Reiki

My shihan’s** book, The Spiritual Path of Reiki, starts with:

“Whenever an attempt is made to explain Reiki, a number of difficulties arise.”

I resonate with trying to explain it to others. However, Reiki, as I practise it, is very simple. It’s a way of being present with another person through touch, stillness, and attention. Hands rest on the body, breath moves, and time slows enough for something else to be felt, often subtly, sometimes not at all.

I don’t experience Reiki as something I do to someone. It feels more like creating the conditions for rest and awareness to happen on their own. When I stop trying to direct the session, it becomes clearer that presence is already at work.

There are no sensations I expect, no outcomes I look for. Each session unfolds differently. Some feel quiet. Some feel spacious. Some feel a lot, and some don’t feel like much at all, and that’s part of the practice too.

What keeps me returning to Reiki is its simplicity. It asks very little beyond showing up, listening with the hands, and staying with what is here. In that way, it feels closely related to mindfulness… another way of practising attention, just through the body instead of words.

This is how I understand Reiki right now.
It may change as the practice continues.

** Shihan: the word 師範 (shihan) means “model teacher” or “exemplary instructor.” A shihan is a recognized senior teacher in a traditional Japanese discipline.

Awe

I was in a place I hadn’t been before the other day. New street, new light, new sounds. The type of novelty that usually pulls my attention outward, scanning and naming.

What surprised me was how familiar the feeling underneath was.

The pause.

The slight widening in the chest.

That quiet sense of oh, there you are.

It wasn’t different from the awe I’ve felt in places I know well. The corner I’ve walked a hundred times.

The novelty belonged to the setting, not to the attention.

What stayed with me was how little the place mattered once I stopped trying to take it in. Awe didn’t need the newness. It showed up the same way it always does, when I slowed down enough to notice.

There’s something steady about that.

As if wonder isn’t something we find, but something that meets us wherever we are.

Field Notes

These are notes I’m keeping as I practice being here.

Some days that means sitting quietly and noticing sound or breath. Other days it’s walking, watching birds, or paying attention to how a place affects my body. I write things down because it helps me stay honest about what I’m actually noticing, rather than what I think I should notice.

The notes are simple and sometimes incomplete. They follow whatever is present that day. It could be a sound that lingered, a moment of stillness, a shift in attention. There’s no plan for where they lead. They’re just a way of marking that something was here.

I’m sharing them because practice doesn’t have to be private to be personal. If reading them supports your own noticing, you’re welcome to take them that way. If not, that’s fine too.

These are just field notes from being here.