Journal · Reiki · What it is
The Five Reiki Principles: Text, Origin, and Daily Use in Practice
The five Reiki principles (gokai) in English and Japanese, their 1920s origin, why they start with “just for today”, and how practitioners use them daily.
Valérie Fabre, Founder & Director, Harmonika Institute · September 13, 2026 · 9 min read
Key takeaways
- 5 lines, 1 preface, 21 syllables. Just for today: do not be angry, do not worry, be grateful, work diligently, be kind to others. That is the whole text of the gokai as our Reiki manual gives it.
- They date from Meiji-era Japan. Mikao Usui taught them in the 1920s; they are carved on his memorial stone at a Tokyo temple erected in 1927, and their wording draws on moral maxims common in Japan at the time.
- “Just for today” is the operative phrase. Kyō dake wa turns five impossible resolutions into a 24-hour practice, recited morning and evening, which is how the manual asks students to use them.
- They shape session conduct, not outcomes. No anger becomes no judgement at intake; no worry becomes no promises; gratitude becomes the close of every session. None of the five is a treatment claim.
- They are ethical maxims, not a creed. Nothing in the five lines requires belief in anything; students from every faith and none recite them, and some Catholic guidance on Reiki objects to the practice on other grounds.
The first thing our Reiki students memorise is not a hand position or a symbol. It is 21 Japanese syllables, recited with palms together, that were carved into a stone in a Tokyo cemetery in 1927. Around 700 people a month search “reiki principles”, and most of what they find is a poster. The principles are shorter than that poster, older than most people think, and more practical than they look. Here is the text, where it came from, and what a working practitioner actually does with it between eight in the morning and the last client of the day.
For the session itself, from the client's chair, read what Reiki is and what actually happens in a session. This article stays with the five lines and the practice around them.
What are the five Reiki principles?
A preface and five short imperatives. Our Reiki manual gives them under the heading “The 5 precepts, Gokai”, and its version, translated, reads: Just for today: do not be angry; do not worry; be filled with gratitude; work with diligence; be kind to others. The manual adds that these principles “are at the heart of Usui's teaching” and that they “are recited every day by Reiki practitioners, often morning and evening, as a recentring exercise”. The Japanese text is shorter still, and most lineages teach it in romanised form so that students can recite the original.
| Line | Japanese (romanised) | Common English | A practitioner's reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preface | Kyō dake wa | Just for today | The scope is one day; you start again tomorrow |
| 1 | Ikaru na | Do not be angry | No judgement of the client at intake, no irritation with the one who arrives late |
| 2 | Shinpai suna | Do not worry | No promises about outcomes, no anxious checking of whether it “worked” |
| 3 | Kansha shite | Be grateful | The close of every session: the manual has the practitioner thank the client for their trust |
| 4 | Gyō o hageme | Work diligently, do your work honestly | Daily self-practice; an obligation of means, never of result |
| 5 | Hito ni shinsetsu ni | Be kind to others | Confidentiality, referral when something is beyond you, never leaving a client to get off the table alone |
Renderings vary. Hawayo Takata's students learned a version with two extra lines about honouring parents, teachers and elders and earning a living honestly, and some Western books number the principles differently as a result. The five-line form is the one on Usui's memorial and the one our manual teaches. Our manual also offers a gentler first-person version “adapted for meditation”: just for today, I let go of anger, I let go of worry, I give thanks for my blessings, I work honestly, I am kind to all that lives. Students may recite either.
Where do the five principles come from?
From Mikao Usui, in the last years of his life, and from the moral vocabulary of his time. Usui founded his method in Japan in the early 1920s; our manual records his 21-day retreat on Mount Kurama near Kyoto and his founding of a society, the Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai, to teach it. The precepts are inscribed on the memorial stone his students erected at Saihōji temple in Tokyo in 1927, a year after his death, which makes them the best-attested piece of his teaching we have. Usui is also reported to have asked students to recite waka poems by the Meiji Emperor as part of practice, and the five lines echo the plain moral instruction found in Japanese self-cultivation books of the period; one 1914 volume contains a strikingly similar list. Whether Usui adapted an existing formula or wrote his own is debated by historians of the lineage, and it does not change how the lines are used.
