Quantum Dzogchen Healing

In the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter 9, there is an interesting story about Jesus and a man blind from birth. When the disciples see the blind man, they ask Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus answers them by saying, "It was neither that this man sinned nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him." The passage is interesting, because the disciples are asking about the nature of karma, the law of cause and effect. The disciples are asking which theory of karma is correct. One we can call the Hindu and Buddhist theory that the individual did the deed that caused the illness and the other is the Jewish theory that the family or genetic lineage caused the illness. Curiously, both theories of karma are mentioned in the Bible. If you asked anyone of an agricultural society how to explain individual karma, they would say, "Whatever you sow, that you will reap." This phrase appears in the religious texts of many religions and in a number of biblical passages, especially in the writings of Saint Paul (Galatians 6:7). It is a precise phrase, based on the idea that something subtle and small like a seed is planted (in the subconscious mind), and grows after its kind. Ancients were clear that a pear seed creates a pear tree, not an apple tree. There are other verses, too, where Jesus talks about karma as well especially in regard to forgiveness (cf Matthew 18:21-35 and Matthew 6:8-15). Jesus does not seem to refer to the family genetic karma much, though it seems Saint Paul may have indirectly alluded to it (Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Corinthian 15:45, where Saint Paul seems to link karma burning with the mutation of the human species). The genetic karma theory is a theme found in a number of Old Testament passages (Exodus 20:5, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9). In this passage, Jesus negates both theories of karma, even though he seems to have believed in at least the individual karma theory (the Hindu and Buddhist theory). This kind of dialectical teaching approach is often used in Zen Buddhism. It forces the student to look deeper into the situation and to learn another lesson. I do get that Jesus is interacting with his disciples in hopes that they too become healers. John 20:22-23 indicates that he had succeeded and initiates them into being healers the way that he was, a larger initiation happens in Acts 2:1-5 where each disciple has disciples of their own (cf Acts 1:13-15). They receive a kind of mass initiation during a time of deep prayer and meditation. This results the power to heal being very strong for some time afterwards (cf Acts 5:15-15 and Mark 16:17).

What is interesting, too, is that Jesus does not reject the premise of the question. He does not question whether or not a man can sin and be born blind. It is clear that the disciples were familiar with reincarnation and must have believed it for their question to even make sense, because you cannot sin and be born blind unless you have a previous lifetime in order to sin. My sense is that both individual karma and family genetic karma are valid theories. Jesus, however, is acting as a healer in this passage. Jesus the healer has become a lesser theme in a lot Christian teaching, though for me Jesus the Healer and Jesus the Savior are intimately related. Many passages seem to link these roles together. When people question whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, he points to the healing miracles as a sign. Jesus is clear that anyone functioning in the role of a Bodhisattva, World Server, or Savior is going around healing people physically, emotionally, and mentally. Jesus does not see the blindness for the person as something to analyze karmaically, but simply sees the blindness as something that is meant to be healed. Jesus sends healing energy into the unknown space of the illness and lets the energy of love heal the condition. Sometimes when something is analyzed, it locks a person into the karma even more. When functioning as a healer, it is better to channel the energy of divine love into a person and simply let the healing happen. Sometimes during the process of laying on of hands and sending healing energy the receivers will experience a "surfacing". Something will come from within them that will require an action on their part in order for the healing to become permanent. It is usually about forgiving someone and sometimes seeing that one had done the same thing as the perpetrator. Some deep resentment in the subconscious mind, a samskara, is still operating as an imprint and causing the illness. When I had worked with someone who had paralysis, I had her breath and within 15 minutes her arm had regained about 70 percent of its movement range. At that point, she started to cry, and she was feeling a deep anger toward her daughter. I said, "It looks like life is giving you a choice. You can either forgive your daughter and be healed of your paralysis or remain paralyzed." When I had said this to her, her arm instantly froze again. She had chosen to not forgive her daughter, at least then. Later on, she even forgot the event and conversation had even happened. Sometimes, the forgiveness has already released the resentment imprint from the subconscious mind and the healing energy simply releases the outer effect. The deeper healing has already happened and now the outer effect can simply be removed.

Chapter 9 develops the basic theme of the first verses in some interesting ways. It is clear that "blindness" is a metaphor for being unaware or unconscious and literal seeing is a metaphor for being aware or conscious. In verse 41, Jesus seems to share that there is something called unconscious ignorance or innocence ("If you were blind, you would have no sin."). When we become aware of something, then we have responsibility. When a person sees something and does not take responsibility, they "become blind" and the karma imprint remains.

