New
Reiki Books Updated in 2nd Edition
Released on
= April 13, 2005, 7:11 pm
Press Release
Author = Don Beckett / ReijuTree Publications
Industry = Healthcare
Press Release
Summary = "An Exploration of Usui Reiki and Beyond," the
Reiki trilogy released last month by ReijuTree Publications, has
been updated already in a 2nd Edition. The 3 books -- "The
Entrance," "The Deep Inside," "The Mystery"
-- comprise a single volume, which can be downloaded, free of charge,
at http://new-reiki-books.johreiki.net/new-reiki-books.php. The
books mark a notable departure from the prevailing worldwide perception
of Reiki, and are based on
teachings of Reiki Masters in Japan who learned directly from Dr.
Mikao Usui (the founder of what has come to be called Reiki). They
are the work of Don Beckett, a Reiki Master in Hilo, Hawai'i.
Press Release
Body = Hilo, Hawai'i, April 14, 2005 -- "An Exploration of
Usui Reiki and Beyond," the Reiki trilogy released last month
by ReijuTree Publications, has been updated already in a 2nd Edition.
The 3 books -- "The Entrance," "The Deep Inside,"
"The Mystery" -- comprise a single volume, which can be
downloaded, free of charge, at http://new-reiki-books.johreiki.net/new-reiki-books.php.
The books mark
a notable departure from the prevailing worldwide perception of
Reiki, and are based on teachings of Reiki Masters in Japan who
learned directly from Dr. Mikao Usui (the founder of what has come
to be called Reiki). They are the
work of Don Beckett, a Reiki Master in Hilo, Hawai'i.
The 2nd Edition,
just released, contains additional information on the nature of
Reiki energy, and its place in the hierarchy of bodily energies.
Also new in this Edition are insights regarding Reiki's connection
with our ancestral or original Self. A brief exploration of the
"miraculous" workings of Reiki and similar methods, with
reference to Huna prayers and Johrei in particular, is also presented.
According to
Mr. Beckett (who has been practicing Reiki since 1991 and initiating
others into Reiki since 1999), "An Exploration of Usui Reiki
and Beyond" presents a very different picture of Reiki than
what has previously been taught throughout the world (via Chujiro
Hayashi and Hawayo Takata and the students in their lineage).
Chujiro Hayashi
was a Christian, and his student Hawayo Takata (herself a minister
in a Spiritualist church) taught -- contrary to the facts -- that
Mikao Usui had been a Christian, and that Usui had been searching
for the healing method of Jesus, when Reiki was revealed to him!
Hayashi was
also a medical doctor, thus inclined to focus his attention on Reiki
primarily as a treatment for healing disease in others (whereas
Usui's "method to achieve personal perfection" was about
the healing and spiritual awakening of oneself).
Hawayo Takata
was one of Dr. Hayashi's patients, who came to him gravely ill.
After recovering her health, she learned Reiki from Hayashi, and
devoted the rest of her life to helping others with Reiki. For 3
decades following World War II, Hawayo Takata seems to have been
the only Reiki Master outside Japan (she was an American citizen
living in Hawai'i). From the mid-1970s to 1980 -- the last years
of her life -- she initiated 22 Reiki Masters. Through them and
their students, the Takata version of Reiki spread (and continues
to spread) all over the world. Thus, Hawayo Takata single-handedly
defined Reiki throughout the world at large.
Then, in the
summer of 2000, an English Reiki Master named Chris Marsh (also
a student of martial arts and the Japanese language, and a Tendai
Buddhist), while in Japan, was introduced to a 106-year-old Buddhist
nun who had been a student of Mikao Usui in the 1920s (she was also
a niece of Usui's wife!). She revealed to Chris that she was not
happy with what had been presented to the world as Reiki, and she
intended to teach him what she had learned from Usui himself.
Back in England
in the following months, Chris began sharing his new Reiki knowledge
with another Reiki Master, Andrew Bowling.
The following
year, in Japan again, Chris was introduced to 11 more of Usui's
students (ranging in age from 96 to 111). Since that time, in addition
to Andrew Bowling, Chris has shared the Japanese teachings with
another English Reiki Master,
Taggart King, who has been Mr. Beckett's primary source of these
original teachings.
