Hara (Belly) is the Gateway to the Source

The Hara or tandem in the Japanese Buddhist, medical and martial arts traditions, and in some daoist schools, is considered the center of energy and the gateway to the Source of creation. Most Westerners believe the center of their existence is in their minds. If they don't believe this still they spend most of their time in their ego mind and wrapped up in thoughts and feelings.

Eastern traditions see the body and mind wholistically. There are three main areas: the head or the center of consciousness, the heart or the center of feeling and love and the lower abdomen or the center of Being.

Buddhist and Daoists seek to move energy from the front to the middle or back of the head and then downward to the heart and the hara. It's worth noting that Jackie Chan and other martial artists know strength and power starts in the hara. Successfully getting the mind out of the way is often the difference between life or death.

In meditation the sense of me shifts away from the ego concerned with thoughts, feeling and sensations and expands like a balloon blowing up to become a part of Being. Being is who you really are. You are really awareness. Awareness is your true self. Enlightenment is the realizationtion that the limitations of the ego do not apply to Being. So the limitations of ego, thoughts, feelings and sensations are experienced by the finite self but infinite awareness is unaffected by them.

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