The key verse talks about something divine manifesting in the blind person as he shifts from blindness to seeing. Some kind of energy conversion is happening to make this shift. My sense is that Jesus heals by seeing the Buddha nature of the blind person. This is deeper than the karmaic patterns that need unconsciousness to function. Seeing this invisible and eternal nature allows the external effect of healing to happen. By negating karmaic history, he is looking deeper to the level where karma does not touch. When people are blind, they do not see or feel their true nature. When they see or feel this, the karma starts to lift (verse 11 shows that the process did take some time and was not instantaneous). Identification with karma, separateness, and ego are at the root of the unconsciousness.

Verse 35 is interesting, because Jesus asks the blind person now healed if he is the "son of man" (not "son of God"). I take this phrase to be the next evolution in the human species (Homo Telepathicus). The phrase "son of" means "offspring of" or something that comes out of something else. In its conventional meaning, if I am the son of someone, I come out of that family lineage. When this phrase is used, it means another species is coming out of previous species (cf I Corinthians 15:20-23, notice the phrase "first fruits", it is plural, and has to do with an eventual harvest coming in or many coming to this same level of being, verse 26 talks about even death ending, many passages talk about the perishable physical body becoming imperishable or the physical body undergoing some transformation).

There may have been some challenges with layers of translation. There is a Hebrew word "Kabed" whose root can mean "glory" and is sometimes translated into Greek as "doxa" (curiously in this verse another word is used "ergon" which has more the meaning of a mission or profession, showing than the single healing is part of a larger mission). The word "Kabed" can refer to good deeds or a display of something impressive enough to shift human opinion. It is also some times refered to as a kind of wealth, some times as something that makes people rejoice, or as the force behind the good deed. I got that what Jesus was talking about is an energy that can manifest healing effects. The results of Kabed are considered less transitory than more mundane good deeds that are sometimes forgotten. When healing links with our inner growth, there is something permanent that arises, even when some of the outer effects fade away. Curiously, Kabed is related to feeling things in the liver. It seems that the Jewish prophets were very kinesthetic and described feeling emotions in different parts of their bodies. This fits in with the psychosomatic awareness of Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, and bioenergetics. Many herbalists have focused on the health of the liver to be being a key to the health of the whole body. The liver, too, seems profoundly affected by resentment and the healing of resentment (aka forgiveness) seems integral to how Jesus saw the energetic healing process.

Having been initiated into Tanran Reiki, I notice a number of parallels to the Reiki understanding of energy healing and what Jesus is doing. Usui claimed to have studied Christianity and may have gotten much from his meditation on how Jesus healed. I am hoping as time permits to share some of the other healing stories and to highlight what each miracle is intending to teach. It is clear to me that Jesus had intended that the healing miracles were something integral to what he wanted his followers to do, and not merely a proof of his enlightenment. Usui also studied Shingon Buddhism and prayed and fasted for 21 days in a manner similar to Kobodashi, the Buddhist teacher who brought Shingon Buddism to Japan. During this 21 day period is when he got a Reiki attunement and an enlivenment of special symbols designed to be anchored in the mental aura and to conduct healing energy through his hands to others (and later on just remotely through mental visualization and intention). He gets the symbols through the third eye, though most Reiki attunements open up the crown chakra and implant them in the energy body this way. During mass initiation at Pentecost, Jesus in his light body seems to attune those gathered there through "tongues of fire" (Acts 2:3). The Hebrew letters are sometimes called "fire language" and look like little flames. The word "tongue" is an old language way of describing the language that someone speaks as in "he speaks a foreign tongue". In the Qabalah, there are ten spheres related to different aspects of consciousness and each is associated with a different Hebrew letter and name of God. Both the Qabalah and Tibetan Buddhism use letter symbols (in Tibetan they are bija mantras) that can be both visualized and intoned. They anchor a vibration into the mental body, or mental layer of the aura, that allow healing energy to conduct from the Universal Source of Loving Energy to those in need of healing (through laying on of hands). Some meditation and purification of the emotional aura is needed to help conduct the energy through a person, though this can happen during the attunement process. One of the signs of this energy present is unity (Acts 1:14, Acts 2:43-45, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Philipians 2:2, and 1 Peter 3:8).

While the symbols differ some between Reiki, the Qabalah, and Tibetan Buddhism, I find it interesting that the initiation or attunement process uses them in a similar way in all these contexts. My sense is that the science behind them and the purpose is the same. The symbols are not ultimately necessary. When we have direct understanding of our true nature, then the energy flows through simply from this realization to others. Until our understanding is completely pure, constant, and direct, though, the attunement helps the living understanding of an enlightened teacher to remain with the students as an energetic feeling. In Saint Paul's terms, one is "through a mirror dimly" and the other is "face to face" after the veil is lifted (conceptual thinking and mental conditioning).

