them entitled benefits….
Even in many Reiki practitioners today we find people very attached to something special their Reiki lineage seems to endow them with that makes their Reiki, and perhaps them? what – superior – to others? Better than others? A contentiousness that has no spiritual home in right practice but finds a home in our human hearts.
How then do we approach lineage with understanding and humility? Read More→
Learning Reiki is a Personal Choice
As online Reiki courses become more and more available in this age of technology and online learning, the question is asked – is online a viable way for me to learn Reiki? Read More→
As this New Year begins, I am once more brought to a place where gratitude is a recurring theme in my life, heart and mind.
The fourth precept says: I will be grateful for my many blessings
Someone not knowing about Reiki and reading this would think I’m singing a song line here – but this is the mantra my teacher sent us home with after completing Reiki Level I. We were to put our hands on ourselves and “do reiki do reiki do reiki” everyday! Just in time for the stresses of the holidays, here is an article about self-care! Read More→
