When Your Reiki Practice Feels Scattered, Reach for Some Poetry
January 19, 2026
If you’ve completed Reiki III in any lineage, you’ve got the symbols, the hand positions, attunements, maybe some energetic techniques. And that’s great—modern Reiki practice works and has helped millions of people. But here’s what I keep hearing from practitioners: this quiet feeling that the foundation doesn’t quite hold.
You can do the work, but you don’t really understand why.
You’ve built a practice on what you were taught, but somewhere deep down, you know the structure itself is incomplete.
That’s not your fault—it’s what happens when a spiritual system gets adapted. The foundation you were given was never actually the foundation.
Here’s what I mean. The 1974 Shiori (the beginner’s guide from the traditional Japanese Reiki association) listed just two foundational purposes for the practice: elimination of thoughts through the Meiji Emperor’s waka (poetry), and explanation of the Five Precepts. Half the foundation was a contemplative practice using Japanese spiritual poetry to embody the precepts—to actually live them, not just recite them. This wasn’t supplementary. This was bedrock. But modern Reiki practice built its foundation on completely different ground: chakras (Indian yogic traditions), aura cleansing (Victorian spiritualism), maybe Egyptian or Tibetan or… origin stories. None of that is Japanese. None of that is what Usui taught. Lost, too, are the Kokyū Hō or breathing meditation practices, the understanding that this system is primarily for your own spiritual cultivation (not client work), and any real answer to the question of why you’re practicing at all.
The modern foundation is actually a reconstruction—well-meaning, but structurally different from what it was built to be.
Shinpiden+ isn’t about adding more techniques to your existing practice. It’s about rebuilding your foundation on original ground—the Five Elements that form the actual structure: precepts and waka together, Kokyū Hō techniques for daily cultivation, Reiju (the Japanese spiritual blessing), hands-on healing from a Hara-centered perspective, and the symbols and mantras in their original Japanese context. The Great Bright Light of Dai Kōmyō—not being something you use, but a state of being to aspire to. Contemplating who you truly are in relationship to this practice. And finally having a solid answer to why you’re doing this. This isn’t throwing out what you know—it’s giving you the foundation that makes everything else make sense.
Come join me at Shinpiden+ – for committed practitioners who’ve completed Reiki III and want to stand on solid ground.
Find out more about Shinpiden+
