Unborn Light Reiki

Originally published back in 2004, Unborn Light Reiki is a healing modality that links together the principles found within Unborn Mind Zen and Original Usui Reiki; its focus is to foster a new Reiki technique that is highlighted with the Lankavatarian principles that constitute Unborn Mind Zen. It needs to be underscored that Unborn Light Reiki is a supplementary Reiki modality and is not meant to supersede Usui’s original form; therefore anyone reading this who is experiencing Reiki for the first time needs to be aware of this and it is recommended that they pursue a foundation in traditional Reiki forms before undertaking the practice of Unborn Light Reiki. Once a foundation is realized then Unborn Light Reiki will provide a wonderful supplement to one’s Reiki practice as its principles provide a deeper realization to spiritual development by utilizing disciplined dhyana techniques that nicely blend together Usui’s original intent and the mystical impetus of the Unborn. One also quickly discerns that this singular variation of Reiki is meant for the solitary practitioner, not the hyped-new age social-media brand.

Portions of the work were highlighted in The Lankavatarian Book of the Dead series back in 2012. What follows is the complete work that was originally divided into two sections. The first in the form of a dialog, known as the Dhyana Interviews that discusses the Unborn Light Reiki principles and techniques. The second offers the techniques themselves, known as the Ten Samadhis of Unborn Light Reiki. In this series they will be utilized together as a single blog-post. Unborn Light Reiki, in itself, is a very good introduction to the foundational principles found in Unborn Mind Zen. As a series it nicely compliments The Dragon Mind of Zen Tarot, Unborn I Ching, as well as The Secret Golden Light of the Unborn series that offer a good working utilitarian praxis of the principles.

The Shoden Interviews and the Ten Samadhis of Unborn Light Reiki:

Question: There are so many Reiki Modalities out there within the Reiki Community; what value does Unborn Light Reiki have that would constitute yet another Reiki system?

Vajragoni: Unborn Light Reiki is unique in that it constitutes the merging of two Buddhaic disciplines: Unborn Mind Zen and Original Usui Reiki. In this fashion, the adept of Unborn Light Reiki will be introduced and come to know the teachings of the former as they merge with and cast a new methodology of the latter.

Question: Well that sounds all well and good, but I still fail to see the value in all this; after all, isn’t Reiki just Reiki? Why incorporate all this Unborn Mind business into something that stands all very well on its own? Instead of fostering the simple and elegant techniques that Usui utilized in what you refer to as “Original” Usui Reiki, aren’t you creating a cumbersome “system” that actually deters from Usui’s original intention in offering Reiki to others in a simple and easily understood fashion?

Vajragoni: Firstly, one needs to be discerning when discussing Usui’s “original intention” behind his understanding of just what does constitute “Reiki”. In fact, Usui never referred to his system as “reiki” at all, but rather a “way to achieve Personal Perfection.” He did this by encouraging his adepts in the first stage of his system, Shoden, to become familiar with and partake in “Buddhist” meditation techniques that would empower them to become more familiar with the various aspects of the Reikian Energies; for those adepts who had a Shinto background, he utilized a series of Kotodamas, or Word Spirit, exercises…intoning sacred Shinto mantras that would also empower the adepts to merge with the energies.

Secondly, the information we have about how Usui conducted his classes and just what did constitute the fullness of his curriculum only became available during the past [23] years or so…little bits and drips of knowledge from former “students” who comprised his school, known as the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, and this information was only being relayed on a one to one basis as “various enquirers” became “privy” to some of the former-surviving members of Usui’s school, most likely now all deceased.  So, one has to wonder as to the precise accuracy of this information, as the information has inevitably become “filtered” through the lens and experience of these surviving students. In more scholarly terms, this information has most likely become “redacted” through the years…meaning that the “actual” techniques of Usui have become changed over a long period of time and are now based on one’s “personal impressions” of just what Usui taught.

Lastly, what we appear to know best about Usui’s “original” intention is based upon “concurred” observations that his system was definitely rooted in Buddhism, with a leaning towards Tendai Buddhism since Usui was a practicing Tendai Buddhist most of his life; so, his “system” was a “spiritual” one and his main intention for his adepts was that they develop a strong connection with the Reikian Energies in order to foster their own spiritual development. In the same fashion, Unborn Light Reiki’s main thrust is to inspire spiritual development on the part of the adept with the added benefit of receiving self-treatment as well as the treatment of others.

