Universal?

In my most recent reading, I have been seeing something odd. The general translation of Reiki given in the west is "universal life-energy", with rei meaning universal and ki meaning life-energy. But as I have been reading up on more of the eastern material, I am consistently seeing Rei in the translation of many techniques refer to "energy, soul, spirit". And I have just read some information that indicates the kanji used to write reiki mean "aura" in common usage. Reiki Ryoho == Auric healing method?

And a full analysis of the kanji I just found:

Here, obviously, we are concerned solely with the 'Rei' and 'Ki' kanji as used to denote 'Reiki' - the spiritual/therapeutic 'phenomenon'.


As is the nature of kanji in general, the kanji 'Rei' & 'Ki' can have many levels of meaning.


A linguist (or for that matter, a good academic Japanese-English Dictionary) will explain that -


'Rei' encapsulates/refers to:


The Divine, the Numinous
The Mysterious
The Supernatural
A supernatural Being or Spirit
The Spiritual nature
Luminosity of the spirit; the luminosity of a God or Sage
Charisma, charismatic power
Inconceivable spiritual ability
The Soul
Something Pure, Unpolluted
Bright, Clear
Goodness
Something wonderful; a wonder
Excellence, Efficacy
A shaman, a person or being with spiritual or supernatural powers
A rainmaker, a diviner


'Ki' encapsulates/refers to:


Heart
Mind
Intent
Spirit (in the sense of 'Spiritedness')
Feelings
Invisible life-force
Vital Energy
The generative forces of Heaven & Earth
The material force of the Universe
Air
Breath
Steam (the kanji for 'ki' implies steam rising from a covered pot of rice cooking over a fire, with the lid of the pot being lifted by the steam.)
The effect/result of energy being expended

I'm doomed. Yay! :)

Reiki did not happen today. The first portion of the taijutsu class (massage, actually) ran long, so we did not get to my workshop. It will be rescheduled for next week some time, at a date yet to be determined.

This gives me some more time to prepare, on the bright side of things. :)

Which is good, 'cause I'm delving a bit deeper into the eastern side of things in this workshop than I anticipated, and in the process of reorganizing my notes on that stuff (and taking a few more notes where those notes were spotty) some interesting things are coming to light.

Usui's original form of Reiki was based on kiko (japanese qi gong) that he learned while practicing Tendai Buddhism on Mount Kurama. It uses kiko techniques to the point where it may actually be justifiably considered a form of qi gong itself. Also, in Usui's original manual that he distributed to his students, he very clearly refers to the energy as Ki, not as Reiki. To quote:

"Ki and light are emanated from healer's body, especially from eyes, mouth and hands."

I think I am going to have to incorporate more of the eastern practices in my online reiki material, and in my regular practice, and also look into other sources of information on qi gong and other systems that work with the energies inherent to the human body.

Needless to say, the Reiki Annex is probably going to be expanding soon...