There is no one thing that is Qi. Remember that the character for Qi can be translated as breath, air, vapor, steam or a host of other words. What you can see or rather cannot see in this definition is that each of these words describes something invisible. Something that is felt but not seen is my own personal definition of Qi. We can feel an unusual sensation moving across our skin, within our muscles and tissues. When we have no scientific description for the cause of these sensations, we are perplexed. The ancient Chinese, rather than being perplexed simply called such feelings Qi.

Feeling Qi energy in our body is a subjective thing for each of us. Our mind becomes aware of sensations as they arise inside and outside of our bodies. These sensations are then translated or interpreted into concepts to which we may or may not be able to relate.

Some sensations like warmth or cold or pain are easily identified, while less familiar sensations or a combination of sensations may feel puzzling to us. We are puzzled about a sensation when we do not have a definition for it in our personal memory banks, and often mistakenly believe it is some strange or even magical energy. It would be good to remember that just because we feel something that we do not understand does not indicate that it is not a normal phenomenon of nature, or that it is the result of some force outside the known natural forces we can feel or sense. Sensations arise from a variety of sources.

1. External sensation: Things acting on the body ranging from pressure sensations, as in touching objects or them touching us, to feeling heat, cold, wind, sound.

2. Internal sensations: Sensations from muscle contractions, blood pumping, digestion and nerve transmission

3. Combination of inner and outer sources: Combined results are a synthesis of external and internal sources interacting. Some examples of this are sound that comes from outside but is pleasing and so relaxes the mind, or heat that causes the body to sweat and blood vessels to dilate. Another example could be external pressure that produces pain or pleasure in the internal neurological system.

4. The mind: Our bodies are very susceptible to what our mind thinks or interprets. In hypnosis, for example, a person can be made to produce a blister on his or her arm merely by being touched with a piece of ice, which the hypnotist suggests is a lit cigarette. This blister can then disappear in a few moments with the suggestions that the body has healed the injury.

We are also becoming more aware of psychosomatic illness and psychosomatic cures for many illnesses that may or may not be psychosomatic in origin. It is easy to know and say; yes, the mind can heal, cure, and kill. Nevertheless, it is a very di!erent thing to explore our own minds and psyche to find out how to manipulate this power as needed. In my opinion after years of research, direct transmission by two masters, one Chinese and the other Tibetan, that all of Qigong begins in the mind that has been trained to understand how to manipulate the body.

I have come to understand that Qi follows the ancient maxim, which says, “The mind (Yi) commands, the body moves, and the Qi follows.” Mindless repetition of forms and exercises will not produce internal power. By using conscious thought and awareness of subtle feelings we can activate the imagination’s power, which is part of our emotion system also know in Chinese as the heart fire or Xin.

Without proper training in the use of Yi, or intention, and Xin, or attitude supported by correct biomechanical structure, one can waste years with meaningless forms and exercises and achieve only minor results, if any at all. Understanding how the mind functions in these waters is no easy task. We must learn to undertake a new way of feeling and sensing on a more subtle level and learn to “allow” things to occur instead of forcing them by will.

Be very clear that will power is not the same as Yi, or intent. Will power can be that process by which we discipline ourselves to sit or stand every single day, but if it is used to force the mind into concentration or some focused exercise in which we strain to create a specific e!ect we are on the wrong track entirely.

Ancient Daoist master Wei, Boyang author of the “Can Tong Qi,” often translated as the “Secret of Everlasting Life” and a Daoist manual for developing internal power written around AD 142, sums up the practice of Qigong in his first chapter with the following statement.

“In the end whatever you call it, it is no more than the mind (Xin) and the breath (Qi) becoming as one. It is simply the Yin and the Yang influenced internally with their spirit energy entwined.”

His book is one of internal alchemical transformation brought about through meditation. There is no mention of special physical forms or gymnastic movements that often pass for Qigong in modern times. Master Wei tells us internal energy develops in the mind, is transmitted to the body where it manifests itself as health and vitality.

Master Wei Boyang and other Daoist sages tell us that when we learn to take control of the fire mind that is our emotions and desires (Xin) with our intellect through specific intentions (Yi), sometimes called the water mind enhanced through the power of meditation; we will experience the growth of an indomitable spirit (Shen). This is why the Li clan placed so much emphasis on their concept of the four virtues (Si-de), for it was believed that by living these principles of Honesty, Humility, Patience and Sincerity one could achieve emotional balance and thereby increase and preserve the body’s natural Qi energy.

According to Chinese belief, Qi fills the body at every level and is said to be coursing through the body along intangible lines of energy known as meridians. Human Qi at first is a basic energy referred to as Normal Qi (Zheng Qi). It is also sometimes called True Qi (Zhen Qi). Therefore, normal Qi is internal energy before it becomes associated with specific internal functions. The supply of Zheng Qi in our system and the types it becomes are provided by the following three methods:

1. Original Qi (Yuan Qi): This it the energy that is transmitted by parents to their children at conception (heredity). This Qi is partly responsible for our inherited constitution. It is said to be stored in the Kidneys. It is sometimes called Prenatal Qi. This Qi is finite and dissipates with age and excessive stress factors.