Question: So, you’re saying that Reiki is Buddhist?

Vajragoni: While its roots are unquestionably so one cannot say that Reiki today is exclusively Buddhist in nature; there are so many different variables that exist in the wider Reiki community, there are even people who “reiki” their tomato soup! <g> The term is defined as “universal” life energy, although a more precise definition, based on the Japanese kanji, is “Spirit guided energy”; but since Spirit is “universally” recognized no one school can claim ownership of the term; at the same time, however, practicing Reiki in a Buddhaic light does have its merits…in particular within mystical schools of Buddhism whose working epistemological and methodological praxis offers infinite prajna (wisdom) into the inner workings of the Reikian energies whose origins emanate from the Primordial Source ITself; Unborn Light Reiki offers one such praxis.

Question: O.K, so how does Unborn Light Reiki work? What does it have to offer someone who is leaning towards deeper Reikian experiences within the light of Buddhist practice?

Vajragoni: Firstly, its context…how it interacts with sentient experience. All apparent sensate reality is like one big fanciful dream known as samsara (perpetual cycle of birth and death); the cast of characters within this dream, accompanied with all the surrounding scenery, constitutes all those multitudinousness of realities known as the realm of form. This apparent realm is a relative one…with its vast array of images appearing and disappearing endlessly…but the dreaming mind becomes attached through this causticity and becomes conditioned upon it, hence dependent origination. But then enters the Dream Warrior of Luminous Light, known within Buddhism as the Dharmatā Buddha, and the wakeup call becomes established wherein the “exalted state of self-realization transcends all the phenomena of the empirical mind.” The Dharmatā Buddha, who is unconditionally free from all these formal ties, initiates the power of self-realization upon those who are ready to awaken from the dream…and who know through faith and reason in the Unborn Mind (not born of being or non being) that the dream world is really nothing apart from the Mind ITself.

Secondly, its foundation…The Lankavatara Sutra (Lanka). The core of the Lanka is Mind Only, or Cittamatra; there is a Lankavatarian mantra that expresses this best: “What the mind focuses on determines its reality.” In essence what this means is that what the Mind chooses to focus on and hence, create, will determine whether the spinning wheel of samsara becomes initiated with all manner of attachment leading to suffering, dukkha, or instead, “turns about” and “recollects” the very vivifying Source of ITs self-nature; this is known within the Lanka as “the self-realization of Noble Wisdom”, which is the process wherein Mind awakens to the truth of ITs inner recesses and comes to the realization that all that is seen is seen of the Mind ITself. In effect, The Noble Wisdom of Self Realization is a self-cleansing process that prevents Mind from focusing on those created obstructions.

Thirdly, its prognosis…Unborn Light Reiki asserts that there’s a way out of samsara and that is through “bodhipower”, or the power of the awakened mind; this is the aforementioned process wherein Mind awakens to the truth that “all that is seen is seen of the Mind Itself”; thus, what Mind effectively chooses to focus, or even more “not” focus upon (deconstruction), will best determine its reality in the favorable Light of the Unborn. Hence, the negative effects of samsara will be curtailed, as the adept Recollects and becomes empowered with the energy of Unborn Reikian Light.

Fourthly, its treatment…The Noble Light Wisdom of self-realization is effectively administered within the methodology of Unborn Light Reiki. Through disciplined dhyana techniques the adept will become instilled with the gnosis necessary to break the chains of samsara and its primary source, avidya (the fundamental ignorance of “not knowing” and thus habitually repeating the same mistakes that keeps one eternally bound to the cycle of samsara). As all the ties of illness and mental and emotional anxieties intrinsically stem from ceaseless avidya since time immemorial, these techniques, if faithfully self-administered on a consistent basis, will effectively break this cycle as the adept channels the Noble Light of Unborn Reiki.

Question: Wow! It seems like what you’ve done here is to relate Reiki to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism itself: suffering, the cause of suffering, the way out of suffering, and the Noble Eight-fold path that one takes to effectively silence suffering…

Vajragoni: Bravo! You catch on fast! <g> Yes, this is precisely the method entailed; interestingly enough, if one were to look into it and thus come to “see” it, Usui’s own methodology is based on the Four Noble Truths; one can see, therefore, Reiki’s intrinsic nature as a Buddhaic discipline…

*Remember the Lankavatara Sutra teaches that the Dharmatā-Buddha alone establishes the Noble State of Self-realization, which at the same time transcends the phenomenalizations of the empirical mind.