A longtime Reiki practitioner started sharing her experience of the Reiki treatment we’d just finished.
“When you were working on my crown,” she started.
“I wasn’t working on you,” I interrupted. Confident in our relationship, I let the importance of the point overrule my manners.
She rolled her eyes like a teenager, miffed that I was doing my not-working thing again.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” I apologized, “but ‘work’ doesn’t express where I am when offering treatment, and if you think I’m working on you, that alters your expectations. I was simply practicing, enjoying sharing my Reiki hands with you.”
I watched the penny drop. Her softened facial expression, the dilation of her eyes, and slow tilt of her head evidenced a shift in understanding.
She smiled.
“I loved that you stayed on my crown for so long,” she said. “It felt really good.”
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Pamela,
In my understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, you are trying to draw a distinction between work, which might mean being focused on client and involving deliberate intent to manifest specific results, and practice, which might mean a more inward focus (of course without getting lost in inner states that preclude any consideration for the client) and simultaneously not involving the will or intent in any significant way. Am I correct in this understanding?
The discussion on your Facebook page veered towards a discussion on the work/play duality, and the monetary benefits that accrue as a result of work, which adds a very interesting dimension to the entire discussion.
I want to state my understanding of the “I am (not) working on my client’s crown” statement:
1. By stating that I am not working, we are building up towards the ideal (in my view) state of egolessness by negating that “I” am doing something. It is manifestly clear that in a Reiki session “I” do not do anything other than provide the connection to the Reiki consciousness, and what happens as a result of it is a systemic response from the client’s being. In this sense I like to conceptualise Reiki as a kind of external breath, since it does not require any conscious effort from the practitioner or the client to go about its functioning.
2. By stating that I am practising, the focus shifts from the “I” to the practice itself, while also acknowledging that the realization of unity, and its perpetual endurance, has not yet manifested. In this way we also acknowledge our own truth of the moment, and will not feel cheated or somehow in denial of what’s actually happening. This makes me feel Reiki practice is more of a path of knowing rather than belief, more a spiritual path than a religious conviction. This statement is a genuine, heartfelt statement of our current truth.
It is a subtle post, Pamela. Thank you for sharing it with us. I am still contemplating the reactions this topic triggered.
Thank you.
Suneil