Reiki Shamanism_ A Guide to Out-of-Body Healing ( PDFDrive )

Reiki Shamanism
with Reiki can be traced back to several hundred years
before Christ’s birth. 3 The Buddhist origins of Reiki can
also hardly be overlooked. Parallels exist between the
Kurama-Koyo Buddhist symbols and philosophy and
Reiki, and it is believed that Dr. Usui had studied at a
young age at a monastery of Tendai Buddhism (one of
the very few photographs of him shows him in either a
Zen or Taoist robe). The Buddhist symbols may have
their origins in Hindu Ayurvedic medicine with
offshoots in ancient Egypt. 4 It also has interesting
parallels in Native American cultures. 5
In Tibetan Buddhism, the healing effects seen with
Reiki were said to be a common outgrowth of higher
levels of mind/body training. But, since dis-ease was seen
as karmic, actually using the healing power was deemed
inconsequential, perhaps even detrimental, to a personal
path of enlightenment. In other words: Why use healing
power on another when it is that person's karmic
disposition to be ill? In fact the first known reference in
Japan to what would become Reiki is by Mong Dsi,
around 300 BC, in a paper complaining that too many
monasteries were focusing on worldly purposes and not
properly using the symbol, then called Ling Qi, for
connection with the divine nature. 6 In this sense, Dr.
Usui would seem to be going against his Buddhist
training. Although these symbols, or similar ones were
well known in ancient Buddhist texts, to use them in
any other way than to achieve enlightenment or
Nirvana to end Samsara, the perpetual cycle of birth and
death, would be seen as a form of attachment to the
world that is antithetical to Buddhist thought. This is
not to say that one cannot be Buddhist and practice
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