Beckett said
it was only through a series of fortunate events that he was in
a position to write these books. "Following my own Master-level
initiation in 1999, by
Deb Frank at Niagara Falls," he said, "I was given the
opportunity to attend the first Usui Reiki Ryoho International workshop,
in Vancouver B.C., organized by Rick Rivard and Tom Rigler and Andrew
Bowling. That was the first appearance, outside Japan, of Hiroshi
Doi-Sensei, a member of the Usui Reiki Society in Tokyo. It was
a great opportunity to learn the Society's version of the history
of Reiki."
It was also
the first presentation, outside Japan, of a Reiki empowerment procedure
called Reiju; the empowerment procedure said to have been used by
Mikao Usui (though the Reiju taught by Mr. Doi at the workshop was
a modified version).
The very next
month, Beckett attended a workshop presented by Frank Arjava Petter
(author of "Reiki Fire" and "The Original Reiki Handbook
of Dr. Mikao Usui", and co-author of "The Spirit of Reiki")
and Chetna Kobayashi. Then, in 2001, he was contacted, "out
of the blue," by English Reiki Master Taggart King, who offered
to share his own newly acquired Reiki knowledge (including the Usui
Reiju procedure),
received via Chris Marsh and the group of Japanese Masters who had
learned from Usui himself.
Beckett began
putting together the various threads of information he had received
-- from Doi, Rivard, Rigler, Bowling, Petter and Kobayashi, and
Taggart King -- incorporating it all into his own Reiki practice,
and rewriting the training manuals he gave to his students.
Then, in the
fall of 2002, one of those students, Oxana Alekseeva in Moscow,
notified him that she had shown his training manuals to a Russian
publisher, who was interested in publishing them in book form. "If
not for Oxana, I doubt that the idea
of turning my manuals into a book would ever have occurred to me,"
said Beckett. But, with her encouragement, he began a period of
intense research, meditation, and contemplation -- rewriting his
manuals again, then shaping them into a volume of 3 books, designed
to be suitable both for Reiki students (at any level) and for anyone
interested in Reiki but not yet initiated.
"This was
just after I had started living in Hawai'i," Beckett said.
"I had gone to Kaua'i -- the island where Hawayo Takata was
born, where she had lived for years and had practiced Reiki! There
I was introduced to the spirit of aloha by a woman named
Donna Lee, who provided me with a perfect sanctuary, a place to
live and write these books.
"For a
few months, I did almost nothing but sit in my room, writing and
meditating and doing Reiki, day and night. The energy of that island
(which corresponds to the 6th chakra in the human body) is very
inwardly-directed; it was the perfect place for doing this -- and,
thanks to financial help from my mother, I was able to do it."
Another element,
crucial to his understanding of Reiki history -- and particularly
the origins and meanings of the Reiki symbols -- was the knowledge
gained through correspondence with Dave King, a Reiki Master in
Canada. Dave (no relation to Taggart King), like Chris Marsh, had
spent much time in Japan, and had learned from students who were
taught by Mikao Usui -- though what they had learned was very
different than what Chris Marsh was learning from the other group
of Usui's students, and did not involve Reiju or any sort of energetic
empowerment.
The information
from Dave King became the final strand in the tapestry, completing
Beckett's composite view of Usui Reiki. After the first draft of
his work was finished, Beckett moved from Kaua'i to the Big Island
of Hawai'i, where he soon was drawn to the town of Hilo and felt
immediately at home.
Here he put
the finishing touches on the e-book version of his "Exploration
of Usui Reiki and Beyond" -- and then discovered that Hawayo
Takata had lived and practiced Reiki here, as well as on Kaua'i,
and that, after her passing, her ashes were interred at a Buddhist
temple in downtown Hilo (from which they have since been moved).
"It seems
remarkable," he says, "that this project was born on the
island where Hawayo Takata was born -- and that it was finished
here, in the very town where her ashes were laid to rest!"
The 2nd Edition
of "An Exploration of Usui Reiki and Beyond", just released,
contains additional information on the nature of Reiki energy, its
connection with our ancestral or original Self, and similarities
between the workings of Reiki and
such things as Huna prayer and Johrei. The new Edition, from ReijuTree
Publications, can be downloaded, free of charge, at
http://new-reiki-books.johreiki.net/new-reiki-books.php.
Web Site = http://new-reiki-books.johreiki.net/new-reiki-books.php
Contact Details
= Don Beckett
12 Machida Ln
Hilo HI 96720
new-reiki-books@johreiki.net
808 935 0501
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