Why Waka Poetry Remains Essential to Reiki Practice Today
February 22, 2026
As Reiki practitioners, we’re often focused on goals: learning new techniques, completing the next level of training, treating more clients, or mastering specific rituals. But what if this goal-oriented approach is missing the point entirely?
Goals are specific achievements with finish lines. You complete them, check them off, and move on to the next one. Purpose, however, is the deeper “why” that guides everything you do. It’s not something you complete, it’s something you embody.
Traditional Japanese Reiki understood this distinction perfectly.
“For Today Only”
The Five Reiki Precepts begin with three powerful words: “For today only.”
For today only, do not anger
For today only, do not worry
For today only, be grateful
For today only, be true to your way and being
For today only, be compassionate to yourself and others
These aren’t goals to achieve someday in the future. They’re not items on a self-improvement checklist. They’re a purpose to live, today, and today, and today again.
“For today only” resets each morning. You never “complete” the Reiki Precepts. You never graduate from them. You simply return to them, day after day, moment after moment. This is purpose in its purest form: an ongoing direction rather than a destination.
The Two Purposes of Traditional Reiki
When I read that the 1974 Shiori (the beginner’s guide for the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai) described “Our methods of Reiki Therapy,” I noticed it didn’t list goals. Instead it listed two purposes: elimination of thoughts through the Meiji Emperor’s waka (Japanese poems), and explanation of the Reiki Precepts.
What does this MEAN? That the entire mental training aspect of traditional Reiki practice was built around purpose, not goals. The precepts weren’t achievements to unlock or levels to complete. They were, and are, an ongoing support for living. Waka practice wasn’t about collecting poems or becoming a poetry scholar. It was about contemplation, self-inquiry, and the continuous elimination of the mental chatter that separates us from presence.
What Goals Miss
When we approach the system of Reiki with a goals mindset, we might aim to “master the precepts” or “never become angry”. But this fundamentally misunderstands what the precepts are asking of us.
The precepts tell us what to aspire to, but they don’t tell us how to actually embody these qualities day by day. You can’t goal-set your way into compassion. You can’t check off “eliminated worry” on your to-do list and be done with it.
This is where the second purpose enters: waka practice.
How Waka Serves Purpose
Waka practice demonstrates what purpose-driven practice looks like. Each poem becomes a mirror for self-reflection. You recite it, sit with it, let it work on you from multiple angles, notice what arises. This isn’t about finishing the 125 poems Usui selected, it’s about using contemplation to access the lived experience the Reiki Precepts point toward.
Waka doesn’t just support the precepts, it activates them. It gives us something concrete to do that helps us actually live “for today only” rather than just recite it. Together, they form what the Shiori calls “the two purposes.”
For Modern Practitioners
In our achievement-oriented culture, this shift from goals to purpose can feel uncomfortable. We want measurable progress, clear milestones, certificates of completion. But traditional forms of Japanese Reiki practice ask us to sit with something deeper: an ongoing commitment to self-cultivation that begins fresh each day.
“For today only” is a reminder that we’re not building toward some future state of perfection. We’re practicing presence now. We’re choosing compassion today. We’re sitting with our thoughts in this moment.
This doesn’t mean goals have no place. You might set a goal to practice waka daily for 21 days, or to recite the Reiki Precepts each morning. But these goals serve the greater purpose. They’re vehicles, not destinations.
The purpose itself? To live according to the Reiki Precepts. To be present. To transform the system of Reiki from something we do into something we are.
As the Shiori teaches us, this was always the point. Not to collect techniques or achievements, but to engage in the continuous practice of self-healing and knowing wholeness. That’s a purpose worth dedicating ourselves to, not because we’ll ever “complete” it, but because it makes every moment of practice meaningful.
For today only.
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