Though I have been practicing Reiki for nearly 8 years now, I always wondered whether there was some truth to it. Was it just a new age thing? People in California have their private yoga teachers for 300 dollars an hour or more, people listen to the sounds of Tibetan singing bowls and some New Yorkers are talking about their chakras. In my country of birth, the Netherlands, there are now 350,000 Dutch Buddhists and when I visited that country in March, I found two shops in Utrecht selling Tibetan prayer flags. Yet Islam appears to be the fastest growing religion, even in Holland. I wonder why. Have you ever heard controversial stories of Buddhists? As far as I am concerned, Buddhism may grow a little faster. But to come back to Reiki, I wondered if I could find a trace of the original Reiki somewhere in India, outside of a tourist area. After all, the power of healing hands travelled from India to Tibet, then to China and was rediscovered by the Japanese physician Usui Mikao in 1922.
One day I was travelling 2nd class in an Indian train from Pathankot at the foot of the Himalayas to Delhi. I was laying on the upper berth of a six person compartment that I shared with an Indian family of 12 with a bunch of children. The train left at 11 pm so I hoped to get a good night sleep before the train would arrive in Delhi between 10 and 15 hours later. However, there was this teenage boy suffering from an asthma attack. He was laying on the middle berth opposite me. He sounded as if he was blowing a whistle. I felt a little frustrated by the noisy sick boy and the constant horning of the train’s horn to warn people who might be sleeping on the track, together with the smell of urine and feces. I was expecting a rough night instead. I blamed myself for not bringing any ear plugs.
I was concerned about the boy. He appeared to have so much trouble breathing; I feared that he might choke and die. I wondered if I should go and look for a doctor on the train. The family was concerned as well. Mother and Grandmother took care of the boy. Grandmother took him on her lap and started rubbing his forehead where his hairline began with two fingers. She just made circular movements and she continued to do so for a few minutes. The boy was almost choking and the whistle was almost ear-deafening. I kept gazing at the Grandma and wondered what she was doing. She kept rubbing his forehead, just on one spot. After about 15 minutes, the whistle started to sound differently, less intense. Twenty minutes later the whistle was gone. The boy’s tears stopped flowing over his cheeks, the fear in his eyes disappeared. After half and hour of rubbing, the boy breathed normally and fell asleep. I turned over and stared at the ceiling. It was an emotional moment and I cried a little. No inhalers were needed, no medication, no chemicals, no doctor, just the loving care of a grandmother who knew that rubbing ones forehead opens up ones trachea.
When I returned to Dharamsala a week later, someone asked me for a Reiki treatment. She asked me how it worked. I told her the story of the boy in the train.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
“Yes. A girl. Six years old.”
“And what do you do when your little girl falls and hurts her knee?”
“I hold her in my arms and give a kiss on her knee and tell her that a kiss will take away the pain.”
“Exactly. If I hit my head or elbow against something hard, I put the palm of my hand against the painful body part. What do you do when you hit your little toe against something hard?”
“I wrap my hand around it and squeeze it.”
“That is Reiki. Reiki is giving love and attention to something that is painful. So when people come to me and I put my hands on their bodies, I take away whatever pain there is inside the body. I don’t think of shopping lists or my own worries when I do so. For 72 minutes, I give love, unconditional love to people, even though I may not know them. I don’t care, because everybody has a need to be loved. Somehow, people can feel the love. I think that is why many of my patients cry after a treatment. Many people aren’t being loved. When they do experience love, it makes them cry.”
The woman’s eyes grew moist. “Only my daughter loves me. My husband used to beat me and we divorced. I have no family. Sometimes I feel so unloved.”
“Okay. Please lay down, close your eyes and listen to the music, think of a beautiful garden or any place that makes you happy, or just empty your mind for a while. I will start with a prayer.”
Silently, I said my favourite prayer by Shantideva. I heard it first issued from the mouth of the Dalai Lama at the end of a teaching in Dharamsala.
One day I was travelling 2nd class in an Indian train from Pathankot at the foot of the Himalayas to Delhi. I was laying on the upper berth of a six person compartment that I shared with an Indian family of 12 with a bunch of children. The train left at 11 pm so I hoped to get a good night sleep before the train would arrive in Delhi between 10 and 15 hours later. However, there was this teenage boy suffering from an asthma attack. He was laying on the middle berth opposite me. He sounded as if he was blowing a whistle. I felt a little frustrated by the noisy sick boy and the constant horning of the train’s horn to warn people who might be sleeping on the track, together with the smell of urine and feces. I was expecting a rough night instead. I blamed myself for not bringing any ear plugs.
I was concerned about the boy. He appeared to have so much trouble breathing; I feared that he might choke and die. I wondered if I should go and look for a doctor on the train. The family was concerned as well. Mother and Grandmother took care of the boy. Grandmother took him on her lap and started rubbing his forehead where his hairline began with two fingers. She just made circular movements and she continued to do so for a few minutes. The boy was almost choking and the whistle was almost ear-deafening. I kept gazing at the Grandma and wondered what she was doing. She kept rubbing his forehead, just on one spot. After about 15 minutes, the whistle started to sound differently, less intense. Twenty minutes later the whistle was gone. The boy’s tears stopped flowing over his cheeks, the fear in his eyes disappeared. After half and hour of rubbing, the boy breathed normally and fell asleep. I turned over and stared at the ceiling. It was an emotional moment and I cried a little. No inhalers were needed, no medication, no chemicals, no doctor, just the loving care of a grandmother who knew that rubbing ones forehead opens up ones trachea.
When I returned to Dharamsala a week later, someone asked me for a Reiki treatment. She asked me how it worked. I told her the story of the boy in the train.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
“Yes. A girl. Six years old.”
“And what do you do when your little girl falls and hurts her knee?”
“I hold her in my arms and give a kiss on her knee and tell her that a kiss will take away the pain.”
“Exactly. If I hit my head or elbow against something hard, I put the palm of my hand against the painful body part. What do you do when you hit your little toe against something hard?”
“I wrap my hand around it and squeeze it.”
“That is Reiki. Reiki is giving love and attention to something that is painful. So when people come to me and I put my hands on their bodies, I take away whatever pain there is inside the body. I don’t think of shopping lists or my own worries when I do so. For 72 minutes, I give love, unconditional love to people, even though I may not know them. I don’t care, because everybody has a need to be loved. Somehow, people can feel the love. I think that is why many of my patients cry after a treatment. Many people aren’t being loved. When they do experience love, it makes them cry.”
The woman’s eyes grew moist. “Only my daughter loves me. My husband used to beat me and we divorced. I have no family. Sometimes I feel so unloved.”
“Okay. Please lay down, close your eyes and listen to the music, think of a beautiful garden or any place that makes you happy, or just empty your mind for a while. I will start with a prayer.”
Silently, I said my favourite prayer by Shantideva. I heard it first issued from the mouth of the Dalai Lama at the end of a teaching in Dharamsala.
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A wonderful story. I'm wondering about the prayer you mentioned by Shantideva...(is it a secret?)
ReplyDeleteWhy do I always find so many mistakes after I post my stories. Maybe I should give some Reiki to the part of my brain that writes stories.
ReplyDeleteActually, the prayer is the With the wish to free all beings-prayer. Originally it was written by the Indian rishi Shantideva, but the Dalai uses it a lot.