What the record shows
The memorial inscription of 1927 is the earliest surviving text of the precepts, and it is where the “just for today” preface appears. Everything earlier is oral tradition. Stories about Usui receiving the principles in a vision on Mount Kurama are lineage narrative, not record; we tell students the story as the tradition tells it and label it as such.
Why do the principles begin with “just for today”?
Because five lifetime resolutions would fail by Tuesday. The preface, kyō dake wa, limits the scope to one day, and that limit is the practical genius of the text. Our manual explains it as encouraging the practitioner “to live in the present moment, without clinging to the past or fearing the future”. A student who has lost their temper on Monday has not broken a vow; they start again on Tuesday morning with the same five lines. Anyone who has kept a habit for more than a month recognises the mechanism. The principles are not a standard you meet; they are a direction you face, reset every morning.
In our cohorts this is the part of Level 1 that students take home fastest, well before their hands know the positions. It costs nothing, takes a minute, and works on people who are entirely unconvinced about energy.
How do practitioners use the principles every day?
At fixed times, briefly, with the hands together. The manual pairs the recitation with the daily self-practice it asks of every student, morning and evening, and the routine below is what most of our graduates settle into within a month.
- 1
Morning: recite, then self-practice
Seated, palms together in gassho, the five lines once in Japanese or English, then the manual's morning self-practice of hand positions, 3 to 5 minutes each. Ten to twenty minutes in total.
- 2
Before a client: the first two lines
Silently, while washing hands. “Do not be angry, do not worry” is the practitioner's reset before intake: no judgement of what the client brings, no anxiety about delivering a result.
- 3
After a client: the third line
The manual's closing convention has the practitioner inwardly thank the client “for the trust they have placed in you” before the hands go to the shoulders and the session is declared over. That is line three, in practice.
- 4
Evening: recite, then release
The five lines again, then the manual's end-of-day hygiene: cold water over the hands, the dry-brushing of the aura it calls Kenyoku, and gassho to finish. Line four, work with diligence, is what keeps this going on a day with no clients.
How do the principles shape ethics and session conduct?
Directly, and more concretely than a code of ethics written by a committee. Read the five lines against our manual's ethics chapter and each one lands on a rule. “Do not be angry” becomes the instruction that the practitioner “must have respectful words, be attentive”, and “must deduce nothing, affirm nothing”. “Do not worry” becomes the obligation of means: the practitioner does what is “within his power and his field of competence” and “has no obligation of result, even if a result is nonetheless expected by clients”. “Be grateful” is the closing thanks. “Work diligently” is the daily self-practice without which, the manual says, you cannot “offer to others what you are ready to give”. “Be kind to others” becomes confidentiality, referral, and the manual's warning never to let a client get up from the table alone.
Scope of practice
Kindness includes knowing your limits. The manual's ethics chapter says the practitioner “does not heal! He promises nothing”, refers clients to specialists “whatever the field of intervention required”, and reminds them that medical treatments are to be followed as their medical provider directs. A Reiki practitioner who lets the second principle slide into “don't worry, this will fix it” has left ethics and entered unlicensed practice. Rules on titles and practice vary by state; check yours.
Are the five principles a religious creed?
No. Nothing in the five lines names a deity, asks for belief, or promises anything after death; they are moral maxims of the kind found in Stoic, Buddhist, Confucian and Christian teaching alike, and a person of any faith or none can recite them without contradiction. The resonances are real: Usui's Japan was Buddhist and Shinto, the gassho posture is borrowed from temple practice, and the manual's mantras for the symbols speak of God and the Universe. But the principles themselves are secular in content, which is why our students include practising Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists, and none of them has had to change what they believe to say “do not be angry, just for today”.
Some religious bodies still object to Reiki as a whole. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (usccb.org) issued guidelines in 2009 advising Catholic institutions against offering Reiki, on the grounds that its claims about energy are neither scientific nor Christian. That objection is about the energy model, not about the five principles. We take the whole question seriously and answer it at length in is Reiki a religion?.
What do the principles not do?
