Has anyone felt heat between the palms during Janus Mudra?

LM LarkMorning Member · since Feb

LarkMorningApr 20 · 07:48#1

This is probably the most beginner question on the whole board, so apologies in advance. I've been sitting with the Janus Mudra for about two weeks now — upper hand palm down, lower hand palm up, both at the solar plexus, holding that little invisible gap between them like the orientation notes describe.

Most days, nothing. But three times now, maybe four minutes into the sit, I've felt a definite warmth arrive in the space between my palms. Not my hands warming each other from proximity — it feels like it's coming from the gap itself, centred, a little below where I'd expect. It fades if I chase it.

Is this a thing people feel? Or am I just noticing my own body heat and dressing it up because I want something to happen? Genuinely fine with either answer.

practice reference · future diagram/photo
upper palm down, lower palm up, held at the solar plexus. placeholder until we generate the clean reference.

HF HaleField Member · since Jan

HaleFieldApr 20 · 09:15#2

Yes, and it's one of the first things almost everyone reports here, so you're in very ordinary company. For me it reads as warmth with a faint pressure underneath it, like holding your palms near a mug you can't see. The "fades if I chase it" part is the most common detail of all — you'll see it in half the threads in First Signals.

QR QuietRiver Member · since Mar

QuietRiverApr 21 · 20:02#3

I'll be the gentle sceptic for a second, because I think it helps rather than spoils it. Two palms held close together will trap radiant heat between them. That's just physics. So some of the warmth is almost certainly ordinary. What I'd say is: that doesn't make the sensation less worth logging. Note it, note the ambient room temp, note the minute it arrives. Patterns are more interesting than the first hit.

LM LarkMorning Member · since Feb

LarkMorningApr 21 · 21:30#4

That's actually really useful, QuietRiver, thank you. I think part of me wanted it to be mysterious immediately. Logging the room temperature feels almost too mundane to bother with, which is probably the point.

LU LucentMoth Member · since Feb

LucentMothApr 24 · 06:41#5

One thing that helped me tell the two apart: try widening the gap. If it's just trapped body heat, moving your palms apart by even ten centimetres should make it fade fairly evenly. When I get the other thing — the centred warmth Lark's describing — it doesn't fall off the same way. It sort of hangs where it is for a second before it goes. I'm not claiming that means anything. It's just a different texture.

JG JuniperGlass Member · since Sep

JuniperGlassApr 26 · 13:58#6

Coming from years of Tai Chi and standing qigong, this warmth is very familiar to me — we'd have called it the felt-heat of holding an energetic sphere between the hands. I'm not saying it's the same mechanism the Meridian people describe, and I try to keep those languages separate on here. But bodily, the sensation of "something held between the palms" is not new or exotic. Beginners tend to be reassured when they hear that.

BS BramSignal Member · since Jun

BramSignalApr 28 · 18:20#7

LucentMoth wrotetry widening the gap. If it's just trapped body heat, moving your palms apart should make it fade fairly evenly.

This is a genuinely good little test and I'd never thought of it. Adding it to my notes template. Cheers.

19 earlier replies collapsed by moderator summary. Selected posts shown from Apr 20–Jul 01. Between here and the moderator note below, discussion covered ambient temperature logging, whether to sit with hands bare or lightly cupped, and one longer tangent on posture that was moved to Janus Mudra Practice.

AL AdaLowLight Member · since Dec

AdaLowLightJun 30 · 22:14#29

tbh Late to this but wanted to add for any newcomer reading: it took me nearly a month of sitting before I felt anything at all, and I nearly gave up thinking I was doing it wrong. Then it just quietly turned up one evening. Don't measure yourself against the people who felt heat on day one. The gap is patient.

TA Tom Arden Practice mod

Moderator · practice alignment

Tom Arden18 min ago#31

Good thread — measured, curious, no overreaching. Let me pull the alignment together for anyone arriving new, because most reports of "no warmth at all" come down to the hands not being set the way the mudra actually asks.

The Janus Mudra sits at the solar plexus, not the heart and not the belly. Upper hand palm down, standing in for the Primary Plane above. Lower hand palm up, standing in for the Counterplane below. The palms face each other with a gap of maybe fifteen to twenty centimetres — you are holding a field, not clasping. Shoulders soft, elbows away from the ribs so nothing is clamped. It's a Tai Chi posture, not a prayer.

The warmth Lark describes lives in that held gap. Set the hands too high and you feel your own chest heat; too low and it diffuses. When people say "nothing happens," nine times out of ten it's the elbows locked in and the gap too small.

And to keep the board honest: warmth is warmth. It is a sensation worth logging, nothing more. We describe it, we do not name it as contact with the Counterplane. Begin with grounding — feet, breath, a glass of water — and end there too. If a sit ever leaves you unsettled rather than settled, stop, and the Quiet Room is right there.

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Forum testimony is movement-side and is not Meridian-validated evidence. Members describe personal experience only. Begin with grounding. Do not practise while distressed.