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Mikao Usui It was Mikao Usui, a Japanese Tendai Buddhist who developed the original spiritual system that we have come to know as Reiki. In the early days it was known as Usui Do, a name given to the system by Usui's own students. Usui was born into a wealthy Tendai Buddhist family which was descended from one of the most famous and influential Samurai families in Japan; the Chiba clan, on 15 August 1865 in the village of Tanai Mura in the Yamagata district of the Gifu Prefecture of Kyoto - the former Japanese capital.
Over the span of his life Usui travelled extensively, visiting the US and Europe several times as well as China to study and learn the Western ways. He was always a hard working student and accumulated a vast knowledge of medicine, psychology, fortune telling and the theology of world religions. He also studied Chinese Traditional Medicine, numerology, astrology and psychic and clairvoyant development amongst other things. Usui was a committed seeker after the ultimate meaning of life and the way to escape from suffering. From the evidence of the teachings within the lineage of Reiki Jin Kei Do, it seems more than likely that in developing his spiritual discipline Usui drew partly on the spiritual practice that is now known as Buddho-EnerSense because the origins and deeper meanings of the Reiki symbols are contained within this system. In his search for the ultimate Truth, Usui decided to fast and meditate for 21 days. In the lineage of Reiki Jin Kei Do it is claimed that Usui performed the first three cycles of a meditation known as Buddho during his spiritual retreat . Buddho means 'energy' or 'seed' of enlightenment. This meditation was the spark that would later send a Zen monk by the name of Seiji Takamori in search of the roots of the Reiki system. The Buddho meditation is known to have been passed on by Usui who had received it from a monk who had advised him to practice the meditation in order to receive the energy empowerments that he sought. This cyclic meditation involved a direct connection to and visualisation of Buddhist deities and symbols that are the root of one of the widely known Reiki symbols. Usui's hopes of having this Truth revealed to him were realized and on the last day he experienced a moment of satori - this being Usui's empowerment to the Universal Life Force Energy. In 1925 Usui came across a group of Imperial Officers who were to become his students, including Rear Admirals Jusaburo Ushida, Kan'ichi Taketomi and Naval Captain Chujiro Hayashi. Hayashi, Ushida and Taketomi were the last people to be taught by Usui. Mikao Usui eventually died from a stroke - his third - whilst on a visit to Fukuyama, Hiroshima on the 9th March 1926. Chujiro Hayashi It would seem that the word 'Reiki' (and Reiki Ryoho ) as a label for Usui's system was first used by Hayashi and his naval associates. Hayashi modified and systematized Usui's teachings and created the standard hand positions, the system of three Degrees and their initiation procedures. This is pretty much the system of Reiki that the West finally inherited. Hayashi conducted intensive training seminars all over Japan, training hundreds of students in his system of Reiki. In total however he only taught 17 Reiki Masters. One of these was the enigmatic abbot of a small Zen temple; Sensei Takeuchi. It was to Takeuchi that Hayashi passed on the Buddho meditation. Takeuchi, who may have been a close friend, was not considered a 'typical' student by Hayashi. Perhaps others also received the Buddho. Certainly Takeuchi seems to have inherited a form of Usui's system that is similar in many ways - with the exception of the Buddho meditation - to that which was passed on to another of Hayashi's students, Hawayo Takata, from whom the majority of the Reiki in the world is descended. With the outbreak of World War 2 and its consequent escalating savagery, Hayashi felt a strong conflict between his impending military call-up and his moral code as a Reiki practitioner. In the presence of some of his own students and his wife at his villa in the hot spring resort of Atami, near Mt Fuji, on 11 May 1940, he took his own life. Seiji Takamori
Seiji Takamori was born in 1907 and at the age of 19 became a Zen monk under Sensei Takeuchi. Following five years of intensive meditation instruction in the Zen tradition, Takamori was introduced to Reiki by his teacher at Takamori's request. Seiji seems to have learnt the system over a period of three years before finally being considered a Reiki Master and empowered to teach the system to others. His progress was regularly monitored by Takeuchi who would check the degree or intensity of Seiji's energy transmission. During this period Seiji was required to give healing to the local village residents who supported the temple. Seiji Takamori was the only student to whom Sensei Takeuchi passed on the complete Reiki system as he knew it, including the Buddho meditation.
