What it actually is
Hoʻoponopono
To set right. The complete Hawaiian protocol for restoring relationship.
First, the thing nobody says
The four sentences are not hoʻoponopono.
Morrnah Nālamakū Simeona was recognised by the State of Hawaiʻi as a Living Treasure in 1983. She died in 1992. The four-line mantra now sold as hoʻoponopono was assembled and popularised after her death by a man who had studied with her.
It is a beautiful prayer. It is not the practice, and it is not what she taught.
What was actually practised
A family sat down.
As recorded by Mary Kawena Pukui in Nānā i ke Kumu, hoʻoponopono was a family process, led by a senior member of the family or, where needed, by a kahuna from outside it.
It opens with pule — prayer. Then the pilikia, the trouble, is stated plainly. Feeling is kept from running the room through hoʻomalu, periods of imposed silence, and by every word passing through the leader rather than across the circle.
When everything has been aired, there is mihi — sincere confession, and the asking of forgiveness. Then kala — the release, the untying. And a closing pule.
Nobody chants at a wall. It is done with the people you are actually in trouble with, present or held in mind, under someone who knows how to hold it.
The teaching underneath
You are never harmed by the situation. You are harmed by the stone you put in your own bowl about it.
Kahu Kāhealani
The teaching underneath it
The Sacred Bowl of Light.
Every person is born with a bowl of perfect light. Each thought of separation — resentment, envy, fault-finding — drops a stone into it. Enough stones and the light cannot get out; you become a stone yourself, and a stone cannot grow.
But at any moment you may turn the bowl over. Huli kou ipu. The stones fall out. The light was never gone — it was only underneath.
Mana
Sacred power
The magnetic force that draws your life to you. Every discordant thought leaks it.
Pono
Right relationship
Not "good" as opposed to "bad". Correctly aligned — the way a bone is set.
Lōkahi
Inherent oneness
The state in which there is no dividing line between any two people, or between people and spirit.
Hoʻohalahala
Finding fault with fault
The mental habit the whole practice is built to end. Blame may or may not hurt the one you blame. It always hurts you.
Learn the whole of it.
Twelve protocols over twelve weeks, live with a kahu who was taught this at home, in Hawaiian, before she could read.