USUI-SENSEI: MIKAO, OR MIKAOMI ?
Copyright © 2012 James Deacon
A great many
Reiki-related web sites claim that Usui-sensei's first name was
Mikaomi.
A quick search on Google for: “Mikaomi Usui”
brings up several thousand such results.
However, Google does
helpfully ask: “Did you mean: mikao usui”
- and the answer to
this question should categorically be: YES
The claim that
Usui-sensei was named Mikaomi, rather than Mikao, is simply one of
many Reiki-related myths.
In kanji
characters, the name Mikaomi is commonly written:  .
( = Mika,
= omi)
The name Mikao is
written:  .
(
= Mika, = o )
Evidence that
Usui-sensei's first name was not Mikaomi, but Mikao, can be found at
the Usui family tomb in the Saihoji
Temple graveyard in Tokyo.
The name Mikao ( )
appears on the side of the Usui Family Tombstone itself, and also on the famous
Memorial Stone which stands beside the Tomb.
The name Mikao (
) is also to be found
at the end of the Gokai (Reiki Principles), and appears in the Q&A
section of the Reiki Ryoho Hikkei ( The handbook of the Usui Reiki
Ryoho Gakkai).
The
reason so many people are under the illusion that Usui-sensei's name
was Mikaomi, seems to be down to Frank Ajarva Petter, who, I believe,
first
presented the misinformation (quite
innocently and unintentionally) in his book: Reiki Fire.
This book was published
in the late 1990's, at a time when Westerners were desperately
grasping at any new snippets of information coming out of Japan
concerning Reiki, and so, thanks to the internet, the 'Mikaomi' myth
spread like wildfire.
Frank did attempt (though, in my
opinion, not very 'energetically') to set the record straight in another of his
books: Reiki: The Legacy of Dr. Usui, where he states:
“...The false
information came not only from outside Japan. “A Reliable source”
also assured me that Dr. Usui's first name was pronounced Mikaomi and
not Mikao. Theoretically, both are possible since the Chinese kanji
often permit more than one pronunciation. However, it proved to be
wrong in this case...”
.
I am unaware if Frank
has made any further attempts to rectify this misinformation in any
of his later books. |