They do not treat anything, they do not replace a code of conduct, and they do not make anyone a practitioner. Reciting five lines is a discipline of attention, and a person who knows the gokai by heart and has never had their hand positions corrected is not ready for a client. In our in-person Reiki program the principles are taught on the first morning of Module 1, alongside the origins and the first attunement, and they are then simply lived for the rest of the 5 classroom days (35 teaching hours), for $1,500. Students who recite them in the room with nine classmates keep the habit; students who read them on a poster mostly do not.
From the training floor
The line students argue with is the first. “Do not be angry” sounds like suppression to a room of adults who have spent years learning not to suppress. The conversation that follows, about the difference between feeling anger and acting from it in a session, is the best hour of Level 1, and it happens in every cohort without us scheduling it.
The principles are the part of Reiki that survives every argument about evidence intact, because they claim nothing that a trial could test. What the symbols and the attunement add on top is a different question, covered in what the three Level 2 symbols are for.
Questions on this topic.
What are the 5 principles of Reiki in order?+
Preceded by “just for today”: one, do not be angry; two, do not worry; three, be grateful; four, work diligently, sometimes rendered as do your work honestly; five, be kind to others. In Japanese: kyō dake wa, ikaru na, shinpai suna, kansha shite, gyō o hageme, hito ni shinsetsu ni. The order is the one carved on Mikao Usui's memorial stone in Tokyo in 1927, and it is the order most lineages teach.
Who wrote the Reiki principles?+
They are attributed to Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, who taught them in Japan in the 1920s; they are inscribed on the memorial his students erected in 1927. Their wording resembles moral maxims found in Japanese self-cultivation writing of the period, including a 1914 book with a very similar list, so historians of the lineage debate whether Usui composed them or adapted an existing formula. Either way, the “just for today” preface and their use in Reiki come from him.
Why does Reiki say “just for today”?+
Because five lifelong resolutions would fail within days, and a daily scope can be kept. The Japanese preface, kyō dake wa, limits each principle to the present day, so a practitioner who loses their temper has not broken a vow and simply begins again the next morning. Our course manual describes it as encouraging the practitioner to live in the present moment without clinging to the past or fearing the future. It is a habit design as much as a philosophy.
How do you practise the Reiki principles?+
By reciting them at fixed times and reading them against your conduct. Most practitioners say the five lines morning and evening with palms together, before their daily self-practice, and silently before a client. Then they check the day against them: was there judgement at intake, a promise about outcomes, a session closed without thanks, a skipped self-practice, a client left to get off the table alone. The recitation takes a minute; the checking is the practice.
Do you have to be Buddhist to follow the Reiki principles?+
No. The five lines name no deity and require no belief; they are moral maxims that appear in some form in most ethical traditions. Reiki grew up in Buddhist and Shinto Japan and borrows the gassho posture from temple practice, but the principles themselves are secular in content. Our students include practising Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and people of no faith, and none has needed to change a belief to recite “do not be angry, just for today”.
Are the Reiki principles the same in every lineage?+
The core five are, with variations in translation and numbering. Some Western lineages descending from Hawayo Takata add lines about honouring parents, teachers and elders and earning a living honestly, and count the principles differently as a result. Japanese lineages keep the five-line form carved on Usui's memorial. Translations of the fourth line range from “work hard” to “be honest in your work”; the Japanese carries both senses. The differences are small and no lineage disputes the text's origin.
What is gassho in Reiki?+
Gassho is the posture of palms pressed together in front of the chest, borrowed from Japanese temple practice, in which the principles are recited and many practitioners begin and end their self-practice. Our manual closes its end-of-day hygiene sequence with it. It has no doctrinal content; it is a way of marking the start and the finish of a period of attention, and students of any background use it without difficulty.
Can the Reiki principles help with stress on their own?+
As a daily reflective habit, reciting five short lines and checking the day against them is the kind of practice that many people find steadying, and it needs no training, equipment or belief. No trial has tested the Reiki principles specifically, so no claim beyond that is honest. They are not a treatment for anxiety or any condition; someone under serious stress should talk to a licensed provider, and can keep the morning recitation alongside that care.
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About the author
Valérie Fabre · Founder & Director, Harmonika Institute
Valérie Fabre founded Harmonika Institute in 2025, after a decade seeing clients in private kinesiology practice and, before that, thirteen years in international trade. A French-born polyglot who now splits her time between Dallas and Miami, she sets the school's curriculum and editorial standards and champions ethical, in-person training.
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