Beginner’s Luck and the System of Reiki

Remember those moments when you try something out for the very first time and miraculously, it works! Meanwhile people everywhere are trying really hard to perfect that particular art. It might be you throwing a dart at a dartboard and hitting the bullseye on your very first shot ever. Everyone laughs and calls out, “Beginner’s luck!”

Why does this happen? And, more importantly, could you do it again?

Often when we do something for the first time we don’t have an experience that we can look back on to compare ourselves with, to judge ourselves against. We don’t have any expectations of ourselves. We are told what the aim is and we simply do it. Our focus can be 100% clear because there is no emotional baggage attached to cloud our mental view. We are also not physically uptight because there’s no reason to worry or be tense. We are calm and therefore our bodies are loose and free to move in line with our clarity of thought. The mind/body connection is perfectly in tune. And through this alignment, a harmoniousness is released – not just within the body but also without. There is an ease of openness that results from our calmness and clarity. We are in the flow.

In this flow there is no delineation between you and the dart and the board. You know what you have to do: you signal that clarity of information to the body and the body joyfully responds in perfection with the dart as an extension of this flow, continuing through to the dartboard as the furthest extension to this flow. There is no mental consideration that this isn’t possible, it just IS.

What you are doing, in fact, is sitting perfectly in a state of balance, the balance of body, mind and breath. The Japanese call this san mitsu.

The second try may not be as successful as the first, and the third even less so. You begin to create stories around your dart playing; the dart wasn’t your favourite, you were in a foul mood, the thought of missing put you off. It is at this point that we must gain awareness of what is blocking that clear focus, and messing with that state of calm. These are our teaching moments as we learn to let go and be beginners once more.

Professional sportspeople, for example, work very hard to find this state of oneness with their sport. True greatness knows it is the lucid moments of ‘not trying’ that opens us to great success. This is not to say that practice is of no benefit. The more we practice, the more we teach ourselves how to let go and sit in that pure balance.

Beginner’s Luck is not luck but a teaching experience. It is a glimpse of how we can live in ease. Being clear and calm, allowing our natural wisdom to well up within and guide us, if we let it. Through our solid personal practice we can train ourselves to bring those rare moments into our everyday lives.