Oct 31, 2026 · Author: Edward M. Howell
Settling In
Welcome. Get settled into wherever you are, take a few deep breaths, let the shoulders drop, then let the breath find its own way. There is nowhere to get to at this moment, and nothing to acquire or achieve right now.
We gather as students of Reiki Ryoho, the practice Usui Mikao developed and taught after his satori experience on Mt. Kurama. We need to be clear about our words. Reiki Ryoho is the system, the practice we study. Reiki (my own concept) is as David Hinton describes the Tao in China Root, “Tao itself is the physical Cosmos seen as undifferentiated source-tissue.” We do not send Reiki, and we do not give it, as we are not apart from it to begin with.
Hold that lightly as we move through these thoughts. It is the ground under everything that follows.
What We Imagine a Spiritual Life to Be
Many people come to this path in search of a life purpose, and they hope a spiritual life will finally let them feel who they are. Ask them what a spiritual life looks like, and the replies given are familiar:
- Meditation, rituals, retreats
- A certain quality of peace and equanimity
- Detachment from material concerns
- Special experiences: bliss, unity, transcendence
- A sense of purpose larger than ordinary life
- Belonging to a tradition, lineage or practice
None of this is wrong. But notice what the items share. They all point outward or forward. They are things to acquire, states to reach, identities to wear. Spiritual life becomes one more self-improvement project, only now with incense.
The Quiet Irony
The one who seeks a spiritual life in order to find the self is doing what the one chasing status, wealth or romance is doing. The currency has changed. The shape of the seeking has not.
Krishnamurti was relentless on this point: the guru, the method and the tradition can become the most refined way of avoiding what we are looking for. We become busy being spiritual, rather than simply being.
The search for purpose carries the same weight. Underneath it sits a quiet assumption: I am purposeless now, and somewhere ahead is the version of my life that finally makes sense.
Yet that story is being told right now, by an awareness that is already here.
So we might gently ask: who is it that needs a purpose, and why?
What May Actually Be True
A spiritual existence, if we can name such a thing, has less to do with what we do and more to do with the quality of presence we bring to what is already here.
- Ordinary life, met with full attention, becomes something else entirely.
- Washing dishes, holding a conversation, feeling grief: none of it needs to be transcended.
- The sacred is not elsewhere. It is whatever is actually happening, met without resistance.
The old teachers rarely described awakening as arriving somewhere new. It sounds more like putting down the tiring work of being somewhere else.
The Purpose Question, Re-framed
“What is my life purpose?” casts us as incomplete, with the purpose as a missing piece. A more honest question might be:
What is actually alive in me right now, when I stop performing and stop seeking approval for who I am?
Purpose, seen this way, is not found. It is what remains when the noise of seeking quiets down.
Closing: This One Life, Seen Clearly
The sages were not pointing us toward a different life. They were pointing toward this one, seen clearly.
That is how we may hold our Reiki Ryoho practice: not as a way to reach, send or give anything, but as a way to return, again and again, to what is already here. The hands rest. The breath moves. The seeker and the sought sit in the same chair.
Let us sit quietly for a few breaths before we speak. When you are ready, share whatever feels alive.