Shoden means the beginning of the learning. It is the initiatory level, and it centres almost entirely on yourself.

You are initiated through reiju, and you learn self-treatment, hand positions, and meditations for cultivating your own perception. There is remarkably little variation between lineages here. Terminology differs, the specific hand placements differ slightly, and the meditations are trained differently, but strip the names away and the foundation is the same.

A lot of people stop here, and that is a completely fine thing to do. If you never intend to offer Reiki to anyone else, Shoden gives you a full practice.

Usui is often paraphrased as saying one cannot heal another without first healing oneself. Whatever the exact wording, the ordering is the point. The first level is about your own practice, and everything else is built on it.

There is something else Shoden is teaching that took me a while to notice. Most of it is about learning to get out of the way. Removing your own preconception, your own idea of what should happen, your own wish to control the outcome. The longer I practise, the more I think nobody actually knows what is best for another person. Being there with the intention and leaving it at that is most of the skill.

Okuden is where you begin practising on other people, and it is where most practitioners stop.

You are taught symbols at this level, and distance work. The self-practice deepens. In most systems this is the point at which you are equipped to offer sessions to the public, hands-on and at a distance.

Historically, this level was split in two. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai taught Okuden in halves, Okuden-Zenki and Okuden-Koki. Symbols came in the first part, and distance healing and mental healing in the second. Some contemporary training still splits it, which sounds like a modern innovation and is actually closer to the original structure. Shoden was subdivided too, into six grades.

What changes at Okuden is less about new capability and more about accumulated practice. You are taking what you did on yourself and offering it to someone else, and the same lesson repeats at greater depth: stop deciding what should happen.

On hand placements, I want to be careful and honest. Some lineages teach systematic placements moving across the body, and some teach placement guided by what the practitioner notices. What I can say is that the traditional literature also holds that treating the head or the feet alone allows Reiki to reach wherever it is needed, sometimes with more than one practitioner working at once. Whether specific placements are necessary is genuinely unclear, and I would rather tell you that than fill the gap with a confident explanation.

Shinpiden means the mystery teachings. In three-level systems this is the teacher level, where you learn reiju and are permitted to initiate and train others.

I have not reached it and I intend to. My reason is not that I want the title. It is that I am deeply interested in Reiki and I would like to have gone the whole way through it before I say I understand it.

This is where systems stop agreeing with each other, and if you are choosing training it is worth knowing how.

Komyo ReikiDo has four levels: Shoden, Chuden, Okuden, Shinpiden. The important difference is that Chuden, the second level, is where you receive the symbols and are permitted to work with the general public including at a distance. Okuden in this system is not the practitioner level. It is a deeper level focused on spiritual cultivation with one further symbol. Shoden and Chuden are described as healing by physical hands, Okuden and Shinpiden as healing by spiritual hands. Shinpiden, the fourth level, is the teacher level.

Jikiden Reiki has two practitioner levels, Shoden and Okuden, and then a stepped set of teaching qualifications. Shihan Kaku is an assistant teacher permitted to teach Shoden only. Shihan may teach both practitioner levels. Neither can create other teachers. That authority sits with the organisation's Representative alone, and there is a senior level, Dai Shihan, permitted to train Shihan Kaku. Moving from Okuden to Shihan Kaku requires a minimum of six months, commonly a year, along with repeating all levels again.

Gendai Reiki Ho, developed by Hiroshi Doi, has four levels: Shoden, Okuden, Shinpiden, Gokuikaiden. Here Shinpiden is the third level and Gokuikaiden is the teaching level. So Shinpiden does not always mean teacher.

The practical upshot: an Okuden certificate from one system and an Okuden certificate from another may represent different training. This is not a criticism of any of them. It is a reason to ask what a certificate actually covers rather than assuming the name tells you.

Reiki reached the West largely through Hawayo Takata, and the Western naming came with her. Three levels, with the third called Master rather than Teacher.

