Reiki Level II Manual SECTION ONE - Introduction Reiki II is the level where students learn the three symbols (power, distance, and emotional/mental symbols). With this comes the skill of being to focus healing on mental and emotional problems, and distant healing those not physically present. These are the major focus of Level II Reiki. Reiki two is the next exciting step in learning to use Reiki. It is commonly reported that with Reiki II comes an increase in the power of Reiki. I have seen claims of 100% increase in the power of the reiki energy and all sorts of other claims. Realistically, people respond to Reiki II just like they do to Reiki I, and that is Individually. The level II attunements were designed to increase your channel or your ability to handle and allow the reiki energy to flow. This level is referred to as Second Degree Reiki, Reiki Level II or just Reiki II. In this level, the first 3 Reiki symbols and their use are taught and the student receives another attunement. This Attunement is an initiation into the healing symbols of Reiki that enables a person to use the Level II symbols. In the Second Degree, participants learn how to use the three symbols for for mental healing, and to send distant Reiki. The symbols do not represent separate energies, but a specific method of focusing on a specific aspect of the Reiki energy. The symbols allow a convenient point of focus. The Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen is a tool for focusing in distant healing, and the mental/emotional symbol is a practice of harmony. You are not so much directing the energy as focusing on an aspect of it for the good of the recipient. SECTION TWO - Living the Principles The Secret Method of Inviting Blessings. The spiritual Medicine of Many Illnesses. For today only do not anger, do not worry. Be Grateful and Do your work (spiritual awakening) with appreciation. Be kind to all living things. In the morning and at night, with hands held in prayer, Think this in your mind, chant this with your mouth. The Usui Reiki Method to change your mind and body for the better We again begin with the principles, the spiritual basis of the Usui Reiki System. In level I you were taught the 5 Principles of the Meiji Emperor that Usui adopted into the Reiki system. These principles were to be said morning and at night to focus you on bringing your life more into sync with the Universal Source of Light, Love and Harmony that is Reiki. If you have been doing the principles morning and evening daily you will have noticed that they have effected you. When said often they have the effect of transforming the mind away from the ego based fear, anger and worry, into a greater focus on your life mission, awakening, gratitude, and compassion to all. Most people begin to see a pattern. At first you will react as you always have based on the ego and its conditionings. As you practice the principles more they begin to become part of your consciousness. Then when something adverse happens you might still react but afterwards remember the principles and establish control. As time passes you will find that as you are reacting you remember the principles and begin to stop the reaction. Over time you become aware of the pattern and its purpose and stop the reaction earlier and earlier in the cycle. Finally you are free of that conditioning and free to respond to the situation in kindness. This is the basis of the principles and how they work. Say them daily and practice, practice, practice! SECTION THREE - Level II Ethics A large part of Level II Reiki is Distance Healing. This is a process of using a variety of methods and the reiki distant symbol to send the energy to someone not in the same location as you. They may be anywhere in the world. When you do reiki in-person, you generally always ask the permission of the recipient prior to doing it. With distant healing it is possible to send reiki to someone without asking. There are times a person is not able to directly ask for the healing themselves. Sometimes you get requests to heal someone by a friend or relative of a person (i.e., My friend has cancer, can you please send them Reiki?). There are different views regarding the sending of this energy without permsion. Some masters teach that it is always appropriate to send, as an act of compassion. They feel that if it is not possible to get permission from the person you can request permission from the person's "Higher Self". You might be asking yourself, "what does that mean?" People talk of connecting to other's "higher selves" and that they somehow can know what the other person's "higher self would want. I cannot answer this question for you regarding this. Others teach that the freewill of each individual must be respected and to send without asking deprives them of making the choice to receive and the choice to heal. Their beliefs are that when sending reiki without permission, you are removing from the other the right to choose to end their own suffering, from the important lessons that they need to learn to end their suffering. I will tell you that I have been on both sides of this issue at various points in time. At first I believed that it was always appropriate to send in compassion without permission. Later, I believed that you should never send without permission. But, if you are looking for my opinion regarding this, you won't find it here or anywhere. Reiki is in the BEing and DOing of it. The nature of the energy is intuitive, does no harm and flows to causes. In reality all the many arguements and discussions regarding this is conditioned sleep. In that, we are like a group of blindfolded people swing away at a pinata, hoping we hit it. "Higher Selves", "highest good", these are all conditioned concepts that we use to try to explain away something. There is no right way, there is only what I do, or do not. I can really only *BE* reiki, and in that moment respond to what is in that moment. The rest of this is beliefs, sleep, concepts and speculation. Be aware of what your own issues are and be mindful of them. When you feel the need to send Reiki to those who have not granted permission, you may want to ask yourself what it is about this situation that is striking chords in you. Why the need to send and intervene, rescue, save..... Many people try to save the world in some attempt to save themselves. Once you know that you will have learned a valuable lesson in your own conditionings. Perhaps in these situations no matter what you decide, you might also consider sending to yourself to heal. It would appear that many make this quite complicated in their attempt to set rules and beliefs for themself. Is it not enough to simply be reiki and do what you do, now in this moment? All this talk of ok to send, not ok, lower selves, higher selves, who heals whom, seems to dizzy one so. I have wandered the paths of intellectualism and mental masturbation and when I have do so, found myself far far from the moment, from from what is, and in some land where I was trying to impose my belief ridden personal truth reality on the intimate beautiful reality of *what is*. When we talk of "higher selves", it necessitates by inference that there be a "lower self". It might seem that when we believe in this duality of "higher" and "lower" selves that we foster an illusion of something that can be conceptualized as seperate and distinct from ourselves or the other person. That which we are, the essence of who we are is right now, is in this immediate moment, and is not seperate. There is no "higher self" in the other person, seperate from who they are and what they are right now in this present moment. Ideas and beliefs of lower and high selves, like all beliefs that we cling to, arise in awareness and fall away in awareness. Look at who it is that believes in higher selves and see who you are..... it is not seperate, not higher, not lower, just what you are, in the intimate what is, in awareness right in this present moment. My suggestion for those out there, tying themselves up in intellectual knots trying to fathom lower and higher selves and all that it entails, would be to simply *be* reiki. Be mindful, be aware, just DO reiki. The right and wrong of any of this, is based on the beliefs we cling to. Just be open, and do what you do, mindful, and be reiki, free of the concepts, accoutrements, beliefs, techniques and suddenly none of this will matter at all.