My Reiki Journey
I became aware of something called Reiki in 1995 while looking at a book order catalog. The book sounded interesting and so I bought it. A year later, I decided to finally pull that Reiki book off the shelf and open it up. What I read I thought was miraculous, if Reiki indeed "worked", and wasn't some new age hocus-pocus. I had never been interested in "healing" modalities, but I was interested in different spiritual practices. Later that week, I noticed an advertisement for a Reiki class in my area. I called the teacher and was asked to put the class together for him. I persuaded some of my friends that this might be interesting for us to take, and that event changed my life forever. I had taken my first Reiki class in Oct. of 1996. I practiced everyday on myself and weekly on my friends. I later took Reiki 2 from a different teacher (my first teacher was back in Maui where he lived) and eventually, I took the Reiki Master/Teacher level. I started teaching Reiki with enthusiasm. However, about a year later I discovered that I had been taught Nontraditional Reiki. (I wasn't aware that there was Traditional and Nontraditional Reiki before this time.) I therefore set off on a journey to find the original teachings and techniques in the Reiki System.
Having been mislead into believing that all the Japanese Reiki Masters were killed during World War II, my only hope I presumed was to find those remaining masters that Hawayo Takata had instructed. This was no easy task, as the books I had on Reiki only had a partial listing and sometime incorrect listing of Takata's master students. Some of these names were misspelled in the books. In early 1999 I was finally able to get into contact with Fran Brown, a master student of Takata. She was able to verify and answer questions for me about my previous Reiki training and confirmed that much of what I had been taught was not what she had been taught by Takata. Her price to re-train me was around $10,000. At that time in my life, I was a graduate student at the University of South Carolina working on my Master of Library and Information Science degree. I was also working as a Graduate Assistant in a medical library. Retraining with Fran Brown at that time was financially impossible.
I had also made contact with Reiki master's Light and Adonea who had also been researching the Reiki System. They were able to shed some light on most of my questions. I felt the need to re-train with them, but the time wasn't quite right. Later that year, in the fall of 1999, the first URRI (Usui Reiki Ryoho International) conference was held in Vancouver, Canada. I had just finished my Master of Library and Information Science degree and had moved to Colorado to begin my acupuncture and Oriental Medicine training at South West Acupuncture College and would not be able to attend. Fortunately, Light and Adonea did attend and were taught some traditional techniques by Hiroshi Doi (lineage Usui - Takatomi - Koyama - Doi) who is a member of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the Reiki society Usui founded). About six months later, in March of 2000, I traveled down to Lake Montezuma (near Sedona), Arizona, where Light and Adonea lived and trained with them for 3 days. At that point, we had been in almost weekly contact for over a year. Our meeting and training was nothing less than spectacular. It was through them that I first learned a lot of traditional Reiki information and techniques.
Two months after this, May 2000, I traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to re-take Reiki 1 and 2 with John Harvey Gray. I was very excited to get to train with one of Takata's masters and I learned a lot in class and by asking detailed question about Takata and her teachings. I was also allowed to listen to one of about 20 unpublished tapes of Takata teaching Reiki classes. During the Reiki 2 class, we paired up to give our partners a treatment. My Reiki partner and I got this old massage table to use with what looked like aluminum legs. As we exchanged treatments on this table, John's wife Lourdes, told us that Takata had used this table to do treatments on. What a nice surprise!
Light, Adonea, and I kept in contact and I and my future wife, Heather Bullock visited them again about a year or so later in the spring of 2000. We exchanged Reiju and Reiki treatments. The Reiki that came through their Reiju was incredible. Shortly after this I made contact with Japanese Reiki master Hyakuten Inamoto (lineage: Usui - Hayashi - Yamaguchi - Inamoto). At this time, he was still in training under his teacher Mrs. Yamaguchi. We e-mailed about the possibility of me traveling to Japan to train under Mrs. Yamaguchi as a Reiki master. However, since I was not Japanese, she would only train me up to level 2. I considered this offer but declined. Also at this point, I was trying to convince Fran Brown that I was ready to re-train with her as a Reiki master.
Although my training with Light and Adonea was great, I wanted to know exactly how Takata taught Reiki. Fran and I kept in contact, as did Hyakuten Inamoto and I. As luck would have it, for the first time Hyakuten Inamoto was going to start training non-Japanese masters outside of Japan at the second URRI conference held in Toronto in the fall of 2002. Hiroshi Doi also was going to be training masters there as well. In the fall of 2002, I re-trained with both Hyakuten Inamoto Sensei and Hiroshi Doi Sensei as a Reiki master. I came back to Colorado from that weeklong training period with a lot of new perspectives on the Reiki system. It wasn't long after this that I received an e-mail from Fran Brown stating she agreed to re-train me as a Reiki master. This was unbelievable! I accepted her offer. As time went on, I was faced with a dilemma. If I were to go through with my training with Fran, I would be expected to only teach Takata's style of Reiki. After all the traditional Japanese Reiki I had learned up to this point I found this hard to do. However, I really wanted to know exactly how Takata had taught Reiki and how she did the Reiki initiations.
