What are Chakras? A Buddhist Mystic Explains the Body’s Hidden Energy System

Introduction

Chakras are powerful energy centers in the human body that affect your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

In this guide, you'll learn:

• What chakras are

• How they work as part of your energy system

• The main chakras and their locations

• How to recognize when each chakra is balanced vs. blocked.

🌟 What Are Chakras? Understanding the Body’s Energy Centers

Ancient Eastern traditions—like traditional Chinese medicine and various martial arts—have long recognized, and used energy centers for healing and growth. These traditions offer powerful insights that help us understand chakras in a grounded, practical way.

If you’ve ever visited an acupuncturist’s office, you might have seen a drawing of the human body covered in lines and tiny dots. Those lines are called meridians—channels through which your life energy, or qi, flows. The dots represent over 2,000 energy points used in traditional Chinese medicine to restore balance and support healing. If a center has too much energy, the doctor might use acupuncture or acupressure to release it. If there is not enough energy in a center, they’ll stimulate that point to bring more energy in.

Chakras work in a similar way—but instead of thousands of small points, chakras are the major energy hubs in the human energy body system They’re located both within and around the body, and each one is connected to specific emotional, mental, and spiritual qualities.

From a spiritual perspective, the main energy channel in the human body is called the sushumna. It runs along the spine, from the base of the spine to the top of the head. The chakras are located along this central channel.

Each chakra stores information related to your thoughts, emotions, memories, and behavioral patterns. When your chakras are open, balanced, and activated, you tend to feel aligned—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. But when one or more chakras are blocked, overactive, or depleted, you may experience symptoms like anxiety, fatigue, emotional instability, or a lack of clarity.

Through practices like chakra meditation and energy healing, you can connect with your chakras and activate the flow of energy in your body—supporting your healing, growth, and spiritual evolution.

🌈 The Main Chakras and What They Represent

🔴 Root Chakra (Muladhara)

📍 Location: Base of the spine
💎 When in balance: Stability, safety, feeling grounded, a sense of belonging
⚠️ When blocked: Anxiety, insecurity, feeling unsafe or disconnected from the body

This chakra is your foundation. It governs your connection to the Earth and your sense of physical safety and security.

🟠 Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana)

📍 Location: 2-3 inches below the navel chakra
💎 When in balance: Creativity, sensuality, emotional fluidity, pleasure
⚠️ When blocked: Creative block, emotional repression, low libido, difficulty embracing pleasure

This center supports your emotional and creative expression, as well as your ability to experience joy and connection through the senses.

🟠 Navel Chakra

📍 Location: 1.5-2 inches below the belly button
💎 When in balance: Willpower, personal power, ambition, drive, determination
⚠️ When blocked: Low motivation, lack of purpose, weakness, avoidance of challenges

This chakra fuels your ability to act in the world, set goals, and move forward with strength to achieve them.

🟡 Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)

📍 Location: Above the navel, below the heart (approximately where your gastric mouth is)
💎 When in balance: Emotional intelligence, empathy, clear emotional boundaries
⚠️ When blocked: Over-empathy, emotional confusion, lack of personal boundaries

The solar plexus helps you understand your emotions and those of others—without getting overwhelmed by them.

💚 Heart Chakra (Anahata)

📍 Location: Center of the chest
💎 When in balance: Unconditional Love, compassion, joy, unity, a sense of deep spiritual balance
⚠️ When blocked: Grief, depression, emotional dependency, isolation, difficulty expressing feelings

As the bridge between the lower (physical) and upper (spiritual) chakras, the heart governs how you give and receive love.

🔵 Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)

📍 Location: Bottom of the throat
💎 When in balance: Clear communication, self-expression, creative voice
⚠️ When blocked: Fear of speaking, withheld emotions, creative repression

This chakra gives voice to your truth—through speech, music, movement, and fluid self expression.

🔷 Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)

📍 Location: Between the eyebrows and slightly above
💎 When in balance: Intuition, vision, imagination, wisdom, discernment, clarity
⚠️ When blocked: Lack of clarity, closed-mindedness, repeating life mistakes, poor foresight

Your third eye allows you to see beyond the surface—into the patterns of your life and deeper truths of existence. The third's eye's ability differs for each person. "Seeing" may happen in a visual way, or hearing, just feeling with your body or through intuition, or a sense of knowing.

⚪ Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)

📍 Location: Top of the head / Crown
💎 When in balance: Spiritual connection, higher consciousness, unity with the divine
⚠️ When blocked: Disconnected from spirit, rigid thinking, belief in only the material world

The crown chakra connects you to the greater whole—the universal energy beyond the self.