Benefits in Daily Life

Picture a morning that has already gotten away from you. Your coffee has gone cold while you answer email, help one kid who cannot find a favorite shirt, field the other's questions that cannot wait, and, to top it all off, now your phone is buzzing on the counter. You can feel yourself leaning forward into all of it, off balance, pulled in six directions at once. Nothing is wrong, per se, but you are spread thin across everything that seems to need you right now, "like butter that has been scraped over too much bread," as Bilbo Baggins describes himself in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

When we feel scattered, overwhelmed, or disconnected, there is a simple instruction in our practice: "Keep One Point." It is simple to say, and easy to turn into a mechanical checklist: find the spot below the navel, put your attention there, carry on. If we stop there, we miss almost everything the teaching is offering.

This Shokushu is about something much more radical than a technique for centering. It is a claim about the nature of reality: that the entire Universe, with its limitless radius and limitless circumference, is concentrated in you, and me, and everyone else.

Table of Contents

• Benefits in Daily Life

• Reflection of the Week:

  • Unpacking Ki Sayings

  • The Text

  • Commentary & Analysis

    • Three Levels

    • Containing the Center

    • Whose One Point Is It?

    • Sending Ki to Heaven and Earth

    • Conclusion

Reflection of the Week:

Unpacking Ki Sayings

The Shokushu (誦句集), or Ki Sayings, are the crown jewels of Soshu Koichi Tohei Sensei's teaching influenced by, among other things, his reading of Saikontan (菜根譚) as a young man. We often read one of the Ki Sayings before class, and it's easy to let them wash over us without washing through us. So I want to take time to chew on each of them in depth so we can soak more deeply in their meaning.

There is a challenge here. These Ki Sayings are experiential teachings, written in Japanese many years ago and not updated significantly even as Tohei Sensei's own experience and pedagogy progressed through his life. The English version was translated early on by students whose own level of understanding was still developing, so, even with small revisions over time, the English version can sometimes be misleading and sound like commands or a distant goal.

In this series of articles about each Ki Saying, I will do my best to present the Japanese original, the standard English translation, a more literal translation, and an exploration of the deeper meaning. The real teaching, however, is not about the meaning of words, but about experiencing the Oneness of Bodymind now, now, now, in every moment.

The Text

Original Japanese:
五、臍下の一点

天地は無限の半径で画いた無限の円周である。これを集約したものが我れであり、更に集約したものが臍下の一点である。
我れは、天地の中心の一点を、下腹に包蔵しているのである。
この一点に心をしずめて統一し、天地に向かって無限の氣を発しよう。

Standard English Translation:
5. The One Point in the Lower Abdomen

The Universe is a limitless circle with a limitless radius. This condensed becomes the one point in the lower abdomen which is the center of the Universe.
Let us concentrate our mind in this one point and become one with and send our Ki constantly to the Universe.

A More Literal Translation:
5. The One Point in the Lower Abdomen

Heaven and Earth is a limitless circumference drawn with a limitless radius. This, concentrated, becomes me, and further concentrated, the One Point in the lower abdomen.
I contain within the lower abdomen the One Point that is the center of Heaven and Earth.
Let me settle my mind at this One Point, realizing Oneness, and radiate limitless Ki outward to Heaven and Earth.

Commentary & Analysis

五、臍下の一点
(go, seika no itten)

臍 (sei/heso) means navel. 下 (ka/shita) means below. 一 (ichi) is one. 点 (ten) is a point, dot, or spot. So 臍下の一点 (seika no itten) is literally "the one point below the navel," which we call One Point.

Three Levels

天地は無限の半径で画いた無限の円周である。これを集約したものが我れであり、更に集約したものが臍下の一点である。
(Tenchi wa mugen no hankei de kaita mugen no enshū de aru. Kore wo shūyaku shita mono ga ware de ari, sara ni shūyaku shita mono ga seika no itten de aru.)

