I was at one of my favorite watering holes last night and I ran across a man from New Zealand who had never heard of Reiki, which is odd, because here in Japan most foreigners I’ve met know about Reiki, and most of them seem to know a good deal about it… its actually the Japanese who have never heard of it. Really! At any rate, I found the the conversation to be quite odd, which led me to this post… how do you explain about Reiki to people who have never heard about it? The answer is, actually, not so obvious.

I was introduced to this fellow as a Reiki teacher, and he asked me what Reiki was all about. I explained it as a Japanese spiritual healing art, and, while up to that time I had the impression that he was quite open, extremely intelligent and rather liberal in his thinking, his response was “ah, some kind of Japanese Voodoo, eh?” and he seemed to immediately close his mind to it. I said something to the effect of it being more like a scientifically explainable energetic resonance phenomena, if one considers quantum physics a reality, and again he said that was just Voodoo.

Knowing a fair bit about Voodoo from my college days (although my Haitian Creole is a bit rusty I was a big fan of Haitian Rum in those days) I gave him the basics of what Voodoo is actually all about, demonstrating that there is no relationship whatsoever between Reiki and Voodoo, and he said that he considered anything non-Christian to be Voodoo. Now we were getting somewhere! Seems this guy was extremely religious and it was the spiritual aspect of Reiki that put him on the defensive and nothing I could say after that would sway him, so I let it drop and the conversation returned to the Olympics… no not the Reiki Olympics…

Explaining Reiki to Japanese is difficult, because the name alone conjures up negative images of ghostlike apparitions, and since you never get a second chance to make a first impression, if you introduce it as Reiki, you’re pretty much doomed right from the get go. I used to just use the English letters or one of the other Japanese writing systems when introducing Reiki to Japanese, but that was largely ineffective as they automatically know which REI I was talking about and a majority of them were immediately closed to it. I have recently found a way around it… but that’s a topic for another day (hint: it has to do with my son).

One of the basic tenets of Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP, a relatively new branch of behavioral psychology, is that the meaning of your communication is in the response you get. Which means that your words are not as important as how the person you are talking to understands those words. Therefore, effectively explaining Reiki begins with that principle in mind and with the other person in mind. Each of us has our own filters through which we see the world based on our own diverse experiences and unique education and no two sets of filters are the same. The meaning of your communication is in the response you get means that you must structure your communication in a way that seeks to explain things in a way that lines up your filters with their filters, whether you are attempting to communicate with one person or a dozen. Its like slices of Swiss cheese stacked together… only when the holes all line up can true communication occur… so to speak.

The Hank Williams song discussed in my post on the 5th Reiki Principle offers the phrase You’ve never walked in that man’s shoes or saw things through his eyes which is essentially the basis of meaningful conversation, unless you can put yourself in their shoes, you can’t understand what they’re thinking, so the best we can do is understand that fact and approach communication with that in mind. Expecting people to “know what you mean” will virtually always lead to a breakdown in communication, unless you are dealing with someone who is extremely intuitive or empathic.

Another of the basic tenets of NLP is that “the map is not the territory” which is strikingly consistent with Buddha’s famous “finger pointing at the moon” analogy… the finger itself is merely a pointer, it is not important at all… the moon is the important thing. Once you see the moon, you don’t need the finger any more. This is how the Buddha explained the concept of enlightenment, advising listeners to NOT get caught up in the semantics… people generally behave like dogs in this respect though… when you point at something… they just continue to stare at your finger.

This also means that the words themselves are not that which they point to. The word honey is not honey… it is merely a word used to indicate honey. And people’s perceptions of honey vary. Perhaps Lao Tzu said it best in the Tao Te Ching when he said that “all words are lies” (afterwhich he dedicated a couple hundred pages full of words to prove it ) meaning that words are pointers.. not that which they point to. When explaining Reiki, the secret is to try and communicate what the words are actually pointing to without being limited by the words themselves.

The most effective way I’ve found of explaining Reiki is by deciding in advance which of the Three Pillars of Reiki the other person might be most drawn to and start from there. For example, if they appear to be most open to the healing or relaxation aspects I would explain it as a healing modality, if they appear to be most open to the energetic aspects I would explain it as an energy system and if they appear to be most open to the spiritual aspects I would explain it as a path to enlightenment.

In summary… when you are explaining Reiki to someone, you need to begin with the person you are explaining it to in mind, make sure you are on the same page right from the beginning, seek to put yourself in their shoes and remember that all words are lies. Like I said, the process is not so obvious.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!