EktayaUsui Reiki
It’s the root. Almost every form of Reiki practiced today traces back to it, including the ones that no longer carry its name. It’s also where I started, in 2010.
Mikao Usui, Japan, 1920s
Mikao Usui was born in Japan in 1865 and died in 1926. He’s credited with founding the system, after a twenty-one-day meditation retreat on Mount Kurama, near Kyoto. That retreat is where he’s said to have had an awakening.
He then named his system Usui Reiki Ryōhō, which translates roughly as “Usui’s Reiki method.” A century later, the structure he laid down is still the one being taught.
Usui’s birth and death dates are documented. The Mount Kurama story, on the other hand, comes to us from his students, who had it engraved after his death. A practice is allowed to have a story rather than a documented record, as long as it says so.
From Usui to today
The tradition’s line of transmission comes down to three names. Mikao Usui trained Chujiro Hayashi, a navy physician, who structured the teaching and opened a clinic in Tokyo. Hayashi attuned Hawayo Takata, a Japanese-American woman from Hawaii who had come to the clinic as a patient, and who brought the practice to the United States in the 1930s.
Through her, Reiki spread across the West, and that’s also why there are dozens of branches today: each of her students passed it on in their own way, and the differences widened with every generation.
Knowing this changes something concrete: when you compare two practitioners who both say “Usui Reiki,” they aren’t necessarily doing the same thing.
A precise framework, not improvisation
Usui is the most structured of the three practices I use. Everything in it is learned in a set order and done the same way each time.
Four symbols
Cho Ku Rei, Sei He Ki, Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen and Dai Ko Myo. Symbols passed on during attunements, each with a specific use: power, the emotional side, distance, and the last one reserved for the master level. They’re working tools, not folklore.
Set hand positions
Usui doesn’t leave the practitioner to improvise. A sequence of positions covers the body from head to feet, in an order that’s learned and repeated.
A session of about an hour
The length is part of the framework. Enough time to cover everything, to let the person settle, and not to rush the ending.
The three levels
You don’t learn Usui all at once. The system is passed on in stages, each one opening something the previous one didn’t allow.
Shoden, the first level
The way into the system. You learn the basics and above all self-practice: before placing your hands on someone else, you work on yourself. It’s the level everyone goes through.
Okuden, the second level
The level where you receive the symbols and learn distance sessions. It’s a real shift: the session no longer needs the person to be in the room.
The teacher-master level
The level that lets you attune other people and pass the system on in turn. It’s a teacher’s role, different from a practitioner’s.
Distance sessions are learned at the second level. They’re neither an option nor a modern adaptation: they’ve been part of the system from the start.
That’s my level: I’m a certified Usui Reiki practitioner, trained to give sessions, including distance sessions. I don’t teach Usui and I don’t attune anyone. That’s the master’s role.
All of Ektaya rests on this. Every session I offer takes place remotely, wherever you are, with no travel on your side.
For me, Usui is the foundation
It’s the one I use the least visibly. I never bring it out, I don’t even call it. It’s channeled by default, on its own, and it’s there in every session underneath what I add on top.
So there’s no point asking me for an “Usui session.” You already have it. What changes from one person to the next is what I add on top.
“His intuition guided him to exactly the area that was blocked: my body started to shake and I felt the energetic knot release physically.”
One person’s experience. Individual experiences vary.
Request a session
You don’t have to choose a technique: in the session I use what fits what you bring. Sessions are pay what you want: you choose the amount after the session, whichever practice was used.
Not sure how it goes yet? We always start with a short video call, and the full run-through is described on the distance Reiki page.
Reiki is a wellbeing practice and is not a substitute for medical or psychological care. It doesn’t diagnose anything.