The chakras are a system of energy centres running up the body, drawn from Indian yogic tradition. Much of Western Reiki adopted this map, though it was not part of Mikao Usui’s original method.
A borrowed map
As Reiki spread in the West, it met other energy traditions and often blended with them. Chakras offered a ready framework for thinking about where to place the hands and what each area might relate to, and so became a common — but added — layer on top of the practice.
The word chakra comes from Sanskrit and means “wheel” or “disc” — the centres are pictured as spinning points where life energy gathers and turns. The system is many centuries old and belongs, properly speaking, to yoga and the Indian tradition rather than to Japan. When Reiki reached the West in the twentieth century, teachers and students already steeped in that vocabulary naturally reached for it, and over time the two became entwined in a great deal of Western practice.
The seven centres
The familiar model describes seven centres from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, each linked to a colour and a theme — grounding, feeling, will, love, expression, insight, and connection. Practitioners who use it often rest the hands over each in turn, letting the sequence guide a session from the base of the body upward.
Colours and themes vary a little between teachers; the list above follows the most common Western arrangement.
"A useful lens for some — but a later addition, not part of the original Japanese teaching."
A note on origins
It is worth keeping the history straight: the chakra system comes from Indian tradition, and the traditional Japanese practice worked instead with ki and with sensing through the hands. Using chakras is a valid personal choice, not a requirement of Reiki.
Using it wisely
For practitioners who find the chakra model helpful, it offers a friendly way to think about where to rest the hands and what each area might touch in a person’s life. There is nothing wrong with using it, so long as one remembers it was borrowed rather than handed down by Usui.
Others prefer to set it aside and work as the Japanese tradition did — following the sensation in the hands and a simple sequence of positions, without a map of centres at all. Both approaches are entirely valid. Reiki is generous enough to hold either, and the right choice is simply the one that helps you practise with attention and care.