天地 (tenchi) is Heaven and Earth, the Universe. 無限 (mugen) means limitless or infinite. 半径 (hankei) is radius. 画いた (kaita) is "drawn." 円周 (enshū) is circumference. So the first sentence says: "Heaven and Earth is a limitless circumference drawn with a limitless radius."

This is not an ordinary circle. One way to think about this is that a circle with a truly infinite radius has its center everywhere, and nowhere in particular. The teaching describes a reality that contains everything without being located anywhere specific.

集約 (shūyaku) means to concentrate, consolidate, or bring into one. これを集約したものが我れであり (kore wo shūyaku shita mono ga ware de ari): "This, concentrated, is me. (我れ, ware)." 我れ is the formal first person: "I," "me." 更に (sara ni) means "further" or "still more." Further concentrated still is the One Point in the lower abdomen.

The standard English translation renders this as a single step: the Universe concentrates into the One Point. But the Japanese has three levels: Universe, Me (我れ ware), One Point. This intermediate step matters, and I want to spend a moment on it.

In the newsletter on Shokushu #3, we noted how translating 我が (waga) as "our lives" lets the reader feel off the hook: "our" is abstract, collective, easy to observe from a safe distance. "My life" emphasizes the personal stake. The same thing applies here. Rendering 我れ as "the self" keeps this at arm's length, something to understand philosophically. "Me" removes that wiggle-room. The Universe concentrates into me. Not into an abstract self in a group of us. Into me writing this now. Into you, reading this now.

This triple concentration describes a continuum. The Universe does not stop being the Universe when it concentrates into me. And I do not stop being the Universe when I concentrate further into the One Point. Each is a focusing of the whole, not a fragment cut off from it. When we experience this as a felt reality rather than a concept, the usual question "how do I connect to the Universe?" begins to lose its meaning. There is nowhere to connect to. It is already complete. It is like light being focused through progressively smaller lenses without fundamentally changing or losing any part of itself.

Containing the Center

我れは、天地の中心の一点を、下腹に包蔵しているのである。
(Ware wa, tenchi no chūshin no itten wo, kafuku ni hōzō shite iru no de aru.)

天地の中心 (tenchi no chūshin) is "the center of Heaven and Earth." の一点 (no itten) is "the one point (that is)." 下腹 (kafuku) is the lower abdomen. 包蔵 (hōzō) means to contain, to harbor, to shelter within.

Let's look at the word 中心 (chūshin), translated as "center". It is composed of two characters: 中 (chū), meaning middle or inside, and 心 (shin/kokoro), meaning heart/mind. So here, the "center" of a thing is literally its "heart." Therefore, when we say the One Point is the center of the Universe, we are saying it is the heart of the Universe. Then, when we settle our heart/mind (kokoro) at the One Point we can see it as bringing our heart/mind to the heart/mind of the Universe.

So the full sentence is: "I contain within my lower abdomen the One Point that is the center of Heaven and Earth." 

We do not reach toward or “keep” the One Point. We contain it. We shelter it. 包蔵 (hōzō) is not a neutral verb: it has the sense of holding something precious within, of enclosing it without imprisoning it. And what we contain is 天地の中心の一点: not just any one point, but the one point that is the center of Heaven and Earth.

If you did exploratory surgery or a CT scan, you could not find it. There is no anatomical structure to point to and say "that is the One Point." This is not because the teaching is wrong, or because it is merely poetic. It is because One Point is not actually a local phenomenon at all. There is only One Point. It is the center of the Universe. And because the Universe is a circle with a limitless radius, we can think of everywhere as the center of it.

That being said, it is easiest to experience this when we allow the heart/mind (心, kokoro) to settle in the lower abdomen.

Whose One Point Is It?

One might ask: is this my One Point, separate from your One Point? The teaching, followed to its conclusion, says no. There is only One Point. It is the center of an infinite Universe whose center is everywhere. When you truly move from One Point, you are not moving from a personal center that happens to live in your abdomen. You are moving from the center of the Universe, which you contain, because there is nowhere the center is not.

