Radiance Series: Dr. Ann Baldwin on Real Life Experiments on Reiki Outside Clinics with Reiki Women Podcast
October 12, 2026
In Japan the practice is internal and meditative, strengthening the hara and working from the inside; in the West it is external, about doing things. And in Japan the precepts are the foundation under everything, the treatments, the Reiju, the meditation, and also the point of it all. If we are the precepts, we are Reiki.
For one thing, in Japan the practice is much more internal, where in the West it is much more external: you are doing things. In Japan it is more meditative, strengthening the hara, working from inside.
The other difference is the precepts. In the Japanese practice of the system of Reiki we see the precepts as the foundation. They sit beneath everything. They help us do our treatments, they help us do Reiju well, they help us practise our meditation. We bring the precepts into everything.
But they are also the top, the point of it. They are the foundation and also the reason, the place we want to be. If we are those Reiki precepts, then we are Reiki.
The name. The Japanese emphasis is on shugyō, 修行, committed self-training.
Where it sits in the system. Both traditions have all five elements. The difference is order and weight: in Japan, precepts and meditation first and hands-on healing growing from them; in the West, hands-on healing and symbols first, with the precepts often reduced to a poster on the wall.
A common misunderstanding. That Japanese practice means more techniques, more rituals, more to learn. It means fewer external things done more deeply. A Japanese-style Shoden student may spend years at that level.
You might also ask: What is the cultural appropriation question in Reiki? · Why is meditation the foundation of Japanese Reiki? · Why did the West remove the most important part of Reiki?
The whole of Shinpiden+ is built on this difference.
More questions answered: Reiki Questions Answered.
