Generating a healing heart

The Second Reiki Symbol and its mantra, Sei He Ki, support the reunification of heart and mind. In ordinary experience, thoughts and emotions are often divided, creating inner conflict, attachment, and suffering. Through consistent mantra practice, the practitioner gradually softens the grip of the ego mind and begins to move from separation toward a deeper experience of wholeness and truth.

Sei He Ki is often understood as a symbol of harmony and balance. Its practice helps to restore equilibrium within our emotional and mental states, allowing unsettled energies to return to their natural rhythm. Anger, worry, fear, and attachment can disrupt this balance, drawing energy away from our centre and weakening our sense of grounding and wellbeing. As harmony is restored, a practitioner begins to experience a greater sense of connection, not only with themselves but with all life.

To engage deeply with Sei He Ki is to engage in the heart of Makoto ReikiDo. It is the practice of cultivating peace amidst the inevitable pain and suffering of human experience. Rather than resisting difficult emotions, practitioners learn to meet them with awareness, compassion, and acceptance. Through this process, they move closer to their own truth.

Generating Compassion

The mantra of Sei He Ki can also be used to awaken and strengthen compassion. Through this practice, we first learn to embrace and transform our own suffering before extending that same compassionate presence to others. Combined with the Buddhist practice of Tonglen or “taking and sending,” Sei He Ki becomes a powerful vehicle for inner transformation.

Rather than turning away from discomfort or seeking refuge in pleasure and distraction, practitioners learn to open their hearts to the reality of suffering. In doing so, the patterns of the self-cherishing mind begin to soften. Harmony, kindness, and compassion arise naturally, free from expectation or attachment.

As compassion deepens, a new perspective on reality emerges. The boundaries between self and other become less rigid, and the practitioner begins to contemplate the nature of self, interconnectedness, and oneness. This is the deeper wisdom embodied within the Second Symbol.

In Reiki practice, the heart and mind cannot truly be separated. They exist in a dynamic relationship, each influencing and supporting the other. As the mind becomes calmer, the heart naturally opens. As compassion grows, the mind becomes clearer. Together, they reveal the path toward genuine healing and awakening.

Reiki Healing Heart Practice

1. Begin by establishing a clear intention for practice.
2. Settle body, speech, and mind into stillness.
3. Bring awareness to the hara, your centre of grounding and stability.
4. Rest the mind gently in the mantra Sei He Ki.
5. Breathe naturally through the nose and vocalise the mantra on each out-breath for 7, 9, 21 repetitions.
6. Enter Gasshō and rest quietly.
7. Bring to mind a person in need of healing, or allow someone to arise naturally in awareness.
8. With compassion, recognise their pain, worry, fear, or suffering and gently breathe it into the vast space of awareness.
9. On the out-breath, offer whatever may be of benefit: peace, healing, clarity, love, strength, or comfort.
10. Continue this rhythmic exchange until the practice feels complete.
11. Conclude with Gasshō and dedicate the benefit of the practice to all beings.

Through this practice, the practitioner gradually discovers that healing does not arise from fixing or changing another person. Rather, it emerges from the capacity to remain present, open-hearted, and compassionate in the midst of suffering. In that openness, both practitioner and recipient are touched by the healing heart of Reiki.