In many Japanese-style Reiki practices, attention returns to the hara — the belly region — with a focus a little below the navel.

It’s a quiet idea, and easy to miss. Here’s what the hara is, a line from Takata’s diary that points to it, and a half-minute way to try it for yourself.

The belly as centre

Hara is the Japanese word for the belly, though in practice it means something closer to “true centre.” Teachers describe the lower belly as the place where energy is said to gather and settle. Within that region, attention is traditionally brought to one point a few finger-widths below the navel: the lower tanden, which Chinese practice calls the dantian. The hara is the belly as a whole; the tanden is the traditional focus inside it. Neither is an exact dot.

None of this is unique to Reiki. Aikido, seated meditation and other Japanese arts return to the same centre. Some teachers describe three such centres — lower, middle and upper — at the belly, the heart and the forehead, with the lower one as the foundation the other two rest on.

A line from Takata’s diary

Hawayo Takata, who carried Reiki from Japan to the West, kept a diary in the years she was learning it. In an entry dated December 10, 1935, she describes the energy as lying within oneself, in the lower belly about five centimetres below the navel, and quiet concentration as the way to let it come out.

It’s a small detail, but a telling one. The seven-chakra map many of us learned comes from Indian yogic tradition; the hara is a different map of the same body, from the Japanese side of the lineage. Neither cancels the other, and plenty of practitioners hold both.

Thirty seconds of attention on the lower belly

Stay as you are, sitting or standing. Rest one hand on your lower belly, just below the navel, and let the other hand go wherever it’s comfortable.

Breathe normally. No deep breaths, nothing held. Notice the hand rising and falling, and let your attention settle where the hand is. When it wanders back up into your head, which it will, bring it down again.

That’s the whole exercise, and there’s nothing to look for. Warmth, weight, a quieting or nothing at all: each is fine. If you ever feel light-headed, stop and let the breath settle.

Where it shows up in the ReikiAll app

Two self-Reiki positions in the app offer a way to explore this lower-belly focus.

The plain one is the hold in the illustration earlier in this post: both palms resting on the lower belly at navel level, fingertips meeting just below it. It’s one of the free positions, and its hands rest near the area described above.

The second has one cupped hand over the closed eyes and the other hand resting just below the navel. Many teachings present this pairing as a way to bring the head and the lower belly into balance.

You’ll meet the lower-belly hold inside the Quick Energizer and Courage sequences, and the eyes-and-belly pairing in the free 7 Chakras sequence. These sequences aren’t built around the hara as such, but they are good places to rest your attention low while the timer runs.

Why practitioners keep going back

Steadiness, mostly. Some Japanese-style teachings describe anger and worry as pulling energy upward, into the chest and the head, and away from the centre. Seen that way, bringing attention back down to the belly is the way home, and the breath carries it.

The fuller practice is Joshin Kokyu-ho, a breathing meditation in which practitioners imagine energy gathering in the hara on each in-breath and spreading through the whole body on each out-breath. The half-minute exercise above is only a simple introduction to lower-belly attention; the breathing practice adds the imagery and a longer, settled rhythm.

Where to go from here

If the breathing drew you in, our post on Japanese Reiki techniques walks through Joshin Kokyu-ho step by step, along with four other practices that aren’t hand positions.

If you’d rather stay with the hands, our practical guide to Reiki hand positions covers the whole sequence and how to adjust it in ReikiAll.

And if you’re just starting, or starting again, the seven-day plan gives you a gentle week of self-Reiki to build on.

ReikiAll keeps that lower-belly hold a tap away, with a timer, so the returning can become a habit.

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Download ReikiAll, available on the App Store and Google Play, and let your practice begin.