If you have taken my Threshold Reiju Workshop in recent years you will have read an article I wrote called “Perfecting Reiki Attunements and Reiju.”   In the article I explain how to pass on the exact same Reiki energy that you received from your teacher.  This is an import thing to learn for Reiki systems like Komyo Reiki since most people taking a Komyo class will assume that they are receiving the same Reiki energy that Hyakuten Inamoto received from Mrs. Yamaguchi. 

But most Reiki Masters, especially those who have received attunements by more than one teacher, may not be aware of what they are actually sharing with students.  They may assume that all Reiki energy is the same, and they may even be unconsciously adding in their own natural healing energy into their Reiki.  Thus, when giving attunements to others, they may be passing on some kind of mixture of Reiki and non Reiki, but not what the student is expecting. 

I am not saying that this mixed version of “Reiki” may not be better, but as I pointed out, it’s not what a person paying for Komyo Reiki is expecting from their teacher.  I should note that this problem crops up in other Reiki systems as well, where the energy is supposed to be from a specific source.  For example, Hiroshi Doi always intends that his Gendai Reiki is the same energy he received over and over in reiju from the late Mrs. Koyama, his URR Gakkai teacher.  Yet, I have felt different energies claiming to be Gendai Reiki from Gendai masters or students of theirs.  I am guessing this happens in other energy specific systems like Karuna Reiki or Tera-Mai Reiki.  And of course there is the great variation of Reiki energy that has come down through the various Takata lineages.

I first met Hyakuten Inamoto at the 2000 URRI conference in Kyoto, during which I gave a presentation on Western styles of Reiki, specifically symbols from Tera-Mai Reiki (K. Milner) and healing techniques from the Center for Reiki Training (W. Rand.)  During my presentation I gave out attunements to all present to my Threshold Reiki energy.

When I reached the back of the room I was asked to attune Hyakuten as well as Tadao Yamaguchi for a photo being taken by the professional photographer present.  So at this point, they were both now attuned to Threshold Reiki.  Thinking back, I am not sure what this did for their Yamaguchi Reiki energies.   Later when I talked with Hyakuten I showed him the Tatsumi version of reiju (a 1931 Hayashi ceremony now part of my Threshold Reiju Workshop) that I had learned in 1996 from Dave King.  Hyakuten said it was much like what Mrs. Yamaguchi used.  (Years later Hyakuten told me that prior to URRI 2000 he had introduced Takata master Fran Brown to Mrs. Yamaguchi.  He said whence they compared attunements they were much the same.)  When I returned to Vancouver I sent Hyakuten and Mrs. Yamaguchi a copy of this ceremony.  (The previous year at URRI 1999 I had asked Yukio Miura to give Mrs. Yamaguchi my copy of the Japanese version of the old Hayashi table given to Mrs. Takata in 1938.  Apparently Mrs. Yamaguchi had lost all her Hayashi material during a fire while she and her husband lived in Manchuria.  For this reason, Mrs. Yamaguchi asked to meet me at URRI 2000.) 

The next year, I met Hyakuten at URRI 2001 in Madrid.  During Mr. Doi’s workshop session on his own versions of Gendai Reiju, Power Reiju and Self Reiju, I was sitting at the back of the room with Hyakuten and offered to show him the Simple Threshold Reiju I had been using since 1996 at my Reiki shares (well before I had heard of Doi).  So I performed the reiju on him, and then he did the same back to me.  His energy had a feel to it much like Mr. Doi’s “Ohta Reiki” energy explained in my article “Exploring Variations of Reiki.”  Because Hyakuten had been helping out as a translator in Mrs. Yamaguchi’s classes, I assumed that he was again getting her reiju fairly often. 

Then, I was immediately asked by one of the Spanish participants if I would kindly practice the Gendai Reiju with her,  I agreed but as I began the process to call in the Reiki, I decided to use the Komyo Reiki energy that Hyakuten had just given me.  Immediately, right behind the lady and facing me, Hayashi appeared life size, smiling at me.  I was completely shocked – I had never called upon him and I rarely get any kind of a vision, certainly not with my eyes open.  As I continued with the reiju, Hayashi disappeared, but I will always remember that moment.

The next year I had invited Hyakuten to teach a master upgrade class to Komyo Reiki after the URRI 2002 conference in Toronto Canada. During the attunements I noticed that his Reiki was not the same as that which I received in 2001.  I wondered if he was now unconsciously adding in some Western Reiki forms of energy I knew he had been receiving since the 2001 conference.  I didn’t care much for this energy so when I began to teach Komyo Reiki, I used the same Reiki he gave me at the 2001 conference in Madrid, the one that caused me to see Hayashi.  I felt this was probably Hyakuten’s original Komyo Reiki, that which he had experienced with Mrs. Yamaguchi.

After the URRI conferences and associated classes, I did not hear from Doi or Inamoto for a long time.  Then in 2009 Hyakuten sent me an email saying he would be teaching in the Vancouver/Victoria area and could we meet for dinner on his way through.  I agreed and when he arrived we went to a restaurant near the hotel where I had originally lodged him and Doi during their 2002 visits to Vancouver. 

We shared a number of stories and experiences.  I told him of how I was affected by Doi’s unconscious resonance of the symbol energies back in 2002 when he was explaining the URR Gakkai reference terms for each.  (see the article “Source of My Reiki 2 Symbol Energies.”)  I had forgotten to share this with him and Doi back then as I was pretty buzzed at the time.  Then I decided to tell him about my Hayashi experience with receiving reiju from him in Madrid and using it right away.  I talked about how the next year during his class I felt the energy was different.  Since Hyakuten feels he does not notice energy very much he didn’t know how to respond to this.  I explained how I felt Komyo students would be expecting to receive the same Reiki he had received from Mrs. Yamaguchi.  I told him I could help recover this and so he agreed on letting me guide him to do so.

I asked him to close his eyes and then I suggested he think back to the 60 weekly evenings he said he had spent with Mrs. Yamaguchi and a few others back in 1997-98 when she would share information about Reiki. These were like very informal classes.  During each, Hyakuten and the other 4 people received reiju from Mrs. Yamaguchi.  I suggested to Hyakuten he recall the very last of these meetings and that he imagine he was once again sitting there and receiving reiju from Mrs. Yamaguchi.  (I had reasoned that by this time he would have integrated much of her Reiki energy).  Suddenly the energy Hyakuten was radiating was very very strong, unlike anything he had shared with me before.  It was quite amazing and I immediately locked onto this energy, integrating it within myself as well.  I felt it was somewhat similar to the “Ohta” Reiki Mr. Doi had unconsciously shared with me in the past.

Afterwards, Hyakuten confessed he did not notice much, but I did share what I had felt coming from him.  I suggested that when he gave Komyo Reiju, that he just intend to flow this same Yamaguchi Reiki and thus his students will get what they had actually come to his classes for.  Not knowing if he would do this or not, I immediately changed the Reiki energy in my own Komyo Reiki classes to be this same energy.  Using the techniques in my article (“Perfecting Reiki Attunements and Reiju”)  I simply lock onto this experience with Hyakuten and use that Reiki energy in my Komyo Reiki attunements and re-attunements.  However, I still retain the 2001 Madrid energy at the Weekly Reiju pages. (These are a set of pages with from 3 to 12 attunements to different Japanese Reiki energies.  I use these to give students an additional method to receive re-attunements, besides visiting me in person, emailing me  for one or phoning me.  Re-attunements are an integral part of URR Gakkai training and were also given by Hayashi.)