When Mikao Usui developed Reiki in early 20th-century Japan, he embedded five principles at its core — not as an addition to the healing method, but as its foundation. In his view, no external healing practice would hold without a parallel internal practice.

Just for Today, Do Not Anger

The phrase “just for today” is deliberate. Usui understood that promising to never feel anger is both dishonest and impossible. The commitment is narrower: within this day, notice when anger arises and choose not to be governed by it. Anger as an emotion is not the problem — it often contains useful information. The invitation is to stop feeding it, to avoid letting it compound into stories about how things should be or how someone wronged you.

Just for Today, Do Not Worry

Worry is the mind rehearsing problems that have not happened yet. It consumes energy without producing anything useful beyond legitimate planning, which requires very little of the anxious looping most worry involves. This principle asks you to notice when your mind has left the present and gently return to what is actually in front of you.

Be Grateful

Not performed gratitude or social-media gratitude, but the actual practice of finding what is functional, beautiful, or simply not broken in a given day and acknowledging it. Neurologically, a genuine gratitude practice shifts attentional bias away from threat detection toward noticing sufficiency. Over time this is not a small thing — it fundamentally changes what you see when you look at your life.

Work Diligently

This one surprises people who expect spiritual principles to be purely inward. Usui was direct: show up to your work fully. Do what is in front of you with care and attention. A kitchen cleaned with full attention is a form of practice. A job done halfheartedly because it feels beneath you is not. Diligence as a spiritual quality is about the quality of presence you bring, not the prestige of the task.

Be Kind to Every Living Being

The scope here is notable — not just to people you like, but to every living being. This includes the driver who cut you off, the colleague who frustrates you, and yourself on a day when you have failed to live up to your own standards. Kindness as a practice is not a feeling — it is a decision, made in small moments, repeatedly.

Using the Principles

Usui recommended reciting the principles each morning and evening, ideally with hands pressed together in a gesture of intention. Many practitioners keep them written somewhere visible: a bathroom mirror, a desk, a phone screen. The medium matters less than the regularity.

The principles work best not as standards to achieve but as questions to return to: Am I in anger right now? Am I in worry? Where is gratitude available in this moment? Am I bringing my actual attention to what I am doing? Am I treating this person as a living being worthy of basic kindness?

If you are interested in exploring Reiki as both a healing modality and a daily practice, reach out to us at Reiki Works.

A Reiki journal or meditation cushion can support a daily Precepts practice between sessions. (Amazon affiliate links — we earn a small commission at no cost to you.)

Reiki Works

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