What is a Master?

There has for a long time, in my opinion, been a debate over the requirements and attributes of a 'Master' of Reiki or Seichem. Some time ago I composed my thoughts on the matter and posted them to a private mailing list Reiki and Seichem discussion forum. With the information coming out of Japan now, I have not changed my mind, but rather will further point out that the Japanese rarely offer Shinpiden (Master) training. It is a great honour to be offered even Okuden (2nd Degree) in Japan and students have to show real skill and dedication to Reiki, meditation, practice and service.

Looking back my to thoughts then they still seem appropriate and I hope help to explain my feelings on the higest level of training and attunement in the healing energies that I use.>

As a community I feel we have reached a crossroads. Here we have been for so long travelling along doing our own thing(s) and suddenly, I'm beginning to get a glimpse of what *might* happen if we don't have a little care as to what we are doing and the consequences thereof. Here and elsewhere questions as to why people call themselves masters, what makes them so special, allusions to "proper" masters in other disciplines having studied for years with their teachers before they would even begin to *think* about using that term to describe themselves, various issues about money, places, students, how many levels there are, distance attunements - the list goes on.

In the days of Usui, in his place, Japan, the title given to him would have been "sensei" which translates equally as both "teacher" and "master". The traditional Japanese attitude to a sensei is one so filled with respect and awe, obedience and surrender, that it does not sit well with us westerners. A student would stay with his sensei for many years, making himself useful, learning what he could as the sensei would drop little pearls before him so that he might pick them up and come to his own realisation of what each one meant in the wider context. This to a certain extent is the tradition held to in the Reiki Alliance and the Reiki Network. When the sensei had taught all he thought the student capable of learning he would, like Hayashi with Takata, send his student off into the wide world to work on his own, to make his own way, to teach in his own fashion, to be his own "master".

So we've whittled it down to a certain extent. Understandably.

In the western Reiki and Seichem traditions we have three weekend seminars with relevant attunements and a certain amount of - very limited - training over that period. The teacher may or may not be prepared to give back up afterwards.

Now to the process of becoming a master teacher.

For myself the process was cyclical over three parts. In each part it was a process of study, growth, attunement and practice, each one at a different level - not just in terms of the attunement but also in terms of personal experience of where the growth and healing was taking place. Sometimes it was painful, sometimes joyful, always profound and always hard work :)

At my first level I had the opportunity to be supported by a sharing group, a small group of Reiki people who met every month to share both the energy and the achievements and sorrows of life.

After second level, there was a great deal of study with books and the net, sharing with other Reiki and Seichem people and a joining to the wider community - I met the lady who attuned me to mastery through my service to the Reiki community. We shared a great deal about Seichem and Reiki on all it's levels before I persuaded her to do the attunement.

My own current master student - who is not a member of my immediate circle - spends a great deal of time with me, not because I insist on it, but because he just started to do it. This is the way that the prospective master grows into his or her place. When we meet - often - it is study, and I have the great priviledge of this relationship having grown into one where it is often an exchange - not just me "doing" teaching, but also his input stimulating my own growth - he will soon be ready for the master attunement. I am proud of this association, I value his input and I know that when he begins to teach, he will do so with compassion, understanding and insight - his own as well as mine.

I feel that this or some varient on it is an appropriate process. I respect it and value it. I spend time with it, and spend time with my students. I want them - and the energies themselves - to have the very best of me.

So, it becomes obvious that - at least in the opinion of a rather obscure little master in North London - there is more to being a master than just having received the attunement to the master symbol(s) and a method of doing an attunement to someone else. There are many methods of passing an attunement. But the process must, in my opinion, include both the master and the student making some kind of effort in the way of presence and training - ongoing as well as the basic class, as appropriate.

My feeling is that it is appropriate that the process has been shortened and streamlined to fit in with the modern world and to make it more available to everyone. But I also feel that this can be and has been taken too far in some cases. To behave in a way that implies that the process can be undertaken in some kind of "remote control" way is lacking in respect for the energies, the student and the process. Masters *know* that stuff comes up for students - nice stuff, nasty stuff. Mainly it's just stuff, really.

Quite often I come across students who have been, apparently, abandoned by their teachers, completely isolated and left to their own devices in the period following an attunement. The distress and/or disinterest this causes in the student can be extreme. I feel that this is particularly the case where the student has been attuned distantly. They are isolated by their lack of training, their lack of experience, their lack of sharing and possibly their lack of access to the Reiki/Seichem community.

I believe very strongly that the type of attunement which leaves the student isolated in this way - which applies particularly in the case of a distance attunement - *cannot* make a master.

The consequences of inappropriately attuned masters are primarily the isolation and possible distress of the students themselves. There is also the distinct likelihood of a growing diffusion and dilution of the community as a whole.

>Selling or sending attunements in an inappropriately incomplete manner is, I believe, a selling short of the loving, healing energies we have the great honour and privilege to channel.

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