2. Natural Air Qi (Kong Qi): Kong-Qi is energy extracted by our Lungs from the air we breathe and circulated throughout the body. In reality, it is thought of as oxygen, a major component of all metabolism. Daoists developed special breathing techniques to enhance the Kong-Qi for longevity and freedom from disease. Most all Qigong exercises come under this category.

3. Grain Qi (Gu Qi): Gu-Qi is energy derived from the digestion of solid and liquid nutrients. It is sometimes called food Qi. This Qi is imparted to our system by the energy contained in the foods we consume. This is why Daoists like to eat natural foods free of chemicals and as fresh from the earth as possible.

These three manifestations of Qi combine to produce the ZhengQi that permeates the entire body. Thoughts, emotions, food, breath and exercise, the weather seasons and even times of the day are believed to influence the way Zheng Qi functions and is stored in the human body. If one of these becomes deficient, illness will soon result. Chinese medical texts have identified over thirty-two categories for types of Qi to be found in the body all of them are a result of some combination of actions or biochemical processes. So which one is the real Qi? That is just my point if Qi is not a THING we are free to use this term for anything that produces an e!ect we can feel or sense but not see.

I do not think this in any way destroys the idea of Qi to be used as a method for health or power. In my view, it liberates the word to a completely new realm of possibilities.

More to come…. John P. Painter Ph.D.ND

Qi is a fascinating and controversial concept. How does it work? How can it be developed? Is it dangerous? Is it real? Millions in China daily practice exercises to improve their Qi. Acupuncturist inserts slim needles into their patients to adjust the flow of Qi in order to heal. A growing number of Physicians in every country of the world today use Acupuncture as curative and preventative medicine as well as to produce anesthesia on the operating table.

Monks and spiritual seekers meditate to increase, preserve, tonify, or sedate their inner Qi and to harmonize it with the Qi of the universe. Martial Artists perform mind and body exercises to increase their internal Qi in hopes of enhancing physical prowess for combat. As the word comes into common use in Western culture, it is slowly being perverted from its simple meanings to something complicated and esoteric.

Qi a Universal Concept

Part of the problem in understanding what Qi is stems from the fact that the subject has been shrouded in mystery and superstition. Chinese traditional medicine, shamanism, and martial arts myths make it di#cult to separate fact from fiction. To the Chinese this is not much of a problem as they do not make a distinction or try to explain it as any specific thing they just call it Qi, the unseen energy.
Daoist believe that the universe contains Qi ancient texts state that Qi arose with the creation of the universe. To the Chinese Qi is the very stuff of life itself filling the entire universe, permeating rocks, trees, water, clouds, animals, and man. Filmmaker Gorge Lucas used this idea as “the force” in his popular Star Wars movies.

Qi primordial energy of the Universe

Chinese legends tell of the beginnings of the universe. As the story goes at first, there was only void and darkness this void was called Wuji that gave birth to Yin (negative energy) and Yang (positive energy) to form the Taiji Du (Great Principle of Creation). Qi is said to have emerged from the interaction of the Taiji Du.

In our Daoist story of creation, this Taiji Du symbol represents the merging of the Yang with the Yin. The marriage of positive (yang) and negative (yin) energies is reminiscent of our “Big Bang” theory where matter and anti-matter collide in the first milliseconds of creation forming a vibratory force containing the dual qualities of activity and inactivity, motion and stillness, life and death, creation and dissolution. The blending of these two forces in the first moments of creation is said to have produced the primordial life force known as Qi. The primordial energy is believed to create, bind, and permeate all material substance through changing its vibratory state.

These states of vibration are similar to those described in quantum physics. Primordial Qi to the Chinese is like the atom, the building blocks that composed the universe. In the Daoist idea, the Wuxing (five qualities / element) theory explains how Primordial Qi changes vibration to become all known and unknown substances. Thus, nature under this definition of vibratory energy can be said to have Qi and so does mankind. I have written more about this concept in my other book. “The Basic Premise, A Neo-Daoist Story of Existence” in which I contrast the big bang theory with the creation stories of western Christianity and Daoism. Yet again, we seem to talk of Qi as if it were a THING. My ideas and my research indicate that it is not a THING!

We see that Qi appears to have many definitions. Perhaps that is because it is a concept a feeling and idea or a way of expressing the e!ects of an unseen force. This force can be many things and still be called Qi. It could be the unified field that holds all matter in place at an atomic and subatomic level that is certainly an unseen energy. It could be bioelectricity and be called Qi when it is felt making the body tingle. It could be blood flowing throughout the arteries and veins that create sensations when we relax, and the vessels dilate producing a feeling of relaxation and ease. It could be breath going in and out to warm the body and be called Qi. The feeling of Qi in this case would be due to the feeling of warmth respiration creates inwardly. This idea is further borne out by looking at the way the Chinese describe Qi in the body. As you will see almost never is the word used alone as if Qi were a THING.