moraldilemma

What is up everyone. I wonder if anyone has done reiki or any type of similar spiritual healing arts. I think I like reiki but I don't like the organizations that teach it. It's a natural gift that everyone has and I don't feel it's right to charge money for it. (Donations are fine but $60 for a reiki session is pretty scammy.) Moreover Usui didn't charge money for it but accepted donations. His memorial shrine even says "everyone can access reiki because it comes from yourself." Toshihiro Eguchi, one of the members of his school, agreed with this philosophy. http://www.ihreiki.com/blog/article/eguchi_toshihiro_and_palm_healing Randolf Shipon wrote a book called Reiki Psychology in which he shows how to teach yourself how to use your own healing ability. It's widely available and cheap online. But the essential part is in this video: This isn't the "traditional" method but it works. I think the main problem with reiki is that groups of people want to brand it as this super secret art that only their lineage is doing correctly. I don't think it was intended to be that way and people take it as superstitious mumbo jumbo (and expensive at that). The other thing I question is the positivity. It seems like reiki focuses only on the positive which doesn't seem as balanced as something like Taoist qigong. Images of zoned out hippies droning about all loving everyone comes to mind (nothing against love or hippies). There's just something that kind of irks me about focusing only on positivity and love. It feels a little fake. I told my therapist about it and she said it's not out of balance because there will always be darkness in the world. Take the good with the bad. Like everything else, I'm probably overthinking this. Thoughts?

Like I said I've been initiated into traditional Japanese reiki from two different linneages and used it on myself and others many times. There's no question that the reiki training I've gotten is as authentic as what you have (unless you somehow got into the tightly closed and xenophobic Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, which I doubt). And I've done metta meditation many times. It feels exactly the same. It has the same results. Metta actually helps me feel more connected with people even though I'm not touching anyone, let alone in the same room as anyone. The truth is when Usui was alive it was about spirituality and helping humanity. As soon as he died it became about money. What we've gotten is multiple generations of teachers who learned the added business aspect and they taught us the same. I'd rather teach people the truth: that they can heal themselves and experience gnosis, union with everything, right here, right now.

People who are good at marketing also get lots of people interested in their services. Do whatever you need to do to justify your business. I just can't advocate charging money for something that can easily be learned by yourself in less than an hour. I'd also like to emphasize that every reiki teacher I've talked to and every reiki book I've read have stated that it is a natural ability that everyone has.

Alright. Here's my updated, clarified position on this. The videos I posted above are not exactly "traditional reiki" (and neither are any of the systems available outside of Japan today). They are however very similar. The point is you don't need to go to a series of expensive seminars to learn how to heal yourself. Metta meditation is a much older and, IMO, more genuine technique that is actually shown to be more effective. And it's free. Remember: it's all made up. Every idea that is passed between people can never have the true essence of what the idea was trying to capture. Mikao Usui discovered reiki by accident. As soon as he started teaching it it started to become diluted. By the second generation it started to form into systems reminiscent of spiritual pyramid schemes that we have today. Anyway, I feel like I'm arguing with myself at this point. I love you all. I want you all to realize how powerful you are inside. Be free.

\m/

What if there were two guys on the moon and one killed the other with a rock? Would that be fucked up or what?

I'm sorry to bump this old thread but it might be helpful. Been doing Metta (Loving-Kindness) meditation recently and I realized that the energy I felt from that is the same energy I feel while doing Reiki. It may not be the same species, but it's definitely in the same genus. Looked for some evidence as to it's effectiveness and, lo and behold, it has pretty much the same benefits as Reiki: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201409/18-science-backed-reasons-try-loving-kindness-meditation Yeah, this is free and anyone can do it! After spending hundreds of dollars and hours on reiki classes and books it seems like the right thing to do to tell people about this. Just saying, you may be saving a lot of dough by practicing metta instead

Thinking about starting a meditation group at a local library or some such place. I used to go to one that was at a Unitarian Church that was quite nice but then I moved. There aren't any non religious ones near me other than ones lead by psychologists. (Referral needed, which requires insurance, which isn't free here.) There's the Zen center I go to but it's out on the middle of nowhere and it is religious, no matter how non-dogmatic they are compared to most other religions. So my pitch for Craigslist is along the lines of "starting a meditation/mindfulness group in the x area. We will have a foundation of silent sitting meditation. We're also going to explore other techniques such as loving-kindness and [other examples]. Works from Daoism, Zen Buddhism, mindfulness psychology, and other schools will be discussed with emphasis on practice in everyday life. Look forward to hearing from you." So if you got some tips or experience with this type of thing, let me know about it please.

Is this on the wrong board or does no one give a shit?

Ignorance you can fix. Stupid you're stuck with.

There's a lot of word salad happening up in this thread. Maybe I'm thinking too logically or something.

Found another perspective on the topic: "The true seeker Subdues all waywardness. He has submitted his nature to quietness. He is a true seeker Not because he begs But because he follows the lawful way, Holding back nothing, holding to nothing, Beyond good and beyond evil, Beyond the body and beyond the mind... He harms no living thing. And yet it is not good conduct That helps you upon the way, Nor ritual, nor book learning, Nor withdrawal into the self, Nor deep meditation. None of these confers mastery or joy. O seeker! Rely on nothing Until you want nothing." -Dhammapada (ch. 19) Even though it's attributed to Buddha, it seems pretty Daoist to me.