In an isolated part of Nepal he discovered a more complete system of healing and spiritual development that paralleled his own practice of Reiki. It was clear to Seiji that there was a direct link between the philosophy and the symbols, yantras and mantras of this system and the philosophy, symbols and practices of the Reiki system. It was Seiji's belief that he had discovered the same or similar material within Vajrayana Buddhism that Usui had connected to and possibly used in developing his system of Usui Do . He decided to stay and study with three of the monks. After a period of time he was directed to a more senior monk further into the mountains who knew the complete system, with whom he spent a further seven years. The system of Buddho-EnerSense , as it came to be known that Seiji learnt is thought to be a parallel system of healing and spiritual development, passed down from the Buddha that relates to the origins of Reiki as developed by Usui and his students. On completion of his studies Seiji left Nepal and travelled the world teaching meditation and healing and being supported by those requesting teachings from him. In 1990 during a visit to the United States, Seiji met Dr Ranga Premaratna in Madison, Wisconsin. During the visit Seiji passed on the complete Reiki system that he had been taught and the researched Buddhist material that he had discovered in the Himalayas. Ranga was the only person to receive the full teachings from Seiji. So another lineage of Reiki emerged from Japan, a lineage with a distinctly different ethos and approach to that of the dominant Western lineages. This lineage is now known as Reiki Jin Kei Do (The Way of Compassion & Wisdom through Reiki), and contains within it the traditional 3-Degree Reiki system that came largely from Hayashi, and also the system of Buddho-EnerSense , which is only available as further studies within this lineage. According to Reiki Master Beth Sanders, as Seiji was preparing to leave Madison he told Ranga of his excitement at discovering the one teacher whom he believed could guide him on the final part of his journey to full enlightenment; the person that could help establish him in a permanent and irreversible state of higher consciousness - his Sat Guru . On his return to Sri Lanka, Seiji discovered that this was not the case and eventually died whilst sitting in meditation at a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka in 1992 at the age of 83, hoping to meet his Sat Guru in his next incarnation. Ranga Premaratna
In November 1989 Ranga began his Reiki training in the Takata lineage of Western Reiki with Elka Petra Palm from West Germany, from whom he received both the 1st and 2nd Degrees. Almost a year later he went on to take his Masters level training with another Takata lineage teacher, Beth Sanders. As a consequence of the dubiousness of some of the material passed on to him, Ranga felt that perhaps he had been too hasty in his search for a teacher and so decided to simply work with what he had, integrated with his meditation practice. He undertook a nine-day intensive meditation programme and asked to be guided to the teacher who could show him the right path and so Ranga had begun his search for the true information on Reiki and the Reiki symbols. A few days later, towards the end of November 1990, Ranga met Seiji Takamori after being introduced to him over the phone by a relative of his living in San Francisco, who had met the monk in a park where he was sitting in meditation. A conversation between Seiji and Ranga followed in which Ranga managed to persuade Seiji to visit and to teach him meditation and Reiki. Then one day whilst walking near a lake, Ranga heard the sound of chanting. He came upon a man with a Japanese top-knot who then got up to perform a series of exercises that were reminiscent of Tai Chi . Ranga described his experience of this moment: "Each arm movement seemed to generate surges of energy that I could feel from a distance. Just watching this man move from one powerful action to the next sent shivers throughout my body". Ranga was ultimately trained in the complete Reiki system and the older healing method on which elements of the Reiki system were based that Seiji had rediscovered in the Himalayas. Upon his arrival in Australia in 1992 Ranga began to teach the new lineage on a wider basis. In 1997 Ranga gave the lineage the name Reiki Jin Kei Do and thus began a process of defining the specific orientation of the lineage and teachings. In 2005 a major review of the lineage and where it stands in relation to its own core philosophy and the mechanics of the dissemination of its teachings was initiated. This came at a time when it was felt that there was a need to 'bring together' the RJKD family as a discreet body of practitioners and Masters within the wider Reiki community for a period of self-reflection and analysis. This took place at the same time, but unconnected to the writing of my book on Reiki Jin Kei Do. |
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The History of Reiki Jin Kei Do 
At the age of four Usui entered a Tendai Buddhist monastery near Mt Kurama ( Horse Saddle Mountain ) to begin a period of several years of intensive training in this school of Mikkyo Buddhism.
Hayashi was one of only two of Usui's students to reach the very highest levels of training (Shichidan) in Usui's spiritual system. He was clearly not a run-of-the-mill student in spite of having only trained with Usui for a period of about six to nine months prior to Usui's death. Probably in part as a consequence of the high levels of attainment in the Usui system that Hayashi had reached, he was given the Buddho meditation which Usui had practiced on Mt Kurama. 
It was the current lineage head, Dr Ranga Premaratna, who noted that the name Seiji Takamori means 'True' ( Sei ) - 'Compassion' or 'Love' ( Ji ) - 'Eagle' ( Taka ) - 'Observe' ( Mori ). Therefore his name means 'true compassion and eagle-like observation', and is an expression of the philosophical basis of Reiki Jin Kei Do.
In recognizing the Buddhist origins of the Buddho meditation, Seiji requested that Venerable Takeuchi allow him to search for further teachings relating to Reiki and the Buddhist material that he had been given. In receiving this permission he began a process of extensively researching the origins of the Reiki system over a period of 20 years within the Tantric and Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, which took him on a journey from Japan to northern India, Nepal and Tibet.
Ranga is from a Sri Lankan Buddhist background and has been familiar with the practice of meditation since the age of 15. During a period in 1978 in Hawaii when he began his degree studies he undertook some further studies in Buddhism and in complementary therapies such as reflexology, shiatsu and kiatsu . He then moved to Indiana in mainland USA to undertake a PhD but also continued with his studies in natural medicines, bodywork and meditation. In 1989 Ranga received his PhD and was offered a job at the University of Wisconsin as a postdoctoral research scientist. He accepted the offer and with his wife Mae moved to the beautiful town of Madison.