The second symbol and its mantra. In the West it was labelled mental and emotional healing. In Japan the mantra means our natural inclination, and our natural inclination is to be our true self. Its characteristic is harmony: the balance between earth and heaven in which we start to feel what we really are.

There are two answers. A person who practises a healing method is a reiyōshi. But the memorial stone of Mikao Usui describes him as someone who undertook shugyō, committed training, and a person on that path is a shugyōsha. From a Japanese perspective that is the better word for a Reiki practitioner: someone committed to daily self-practice, not someone with a certificate.

Chakras came into Western Reiki from the New Age movement and have nothing to do with the Japanese system. Teaching from a Japanese perspective, I work instead with Sanmitsu, which I call the Three Diamonds: body, mind, and the breath that links them. Those three sit at the base of every practice in the system.