0:00
This phrase “agreeing to disagree” puts me in mind one of the very first principles that I learned in practicing Reiki and that is “there’s no right or wrong way to be”. So I would like to say that this statement “agreeing to disagree” puts me in a place of being against somebody or disagreeing with their opinion. I would like to say, maybe people think this is a little too slippery, that we simply have different opinions. And I honour their opinion as much as I honour mine. If I don’t do that, then how could I ask others to honour my opinion or my practice without me honouring theirs?
1:11
There was a period of time in the early 1900… 1990s, excuse me, 1990s where many of the colleagues that I was involved in and had workshops with and we were in community together, they made very snide remarks about some of the “new” forms of practice. And it didn’t sit very well with me but I didn’t know why until I finally figured out that they also reported to me conversations they’ve had had with students or members of the public where there was a kind of not so nice remark made of our practice and I said to them… well I said “If you don’t change your attitude toward the other practices, then how do you expect to be respected?” You know, it’s like “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”, you know, it’s a very old, wise axiom. ….
2:31

2:31
In my years of Reiki experience, we all have theories about where Reiki comes from, is it different from other forms of energy, like X-Ray or radio waves or whatever. We have a different idea about whether was Reiki rediscovered or was Reiki discovered or was Reiki a gift that was given. You know, there are all these different viewpoints. And actually in the last few years what I’ve come to realize is that the truth, the actual universal truth can only be found if all of us are willing to sit in circle and honour our own positions and speak our own positions without fear of retribution or judgement and be able to hear each other in the same way, so that we… if we could see these as vibratory waves, we would see these words come together and form a group voice. And this group voice is really the truth part.
3:47

3:47
So we all have a measure of truth, because it’s our truth, it’s our individual truth and I have to assume that everybody who speaks their opinion or their idea about Reiki or about hand positions or about whatever, is speaking their own truth. They are not making it up. So if I can hope that that critical assumption is accurate, then for me we own our own truth and each of our voices is a part of the greater truth.
4:32
So it feels very different than agreeing not to agree 0436 …… 0437 (Background voice)… 0440 (Background Räusper)  (René: I suspect that my follow-up ques…) 0449 Oh, I want to add something:
4:53

4:53
Having said that (laugh) 0456-0501 (cough) ….
Having said that, I am very clear about the practice that I teach and hold and I have ended up, you know, thinking myself a total liberal in politics and the way that I live my life. And being called conservative by my own students, “well why don’t you even consider changing this part of the system?”, “Well because that’s not what I was taught” “Well, how can you say that? That was 30 years ago, you know, don’t you like move on?” And, you know, part of my job not only as the Grand Master and lineage bearer, but part of my job as a Reiki master and a Reiki student is to take what I was given and to practice that PERIOD
6:00

6:00
Okay, so my human conditions is: I can get bored. Well, what I’ve learned is, if as a student I have gotten bored, it means that I’m not really paying attention and I’m not actually applying the practice. Because in my experience, when I get bored it means that I’ve run into resistance within me and there is something resisting taking the next step. So I just stay on this “mmmmmmm”. And of course it’s boring. So we want something and in our day and age I have to say that we have all kinds of options to shake ourselves out of this boredom, some new idea or some new way of being or perhaps another way to learn Reiki or whatever. And it’s not beneficial to our personal endeavour of personal development.
7:05

7:05
So I am very conservative, I am very, maybe even rigid, about the practice that I hold and keep but it’s because this practice has given me the richness of life that I could never ever hope to have had before my practice. And I know that if I’ve received this much in the last 30 years, then in the next 30 years I will receive even more. So why change it? You know, why change it? And I honour the other practices, they have emerged because of people’s need to have it changed and it’s served other people or a different priority like instead of my feeling where a few students who practice deeply is what I go for. Other people go for the more students on the planet that have Reiki, the better. And I don’t … subscribe to more is better.
8:19
So that’s okay, because what I found in the last years is that these two philosophies, if you will, of how to teach Reiki and how to “spread” Reiki, have come together to provide in the world an incredible Reiki community and it couldn’t have been done one without the other. So, yes, I hold my practice to be very clear, very strict and not without movement.
10:13

7:02
And I have told my students this as well, that if we differ in opinion it’s okay for me on one hand, I may not like it, I may not like you for a few days but I will fight to the death to make sure that you’re right to disagree, or to have your own opinion more accurately. It’s preserved because that’s our inalienable right as a human being.
7:33
I also feel that, whether or not I like it, I’ve made assumptions and whether or not I like it, I not always said what I really needed to, because of my shyness or because I feel like I won’t be taken seriously. So there are many different relationships that I have that I don’t even know I have, out in the Reiki world and also relationships where I know that I’ve transgressed. And for all these times when you feel that I’ve transgressed, that I’ve entered your space unwillingly and uninvited, where I’ve offended you in some way, where my … where my loyalty to my master has caused you pain because it’s different from what you have learned is Reiki, and that has given you pain, for all these things I want to ask your forgiveness because it wasn’t my intention, it’s not the way I hold you and everyone has been a great teacher for me. And without you I wouldn’t be who I am today.
9:09