ReikiDharma.com Newsletter #1

Dear Friends!

Welcome to the first edition of the Reikidharma.com newsletter and thank you for your patience. I have had too many dishes on my table for the past few month, and our homepage did not receive the attention it needs. But I will be a good boy from now on... It is for you, dear reader, that we have done all the research so far. Your love and encouragement keeps us going. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
We decided to publish this newsletter quarterly. When there are important news we will do it more often. With each publication we will offer you updated information on the various aspects of Reiki. We will share with you new information as it becomes available, and will let you know about interesting Reiki (and non-Reiki ) seminars, including our own. You will also hear about future publications. And since I am talking about books: My next book will be published in the end of October by Lotus Light Publications in collaboration with Walter LŸbeck and William Lee Rand. You can expect some explosive reading!!! We will let you know the publishing date and other details as soon as we can. For the German speaking amongst you, the book will bear the title" Das Reiki Kompendium" and will be published by the Windpferd Verlag, as ususal. You can already preorder it at Amazon.de. look for either of the three authors names, or the title.

The "Reiki" Kanji

This time I would like to talk to you about the Reiki Kanji- the way "Reiki" is written in Japanese. A Kanji is a Chinese pictograph, a picture that describes a certain word. The written Japanese language was imported to Japan from China a long time ago. It evolved, but essentially still remains either the same or similar to the original Chinese. That means that Chinese and Japanese people can, to a certain extent, understand each others written language, even though the pronunciation is totally different.
In the 1940's the Japanese government decided to launch a grammar reform, to simplify many of the very complicated Chinese Kanji. The Kanji are so hard to remember, even for Japanese people, that they have to constantly write and read them in order not to forget their own language. When my wife spends long periods abroad she always makes sure that she reads Japanese daily and writes as much as she can. This grammar reform was meant to simplified the Kanji, but in the process some of the deeper meaning of the original, ancient Kanji was lost. Some of the ancient Kanji, the one for "river" and "mountain" for instance, resemble the thing they describe.

Dr. Usui did of course use the ancient version to write the word "Reiki"(and everything else), but the contemporary version is correct as well. Due to their eighty year old Reiki tradition, Japanese Reiki practitioners use both versions.
Kanji were originally written with ink and brush, or else printed, and only in recent times- for convenience sake- have they been written with pen and computer keyboards. When a Kanji is written by brush, it sometimes looks very different from the way the same Kanji is written with a pen or on a computer. Most of the people involved with Reiki in the West are non-Japanese. And so many Kanji that are said to mean "Reiki" in books on Reiki, in manuals of Reiki teachers and in their advertisements, are in fact misspelled or badly written.
Unfortunately, this goes for the Reiki Master Symbol as well.

The sacred Art of Calligraphy

Calligraphy, the art of writing, is a sacred art form in Japan. And this art form is only practiced in public by professionals. The moment a Kanji is written by a professional calligrapher it becomes art. It is then signed in red ink with the hanko, the personal seal of the artist. And these pieces of art can be very valuable and- expensive. A well known calligrapher may take US $ 5000 for one single copy... As any piece of art, calligraphy is copyrighted. Of course the artist does not have the permission to copyright the word "Reiki" or whatever they have written as such, but he or she copyrights his/her rendering of the word.

Knowing that there is a big demand for calligraphies of the word "Reiki", I thought it would be a good service to put up several different versions of the "Reiki Kanji" on our homepage for all of you to use freely. Just like in other languages it is possible to write Japanese in different styles, and we have put up a few of them. Please look on our website under the "Table of Contents" for the link that takes you to the "Reiki Kanji Pages". There you will find a variety of Kanji all meaning "Reiki". The top characters stand for "Rei" and the bottom characters for "Ki". The word "Rei" means spirit, ghost or soul. The word "Ki" means energy, feeling or mood. Put together, these two words are usually translated as "universal life energy" or "cosmic energy".

The Kanji we have put up on our site are Japanese computer fonts, just like the fonts that you and I have in our computers. Because they are common fonts, they can be used freely. So please go to the pages, and download the Kanji for your own use. We have scanned them onto the pages in large size for your convenience. Simply either click on the image and follow the instructions that will be given. Or click on the image of your choice and then drag it onto your desk top.
If any of you would like to use the Reiki Kanji for a book you are planning to publish, I suggest you get a professional calligrapher from Japan or China to draw the Kanji for you. Most likely a Western artist won't be able to do a good job- at least not for Japanese eyes! Symmetry, for example, is a Western concept of beauty. For Japanese eyes, balance is much more important. But what is balance...? There are certain rules that apply to the art of calligraphy and if you don't know the rules... we all know what happens! A handwritten Kanji for a Japanese or Chinese person, is comparable to a written letter or word in Western handwriting. Each of us would know in an instant, whether or not a handwritten note is written beautifully, badly, or written by someone in love or in distress!

Hiragana and Katakana

Besides the Kanji characters, written Japanese has two more sets of characters to write Japanese and foreign words. These are the 46 Hiragana characters and the 46 Katakana characters. Both are phonetic sounds, and not pictographs. Katakana is mainly used for writing foreign words and Hiragana is often used to explain difficult Kanji. The story goes that Katakana was devised by the Japanese monk Kukai. It was he who brought sacred Buddhist texts from China to Japan. Some scholars maintain that he invented Katakana, to help his country men/women pronounce and chant these foreign words correctly.

Enough of the short course in Japanese writing! I hope you will enjoy the new additions to our homepage. Under the heading "Reiki Foto Gallery" we have added a number of photographs from the magnificent Kurama Temple, the birth place of Reiki in Kyoto. These photographs may whet your appetite to make the journey to the roots of Reiki in person, some day.

Chetna and I wish you all the best, may love and grace shower upon you, always,

Frank Arjava Petter

Frank Arjava Petter
Henri- Dunant Str. 32
40474 Düsseldorf
Germany
Phone +49-211 50 73 810

Email : Arjava@ReikiDharma.com

Copyright ©2000- 2008 by Frank Arjava Petter