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The memorial stone beside Mikao Usui’s grave in Tokyo tells the story of his life and of the system of Reiki: his difficulties, his experience on Mount Kurama, his work after the Great Kanto Earthquake, and that he taught about 2,000 students before he died. It was written by his students in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, many of them naval officers.
There is a memorial stone in Tokyo, which I have seen. It is a beautiful big stone, all engraved with old Japanese kanji, pre-1940s, which makes it hard to read for people today. It tells the story of his life and also the history of the system of Reiki.
It talks about how he had difficulty in his life, and then how he had an experience on Kurama-yama, Mount Kurama, where he had a sense of what it meant to experience energy, Reiki, and how that changed things for him.
It talks about how he helped out in the Great Kanto Earthquake, going around and helping people. It also talks about the development of the system of Reiki, and that he ultimately had about 2,000 students in total before he died at the age of 60 or 61.
It was written by students of his who were members of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, the Japanese association that still exists today. The students were mostly men who worked in the Navy.
Where it is. The stone stands beside the Usui family grave at Saihoji, a Pure Land Buddhist temple in Suginami, Tokyo. It was erected in 1927, the year after his death, and it is still there; you can visit.
Who wrote it. The text was composed by Masayuki Okada, a member of the association, and the calligraphy is by Juzaburo Ushida, who became the association’s second president. Neither was a Reiki teacher in the Western sense; they were his students.
Why it matters. For most of the twentieth century the West knew Usui only through Takata’s stories. The stone is the oldest first-hand account we have, written by people who knew him, and it is where the modern understanding of the history begins.
A common misunderstanding. That the stone calls Usui a doctor or a monk. It does not. It describes a man who searched, struggled, had a realisation on a mountain, and spent his last few years teaching.
You might also ask: Did Hawayo Takata lie about Reiki? · What is the real story of how Reiki left Japan? · What does ki actually mean in Japanese?
I include a full translation of the memorial stone in The Reiki Sourcebook, and we read it together inside Shinpiden+.
More questions answered: Reiki Questions Answered.