What is interesting is that the healing miracles of Jesus seem to have been consistently strong. There is a phase where he keeps it more secret and then he is more open about sharing healing with others. In one case, he heals ten lepers (Luke 17:1-19) only one returns to thank him and Jesus says to him that his faith has made him whole. Usui found something similar, after his healing empowerment he goes to the beggars district and heals people of both their illnesses and even their poverty. But when he comes back he finds that many of them have reverted back to their original condition. He finds that the ones that stayed healed with the ones that were grateful. I have found, too, that there is a shift that the receiver needs to do for himself or herself. It has something to do with shifting from resentment to gratitude (through forgiveness). The receiver can get temporarily healed through being open in the moment. They all ask Jesus, "Have mercy on us!". This phrase is often used by people asking Jesus to heal them. It eventually becomes the stylized Eastern Orthodox mantra, "Kyrie Eleieson" which is still used to access healing energy from Jesus in his light body.

In terms of experience, I find that channeling Reiki energy energy to others feels like Vipassana Buddhist meditation flowing very well. In some sense, it is easier to go deeper when doing Reiki, because the focus is on giving to another person and so there is less "self clinging" to release. When a person is doing solitary meditation, there still might be some "spiritual materialism" running the process, some form of self clinging or trying to get something for oneself. When we are focused on giving to someone else, this self clinging is neither absent or softer. Many times this results in the Reiki healer getting a healing while giving to another. Part of what is realized in enlightenment is not merely our own true nature, but the realization of the true nature of everyone, and that we are not separate from each other. In the act of laying hands on someone and sending healing energy, there is a feeling of oneness that naturally arises. It reminds of a saying in the Upanishads, where Brahma, a personification of the creative energy of the universe, says, "I am the giver, the giving, and the gift (and the receiver)." In the final prayer of Jesus for his disciples (before his crucifixion), Jesus wishes (John 17:22 and the whole chapter) that his disciple "be one" and even adds "just as" he and the divine are one.

Having a healing meditation be a teaching focus, rather than solitary meditation (which is also important) has an interesting emphasis. Because the healing meditation includes others, Reiki and energy healing traditions grow by sharing. They expand to others who are in need and connects them to the Universal Loving Energy that permeates all of existence but which is not always felt. When Jesus has his enlightenment experience, he feels this universal love (Matthew 3:17). Buddha felt this love also. The energy of enlightenment has four basic feelings within it. They are freedom, wisdom, love, and peace. Buddha emphasized wisdom and freedom, while Jesus emphasized love and peace. Both Jesus and Buddha radiated loving energy through their aura. Buddha converted three Hindu debaters by this loving energy. They came, one by one, to argue with him, but when they felt the aura of love around him, they felt a deep need satisfied within themselves and did not even debate at all.

There is a phrase that simply says, "Reiki grows by sharing". As loving energy is shared, its presence in this world expands and heals this world. In John 1:29, Saint John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." What I find interesting is that the word "sin" is used, the singular, not plural form of this world. This verse is sometimes mistranslated in to refer to sins plural. But the passage is precise, there is ultimately only one sin and that is the belief in separation that forms our feeling of self. Buddha focused on the illusion of a separate self and Jesus just focused on the separateness from universal loving energy. The very act of connecting in love with someone heals the separation and cuts the root of all adverse karmas. All the other "sins" are merely effects of this sense of separation and will start to fade away if we stay in unity. When Jesus is getting crucified, he nirvanas (exhales his last breath). This is called "breath release" in the Rebirthing tradition. This is where the ego releases its control of the breathing and one learns to "breathe from the breath itself" (the Holy Breath or Holy Spirit). Nirvana means "exhale" (nir=out, vana=wind). In Luke 23:45-46, this breath release and "tearing the veil of the temple" are together. He releases his breath into the divine unity. It is his "last" breath. John 19:30 adds that Jesus says, "It is finished," as he gives up his breath. In terms of the Heart Sutra Dharani, "Let go, let go, really let go, totally let go, Awake, Rejoice." Jesus lets go so totally that nothing is left undone, so it is indeed finished. The veil is the veil of separation that is torn asunder by the breath release. It is the veil that separates the divine presence of love (Shekinah) from the people of the world. Enlightenment (Satori) comes when we really let go and supreme perfect enlightenment comes when we totally let go. Before enlightenment, we practice letting go (hence the repetition of "let go, let go", since all practice is repetition). The total letting go is enough for Jesus to release the energies that will create his light body.