Been stuck on this for a while. As far as I can tell, light can't exist without darkness. Life comes with death, awareness with delusion. So why focus on the positive if the negative will always be there? I asked a Zen master this. Why vow to free all beings if suffering will always be around no matter what we do? He said it's more of a way to behave and do what we can to help the world while we're here. It makes sense- something to hope for. I ask this here because yin and yang are Daoist ideas (universal law in my opinion, though I probably don't understand it). I get that doing good feels good and it's good for you. But I can't shake this irrational fear that doing good might cause an equal amount of bad. (*Edit: For example modern medicine is considered to be good in general, as it saves millions and millions of lives. But it's one of the causes of overpopulation, which is contributing to climate change which is bad.) Would like some experienced Daoist perspective on this.

These answers make sense I guess.

I don't know fam. Space looks like complete and total darkness peppered with a lot of tiny lights. I don't fear the light. I don't want to cling to either, but that's a bit like giving up, escaping, letting everything go.

It seems like the goal of good. To spread to the whole world. I've been working a lot on my mental health and these positive practices keep showing up. Gratitude, compassion, mindfulness, loving kindness- all evidence points to them being beneficial to an individual's emotional state and also to those around them. But I can't get over the feeling that there will be some kind of backlash. That the universe will balance it out somehow. I should probably just let it go, come back to the present, breathe, etc. Which helps a little but it doesn't answer the question. Edit: then again, since my default mode has traditionally been negative, maybe more positive will balance me out.

Been listening to the Sword a lot lately.

Meh. There's at least one in every dimension. Pretty run of the mill tbh.

Yeah. Every time I try to explain Zazen to someone and I get to the part about "if you have a profound realization or vision, just ignore it, go back to sitting, breathing, looking at the wall," they usually get a pretty puzzled expression. One guy even got mad. On the devotion topic, I heard something cool from a guest teacher the other day. I told him I wasn't ready to take the precepts. He said there's no way to be ready. But your body follows the precepts already. If there's something wrong, you'll feel it. Maybe that's why I've been such an angry, depressed sack of crap for most of my life.

"Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to realize such, get to work on such right now." Dogen I've been not trying to not figure this out.

I'm on mobile and I can't figure out how to fix the formatting. Oh my. Before i go into my tirade, let me reinforce my position that healing life energy is beyond ownership of any person or organization. Reiki seminars are okay. But I firmly believe it is a human gift that anyone can do with practice (which every reiki teacher I've met has told me). It doesn't need to be complicated and it doesn't need to cost much. If that means I'm not doing authentic reiki, fine. I've taken two level 1 courses from two different "traditional Japanese" reiki schools and read a few books and numerous articles on reiki history. I don't have citations on hand but here's what I remember: Usui was not a martial artist in any sense (nor was he a Christian minister or a medical doctor or a college professor in America, three other widely spread rumors). Charging fees was added by Hayashi who taught Takata. She was a huge scammer who charged ten thousand dollars for teacher level. I believe she was the one who started the "charge money to complete energy reciprocation" thing. Takata is the main source for most American reiki knowledge. Did you know the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai is still around? They're a closed society and they assert that reiki does not exist anywhere outside of Japan. If Usui was teaching that then I would doubt his spiritual integrity. But it seems that started after he died and Japan lost WW2. "One of the conditions the U.S. required is that all those practicing any kind of healing be required to have a license. Some of the healing groups did get licensed, but the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai decided that they did not want to be controlled by a licensing board and instead chose to go underground. They decided that the members were not to talk to anyone outside their group about Reiki and that they would only practice Reiki with each other." https://www.reiki.org/faq/historyofreiki.html My point is that all of this is too complicated. And may I remind everyone that it's all made up. Every word and symbol is a human concept that came from an idea in somebody's mind. The Dao that can be described is not the eternal Dao. P.S: "reverse energy vampirism" or "empathically taking on someone's pain" comes from trying to control energy. It's pretty easy to not do that. It comes with meditation and accepting the process. Also, meditating for a whole hour before you treat a single person is unnecessary according to both of my teachers. 5-10 minutes is sufficient.

Hey guys. I've made an intro thread already but I haven't been here in forever. Finished rehab for alcohol use disorder a week and a half ago. So I'm not only returning to Dao Bums but also sobriety. It's going pretty well so far although I've been sick. Having a contagious virus also gives me time to read and reflect on spirituality (and play too much playstation). I've decided if I'm going to keep from going over the edge again I'm gonna have to make meditation a big priority. I do Zazen and I'm getting into other forms of mindfulness. I'm going to outpatient recovery groups and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with my shrink. Just started reading about Hermetics and it feels like a path I want to travel. I'm going to start regular yoga classes when I'm not sick. I would take qigong but there aren't any local teachers and I can't do the online thing (I've wasted too much money trying). So there you go. It's pretty cool that this site is still here and kicking. I've looked for other esoteric boards and all the ones I found were super dead. Oh yeah, does anybody know how to view full profiles on mobile? Thanks for reading.