I’m Neil Evans, a Kuji-in master with over 10 years of experience.

Kuji-in is a Japanese meditation practice built on nine seals. Each seal brings together a hand mudra, a mantra and a focus of mind, practised as one. I teach in the lineage of François Lépine, one seal at a time, so each one has room to settle into your body and your daily life.

This isn’t about escaping everyday life. It’s about existing more completely as a soul in the physical world — bringing that awareness into your body and into ordinary life, one seal at a time.

Most of us live from inside a closed box, seeing life only through our five senses and the old habits, fears and stories that filter how we see the world. It can leave us feeling separate, restless and never quite satisfied. Kuji-in does not ask you to escape that box — through each seal, its hand position, sound and focus, you learn to open it from within.

Every seal has five aspects: the mantra (the words you chant), the mudra (the hand position), the mandala (the visualisation), the chakra (where you place your attention), and the dharma (the contemplation that goes with it). Learning them together is what makes the practice work.

The seals run from Rin to Zen. We start with Rin and move through them in order, with one seal a week and a live teaching for each one, so the practice builds step by step rather than as a list of techniques.