What does Mikao Usui’s gravestone actually say?
September 11, 2026
No, I would not call it lying. Hawayo Takata was a great storyteller, and for years her account of the history of the system of Reiki was treated as exaggeration. As more Japanese sources have come to light, a surprising amount of what she said has turned out to have truth in it.
She didn’t. Well, initially we did think she was lying, but I wouldn’t call it lying. She was a good storyteller.
People often thought she was exaggerating, that she had made up all these great stories about the history of Reiki. But as we have found out more in recent years, I would say that what sounded like confabulation was actually, in a lot of cases, quite true.
Take the story that the founder, Mikao Usui, was a Christian. If he was not a Christian himself, there was a point in his life where he worked for, and ran, a Christian school. There are definitely aspects of what she told that probably had more truth in them than we realised.
And she was a great storyteller.
Who she was. Hawayo Takata, 1900 to 1980, was born in Hawaii to Japanese parents, trained in Japan with Usui’s student Chujiro Hayashi in the mid-1930s, and brought the system of Reiki to the West. Almost every Western lineage runs through her.
Where the story comes from. Takata taught orally and told the history differently to different students, so the versions we have are second-hand and do not agree with each other. That alone made them easy to dismiss.
What the sources actually say. The memorial stone at Usui’s grave, the Japanese association’s own materials, and books by Usui’s students have all surfaced since the 1990s. They contradict some of her details and confirm others, including Usui’s connection with a Christian school.
The honest answer. She adapted the story for an American audience in wartime, and she embroidered. That is not the same as lying, and it is worth remembering that without her storytelling most of us would never have heard of Reiki at all.
You might also ask: What is the real story of how Reiki left Japan? · What does Mikao Usui’s gravestone actually say? · Does Reiki lineage actually matter?
I go through the whole history, with the sources, inside Shinpiden+, and in The Reiki Sourcebook.
More questions answered: Reiki Questions Answered.
