This is part 2 of series of posts on Reiki. In this part, we will develop the ability to sense Qi.
The process for this will go something like this:
- Learn to easily enter into a trance state
- Use the trance state to enhance sensory perception
- Learn to recognize Qi by practicing your senses with items that have an energy field
Trance State
This is a state of mind. It goes by many names. Hypnotic Trance, In the Zone, Spaced Out, Fantasizing, Visualizing, Daydreaming, and on, and on, and on. The single-most important skill you are going to need to develop as part of your self-attunement is the ability to flip into and out of a trance at-will.
There is no one “right” way of doing this. The procedure I offer here is just a way that has a good chance of being effective, but if you have a method that works for you, do that.
First, there is a huge relationship between state of mind and breath. So, control your state of mind by controlling your breathing. Breathe in to a count of 4, then breathe out to a count of 8.
As you breathe out, allow yourself to physically relax. With every exhale, allow your body to get more and more relaxed. Do not FIGHT to get relaxed. Just ALLOW yourself to relax. If you are not sure what relaxed muscles feel like (some people do not!), you can learn to relax by deliberately tightening a particular muscle group for 30 seconds, then paying close attention to all the sensations in those muscles and repeating the word “relax” to yourself as you allow the tension that you created to wash away. Take at least 60 seconds to allow the muscles to get as loose and limp as they are inclined to go. Repeat as many times as necessary until the muscles get completely relaxed when you remove the tension. Then repeat for other muscle groups. Once you have learned how to relax, you can achieve relaxation simply by paying close attention to all the sensations coming from a particular body part. The more closely you pay attention to that body part, the more relaxed it tends to become.
Once you have mastered the physical relaxation, continue with mental stillness. Do not struggle to eliminate the thoughts in your head. That is impossible. The brain is made to continually process. Instead, let it be like standing in a crowded room, conversations all around you, yet you do not actually hear any of them. Your ears hear the words, but your brain hears only noise. Let the thoughts in your mind flow unimpeded. Once you have mastered the art of allowing the thoughts to flow without taking the time to inspect them, then you can simply imagine that their volume be turned down, and in time, it will work.
While you are practicing your breathing, and working to relax your body and quiet your mind, there is another thing you can do. You know that when you are happy, you smile. You may even know that when you smile, it makes you feel happy. Did you also know that when you access your imagination, you tend to look up? And that when you look up, it tends to activate your imagination? So, as you begin your practice session, simply hold your head straight, but look upwards with your eyes. If your eyes are looking upwards for 30-60 seconds, you will find that your powers of imagination become significantly stronger.
Once your imagination is activated, USE it! If you see something, pay attention to what you see. Try to make note of what it looks like. Pay attention to the colors, the sizes, the shapes, the textures, the lighting, everything about its visual appearance. If you don’t see anything, don’t sweat it. Just think about what it might look like if you DID see it. The same thing with sounds: What would the thing that you are imagining sound like? What would it Feel like? Smell like? Taste like?
Once you have spent about a minute or two, no more than about five minutes, then simply open your eyes, and return your focus to the world around you. If time allows, repeat this two or three times in a single sitting, to help drive yourself deeper each time.
Practice this at least once a day, preferably twice, but no more than once an hour, for at least a week. Master it. Get to the point where it is EASY to flip into a state of mind where your imagination is highly active and vivid.
Enhanced Sensory Perception
Once you have mastered the art of flipping into a trance state, work on being able to maintain it while interacting with the world. Intend that you would stay in that state of mind while you open your eyes. Then look around.
While you are in this state, when you open your eyes, really use your senses. Try to maintain the state of mentally quiet and physically relaxed, while at the same time allowing your external senses to function. Try to see how things look. How they feel. How they smell. How they sound.
A great practice: While you are in this state, walk through a door. As you walk through it, take note of everything that you feel, every sense, in your whole body. See how your perception of the world changes as you move from room to room.
Make this a habit. Right before walking through ANY door, intend that you would flip back into your trance state with heightened awareness, allow it to happen, then walk through the door and take note of how the room on one side is different than on the other. Try to express the difference in a way that another person could understand it. Once through the door, feel free to go back to your normal state.
The more you do this, the more you consciously use your senses like this, the more acute they will become, and the more you will begin to sense. And the more you practicing flipping into and out of this state of mind, the more adept you will become at entering into it.
Experiencing Qi
Once you have mastered going into a state of hyper-sensitivity, the next step is to practice experiencing Qi.
There are a thousand ways you could do this. I’ll give you a few to try.
Before walking into a forest, enable your senses, like you do when walking through a door. Keep them enabled the whole time. Note how things change as you approach individual trees. Note how some trees feel different than others as you approach them.
Find a crowded place, like a mall, a city park or sidewalk, a zoo, or the lobby of a movie theater. Anyplace with lots of strangers walking past. Stand or sit someplace where people will walk past you, without you impeding them or being a bother in any way. Just stand there, senses heightened, and feel what it feels like as people walk past you. See what you see. Hear what you hear. Try to relate your vision and your hearing to your sense of feeling. Do you sense pressure, or vibration, as some people walk past? If you do, look at them. How do they look different? Do you hear anything different as they pass? Can you smell something, other than perfume?
Got an open minded friend? Practice this with them: One of you stands, eyes closed (and rolled up, imagination active, senses heightened), arms straight out in front of you, palms down. The other crouches down, arms out, palms up. They slowly and silently bring their hands upwards. When you feel something in your hands, be it a sense of light, heat, tingling, pressure, vibration, whatever it is, tell them to stop. Look at how far away they are. Practice this over and over again until not only do you feel it in your hands, but your whole arms, and the front of your body, and you can see them like a lightness in your mind, and they can’t even get closer than six feet without you feeling/seeing them. Literally seeing them, not just your imagination.
There is a practice called Qi Gong, which is a bunch of exercises that build and strengthen your energy field. The stronger your own energy field, the stronger will be your senses. Try it, see what happens.
Coming Up
The next step is going to be to experience the different types of energy. You already started to do this, with the trees, and with the people. In the next step, we will deliberately experience different energies, learn to tell them apart, and then learn to identify Reiki from among all the others.