I officially began my training with Fran in May, 2003. I watched her teach a Reiki 1 and 2 class in California. I also was re-initiated by Fran in levels 1 and 2. (My fiancé, Heather Bullock, re-trained with Fran Brown in Reiki 1.) Up until this point, I had only heard stories from other people that Takata had taught her students (including her master students) differently. Back when I was training in levels 1 and 2 with John Harvey Gray years before, this was mentioned in his class. However, now I had direct first hand experience that not only was some of the Reiki information taught slightly different, but the Reiki initiations and symbols were slightly different as well! This really burst my bubble of ever learning exactly how Takata had taught, since there was no one specific way that she did teach. That in itself is a good Reiki lesson (One does not need to teach Reiki necessarily in a static form). Anyway, I was expected to follow Fran around the world watching her teach Reiki as part of my master training. This I was happy to do, as I feel that adequate training is essential for someone who wants to become a Reiki master. During my training with Fran in California, I found out she had met my teacher Hyakuten Sensei and his teacher Mrs. Yamaguchi in Japan a few years earlier (see photo). 
Hyakuten Sensei acted as the translator for Fran and Mrs. Yamaguchi as they compared what they had learned from their teachers and they compared their initiation (Reiju) process. They found them to be very similar, and Fran expressed her happiness about this to me. Fran mentioned to me that she wanted her own master students to train with Mrs. Yamaguchi and asked if I could put her into contact again with my teacher Hyakuten Sensei. I told Fran that I could, but that because of Mrs. Yamaguchi's son Tadao, Hyakuten Sensei was not allowed to see Mrs. Yamaguchi anymore alone. This is why Hyakuten Sensei is teaching on his own now. Fran understood. Fran questioned me several times why it was that I wanted to train with her as a Reiki master, since I was already a master student of Hyakuten Sensei. I always replied, "because I wanted to learn Reiki exactly how Takata taught it".
I graduated in July, 2003 with my Master of Science in Oriental Medicine and was soon to begin my Chinese medical career doing Acupuncture and prescribing Chinese herbs (and of course continuing to do Reiki treatments and classes!). But before moving to set up my clinic, I sponsored Hyakuten Sensei in August, 2003 to come Boulder, Colorado, USA to re-train Reiki masters. This was my second time training with him as a master. I remember Fran stating that she also watched Takata teach other Reiki masters after her own master training. The more training you can get with your teacher, the better you are. Since I sponsored him, I also got to share the days with him when he wasn't training masters. We had a lot of deep conversations about many aspects of Reiki. We also had a lot of fun!
That October, my fiancé and I moved to Saluda, North Carolina to open up our Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic and our Reiki clinic and school. In November, I flew to France to continue my training with Fran Brown. The training was held in a Tibetan Monastery called Kagyu Ling. There I again watched Fran teach levels 1 and 2. I also met more of Fran's master students as well as sat in on a master's circle. Besides Fran, I believe only one of her other master students knew I was already trained as a Reiki master. I kept quiet for the most part listening to the discussions. Perhaps it was there that I realized how much I knew about the Reiki system, from my previous training and experience. During my weeklong visit in Kagyu Ling, I contemplated more on that master's meeting, and the financial difficulties my fiancé' and I were having starting up our clinic and school. This led me to question if this training with Fran was the right thing to do. During one of the Tibetan Religious ceremonies (Puja) I attended there, I contemplated ending my training with Fran. I like Fran very much, and think she is a wonderful person and teacher. This was very hard for me to decide. My financial situation finally finalized the decision, as I was financially unable to pay traveling cost to get to Fran's Reiki classes. This was a very hard experience for me, and I lost a lot of sleep over it.
In April 2005, I attended Hyakuten Sensei's master training for the third time - this time in Asheville, North Carolina. We were again able to spend some time together and some of my students got to meet him at our weekly Reiki share. I'll write more about this pinnacle meeting in a few years.
Many other events happened along the way, but at this point I will not disclose them; perhaps some other time.
Everyday my relationship with Reiki deepens and I think I become a better person from it. Although Reiki history is important, remember that Reiki is not all about dates and facts. It is about using the tools Usui gave us to use, so that we also may experience Satori (Enlightenment) as he did. Usui Sensei said that practicing Reiki would bring us better mind, body, and spirit. Many blessings on your own Reiki journey. It is an interesting journey if you decide to take it. Let me know if I can assist you in anyway. Namaste'.
Note: Part of my journey dealing with conversations I had with Takata's 22 master students, other Reiki masters, Reiki research, as well as other information I received along the way, has been published in The Reiki SourceBook by Frans and Bronwen Stiene. You can also go to http://www.reiki.net.au/copy.asp?id=PodcastRobert to listen an interview on the same subject.
More information about my Reiki journey can be found in Amy Rowland's newest book, Intuitive Reiki for Our Times.