In the beginning of practice, the instruction "move from One Point" is often understood biomechanically: move from your physical center, use your hips, your core, and your lower abdomen, stop initiating from the neck, shoulders, or arms. This is a crucial starting point. It grounds us and coordinates the body. It will take you a long way, and for many years it is exactly the right frame.

But it is only a pointer, not the destination itself. The destination is the felt experience that when you truly move from One Point, the entire Universe is moving. The apparent boundary between your movement and the Universe's movement dissolves, because it was never actually there. This is why such movement surprises people. It seems to come from nowhere, or everywhere, rather than from the effortful, calculating, boundaried self.

As we explored in the newsletter on Shokushu #3, there isn't "my Ki" and "your Ki" as separate things. There is only the Ki of the Universe, manifesting as you, as me, as the partner across from us. If there is only One Point, and it is the center of an infinite Universe present everywhere, then you and your partner are not two separate people with separate centers trying to interact. When we do technique, we are not moving someone else's One Point from our One Point. We are moving together, one movement expressing itself through what appears to be two bodies. We are not a subject acting on the partner. The partner is not an object being acted upon; they are also a concentration of the same Universe, at the same One Point. We are all part of the same fabric. There is no contact, no separation (不即不離, fusoku furi).

Sending Ki to Heaven and Earth

この一点に心をしずめて統一し、天地に向かって無限の氣を発しよう。
(Kono itten ni kokoro wo shizumete toitsu shi, tenchi ni mukatte mugen no ki wo hasshiyō.)

この一点に (kono itten ni): at this One Point. 心を (kokoro wo): the mind/heart (object). しずめて (shizumete): settling, quieting, calming; it has the sense of sinking something gently down, the way sediment settles in still water. 統一し (toitsu shi): realizing Oneness, in the conjunctive form that links to what follows. 天地に向かって (tenchi ni mukatte): facing toward, or outward to, Heaven and Earth. 無限の氣を (mugen no ki wo): limitless Ki (object). 発しよう (hasshiyō): let us send out, radiate, emit.

The form 発しよう comes from 発する (hassuru), a formal verb meaning to emit or send forth. The ending ~shiyō (〜しよう) is the volitional form. In standard English translations, this is almost always rendered as "Let us..." (a shared exhortation). But Japanese often drops the subject. It is perhaps more powerful to read this as a personal commitment: "I will settle my mind..." or "Let me settle my mind..." It is an internal resolution, not an abstract group command.

The standard translation says "become one with and send our Ki constantly to the Universe." But there is no "become one with" in the Japanese. And if we take the personal reading, the sentence says: Let me settle my mind at this One Point, realizing Oneness, and radiate limitless Ki outward to Heaven and Earth.

Here the Shokushu reveals its full shape. The first sentences describe the Universe concentrating into me, and then further into the One Point. This final sentence reverses the direction: from the One Point, limitless Ki radiates back outward to Heaven and Earth. The Shokushu describes something like a breath: the Universe breathing itself into this One Point, and the One Point breathing back out into the Universe. Concentration and expansion. 

Conclusion

The exhaustion of living as a small, effortful self is real. The persistent sense that we have to generate enough power, enough clarity, enough composure, from a source that keeps running low. The feeling of being a small thing in a large world, working hard to hold it together.

One Point does not fix this by providing a better technique. It rejects the premise. You were never a small thing separate from the world. The center of the Universe has been here all along, because the center of an infinite circle is everywhere. When you settle into that, not as an idea but as a felt reality, it is the entire Universe that moves.

This is what we practice at a Ki-Aikido dojo. Every technique, every attack and fall, every moment of Ki Breathing and Ki Meditation is an opportunity to let the center be what it actually is, rather than what we imagined it to be. The center of the Universe, always already here, settling and radiating, concentrating and expanding, now, now, now.

Upcoming Events

August 7 - 9, 2026 “EKF Summer Seminar” hosted by South Carolina Ki Aikido

October 19 - 21, 2026 “World Camp” in Chiba, Japan. Contact your Head Instructor for details.

I look forward to seeing you on the mat (and in daily life) soon!