Hand Positions

There are several different schools of thought regarding hand positions in treatments. They are all equally effective making it a matter of personal preference and or lineage tradition.

Some practitioners will treat with their hands resting lightly on the clients body, while others will treat with their hands just above the clients body, working in their aura.

Practitioners trained in Eastern lineages tend not to use formal hand positions, preferring to allow their hands to be guided by intuition.

Practitioners taught in Western lineages are generally taught 12 basic hand positions to use in the treatment of others although this does vary. I found some diagrams on-line that had over 20 hand positions.

Similar preferences apply to self-healing. Eastern trained practitioners tend to use visualisations, whereas western trained practitioners use actual hand positions.

Symbol Uses

All traditions agree about the use of Reiki Symbols as a way for the practitioner to connect with the subtle variations of Reiki Energy.

Eastern traditions place a lot of emphasis on the importance of meditating on these energies, either as visualisations or as mantras, to the point where the practitioner feels himself or herself merging with the energy and becoming one with it. This enables the practitioner to make a much stronger connection with the energy when treating clients, but precludes the use of ‘symbol sandwiches’.

Western traditions teach a more formal approach, prescribing set hand positions and symbol combinations for different treatments.

In addition to their use in client treatments, symbols are also used by some practitioners for chakra balancing, space cleansing, protection, and positive affirmations.

Energy Exercises

Many of the meditations taught in traditional Japanese Reiki took the form of energy exercises. They focused on channeling through the use of a mixture of visualisations and mantras.

Reiki courses following the Japanese tradition place great emphasis on these exercises and encourage students to create their own daily space to practice a regular routine.

The first of these exercises to be taught is generally Hatsurei Ho. This cleanses the student’s aura, connects them to the Reiki energy, and opens up and balances the channels for the energy to flow correctly. By practicing it on a daily basis the student gradually increases the strength of their connection to the energy.

Next in order of importance are daily self-healing meditations. These can take a number of different forms depending on the student’s individual stage of development.

Once the students reach 2nd degree they are encouraged to meditate on the Reiki Symbols either using visualisations or the kotadamas (mantras) associated with them.

There are many other energy exercises which students are encouraged to practice including alternative self-healing exercises such as Makoto No Kokyu.