What Is the Mikao Usui Temple?

The inscription on the Usui memorial stone is not long. It fills perhaps five hundred Japanese characters. But those five hundred characters are the most important written source we have about Reiki's founder.

It begins by describing Usui's character: 'His personality was gentle and humble. He never displayed arrogance. His physique was large and sturdy. He always wore a faint smile on his face.'

It describes his quest: 'He wanted to discover the method of healing people who were sick and suffering that the ancient masters had used. So he devoted himself to spiritual discipline.'

It describes the Mount Kurama retreat: 'He climbed Mount Kurama and fasted for twenty-one days. At dawn on the last day, he suddenly felt a great spiritual power and received the secret method of Reiki Ryoho.'

It describes his teaching and his death: 'He taught many people. In March of 1926, while staying in Fukuyama, he became ill and passed away. He was sixty years of age.'

There is no requirement in Reiki to visit Saihoji. No teacher will tell you that your attunement is incomplete if you have not stood before the stone. And yet, Reiki practitioners go. They go from Brazil and Germany and Australia and the United States. They go from places Usui never heard of, speaking languages he never spoke.

Why do they go? Because something happens there. Practitioners report a sense of presence, of connection, of being held by something larger than themselves. They report crying without knowing why. They report feeling the lineage like electricity through their bodies.

The stone does not perform miracles. It does not heal. It is a rock with writing on it. But it is a rock that was placed there by people who loved Usui, who learned from him, who wanted the world to remember him. When you stand before it, you stand in the stream of that love. That is enough.