I was taught that this was likely a translation choice about register. In Japanese culture a teacher is a deeply respected position. In English, teacher sounds ordinary and master sounds like attainment. Renaming it may have been a way to carry the weight the original had.

That is what I was taught rather than something I can document, so take it as one explanation rather than the explanation.

What matters more is what the title does and does not mean. A Reiki Master is someone trained and initiated at the teaching level, equivalent to Shihan or Shinpiden depending on the system. It means they can teach and initiate others.

It does not mean mastery in the ordinary English sense. It is not a claim to have completed anything, and it is not a measure of how much someone has practised. Somebody can hold the title after a short course and very few hours of actual work with people. The title tells you what they are permitted to do. It tells you nothing about how good they are.

Requirements vary by lineage, and some places will take you from nothing to teacher level in a single intensive.

Things I would be cautious about:

Reiju given online. The Japanese lineages and the professional associations generally require it to be given in person. Komyo ReikiDo requires initial class attendance to be in person. This is one of the clearer lines in the field.

Teaching qualifications with very little practice behind them. Time and hours are what create the depth to teach someone else. Somebody who reached the teaching level quickly and has worked with few people may hold a legitimate certificate and still not have much to pass on.

No gap between levels. Several lineages set minimum intervals, sometimes three months, six months, or a year. Those gaps exist because the practice needs time in it.

Reiju is the ritual by which someone is initiated into Reiki. As far as I understand it, reiju and what the West calls attunement are the same thing under different names.

I have received it ten to twelve times, always in person. The recipient sits in gassho with eyes closed while the teacher performs the ritual. I am not trained to give it and I will not describe the internals, which are taught rather than published.

What I can say is that the experience of receiving it is unpredictable and personal. Some people report calm. Some cry. I have felt calm, and at times something like being steadied. What it is doing, mechanically, I cannot tell you.

The traditional explanation is that it clears the channel so the person can perceive and offer Reiki. That is the teaching. I hold it as the teaching rather than as something I have verified.

I took Shoden a second time, in a different lineage, rather than going straight on to a higher level. It is worth explaining why, because it may be useful to someone else.

The content was largely the same. Different hand placements for self-treatment, meditations trained differently, but the underlying foundation was near enough identical that I would not call it new material.

The reason to do it anyway was the teacher. You cannot tell much about how someone teaches from a website. Sitting through a foundation weekend with them tells you their style, whether they practise themselves, how they handle questions, and whether going deeper with them is worth it. That is worth a weekend before committing to years.

Each Shoden also includes reiju. Whether repeated reiju does anything cumulative, I genuinely cannot say. My self-practice before and after felt similar. If the traditional explanation is right then perhaps something deepened, and I have no way to test it.

If you are sceptical, receive a few sessions first. Not one. Several, because they differ from each other and one session tells you very little. Leave your expectations at home, since expectation shapes what you notice and gets in the way of finding out what actually happens.

If you are already interested, read Usui's own recorded material. A fair amount is available. Then look at who teaches near you.

Questions worth asking a prospective teacher:

• How long have you practised?

• Do you maintain an active practice now, with actual clients?

• Is reiju given in person?

• What support is there after the training? Ongoing correspondence, Reiki shares, further reiju?

• What brought you to Reiki?

• What do you think the practitioner's role actually is in a session?

That last one matters more than it sounds. If someone is heavily invested in their own importance in the process, that is worth noticing. Control is precisely what the practice teaches you to let go of.

One year into Reiki. Offering sessions to others for eleven months, since completing Okuden.

I hold two Shoden certificates, in Komyo ReikiDo and in Reiki Ryoho, Usui System of Natural Healing, and Okuden in Reiki Ryoho, Usui System of Natural Healing. I am continuing to train.

I am qualified to offer Reiki to myself, to friends and family, and to the public, in person and at a distance. I am not qualified to teach Reiki or to initiate anyone, and I will not until I am.

If you want to see what a session actually involves, or where distance work sits in the tradition, I have written about both.