What Is Qi?

This jade elephant was unearthed from the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC – 1046 BC) archaeological site Yinxu (殷墟) in Henan in northern China.

3000 years ago, the area in today’s Henan Province was a native habitat of elephants.

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
HENAN PROVINCE – 3000 Years Ago? 😮 ELEPHANTS? 😮 But No Elephants in HENAN PROVINCE Today 😩 ELEPHANTS are Only in YUNNAN PROVINCE in SOUTHERN CHINA now.

All Things Chinese:
The climate in ancient northern China was much warm and humid than now, while the vegetation was lush and the land was fertile.

But it changed about 1,000 years ago, mainly for two reasons.

One is invisible that is the movement of Qi. The natural path of the nurturing qi is from north to south then decay then restart from the north again.

Another is visible. When Mongols occupied northern China, they turned farmland into pastoral fields and ruined the irrigation systems.

Many, if not most, Chinese fled to the south. Many, if not most, birds and animals might do the same.

Soxfan1957:
I’m curious to know more about “qi”. Is this a theory that would explain global warming?

All Things Chinese:
Qi is the building block of the universe and all lives within the universe.

Qi is the info-energy and is holographic, inclusive of everything while within each thing. Nothing is bigger than qi yet nothing is smaller than qi.

Qi was and is and will keep being born by splitting into yin qi and yang qi from nothingness following each thought generated by our consciousness.

Each of us has created a world where we live in respectively like sitting in an egg-shaped room clad with mirrors around. What we see are nothing but reflections of ourselves. Our environment is our externalised inner state.

Global warming is a reflection of our collective inner state, as a result of the dynamic balance of yin qi and yang qi being seriously tipped by our thoughts, emotions and subsequent actions.

No one created us and no one controls us but our own mind – a tiny unruly portion of our consciousness – through the interplay of yin qi and yang qi.

The world is not a school unless we turn it into a school and life has no meaning until we give it meaning.

Qi in Human Body

This is a rock carving of Laughing Buddha and his fellow cultivators created by Song Dynasty artists in Hangzhou.

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS:

Mile HsiangYang Lee: 
Among CHINESE PEOPLE in WEST COAST USA, There is A CRAZY BELIEF that if you RUB YOUR HAND on HIS TUMMY, you might run into GOOD LUCK, particularly with MONEY 😂 It’s just SUPERSTITION but that is NOT STOPPING CHINESE + WHITE PEOPLE in OREGON, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON STATE, purchasing the statue + rubbing his belly every now + then 😇

Eric Horrobin:
😆 ha ha it is bringing in money for the guy who sells them. Irony; to get the money you rub belly but so you can rub the belly you spend money to get the statue. Hmmmmm….. “Let me think about this” ha ha ha ha

All Things Chinese:
You may just rub your own tummy … for free.

Actually, tummy rubbing is a good qigong exercise, because the tummy region is where the qi in the body is initially stored. By rubbing the qi storage, you remind the qi to get move on and do its job.

Eric Horrobin:
Then I shall rub my body cos I need some energy. 👍

All Things Chinese:
And plus not to use your mind unless absolutely necessary but utilise your full consciousness (at this stage your whole body) to feel and sense your external and internal worlds – this is the way to put yourself in a power-saving mode;

And plus do sitting meditation; during that time you should absolutely not use your mind but utilize your full consciousness (at this stage your whole body) to observe your external and internal worlds – this is the way to get yourself recharged.

If you can try this for a month, you shall feel more energized; and if you can successfully try this for a month, there is a good chance you may like to keep doing it for the rest of your life.

But be careful, do not try to visualize anything. And if you see any images, just ignore them, otherwise, you will be connected to them and get stuck or even get trapped.

Saxfan1957:
This logic is also similar to that of our fearless leader (whose name shall not be mentioned). He has stated we all have internal batteries and when we use up all the energy we die. At least this has been his excuse against exercising.

All Things Chinese:
Yes, we also have internal batteries that we built in previous lives but the batteries are all rechargeable.

Qi in Non-human Bodies

This is a panda in a Chinese nursery trying to think, look and act like a philosopher. 😝

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS:

Eric Horrobin:
I think therefore I am. Or is it, I am therefore I think.

All Things Chinese:
You are what you think, but you are more, and much much more, than what you think.

Because when you think you only use your brain and thought is the product of your mind, which is a tiny portion of your whole consciousness. Thus you are just semi-conscious at best when you think.

So most, if not all, philosophers are wasting their time and energy to fool themselves since you can not comprehend the true reality and real self when you remain in a dream state.

Therefore my advice would be: keep away from philosophy – it just complicates simple matters unnecessarily.

The way to wake up is to stop deliberation whenever possible but feel and sense the worlds.

It’s like stopping using a physical laptop but directly going to the intangible cloud source.

Qi in Non-Organic Objects

Shanghai in September 2018 hosted the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Technologies (AIAAT 2018).

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS:

Aquil A Rahman:
Well, we must realize: only the blue and white figures are human.
The other forms are robots. Simply amazing!!!
Just gotta get used to people being phased out.

All Things Chinese:
A sophisticatedly crafted robot can host quite an advanced spirit, a well-structured stained portion of consciousness.

Aquil A Rahman:
If robots ever learn to cultivate chi and activate vessels and dantien, we become bonafide obsolete 🤗🤗🤗🤗

All Things Chinese:
Robots can’t cultivate qi, not even human bodies can do so – which is why the body of a person in a vegetative state is lifeless despite it being physically undamaged.

It is the entwined part of consciousness (spirit) residing inside the physical shelter that gives life to the unit.

The more intensively a consciousness focuses on a portion (due to his emotional attachment to particular subjects), the smaller the scope of his view, hence the less he can control his world.

No one can make us become bonafide obsolete, least robotic shelters, but our own state of mind.

Qi in the Environment

The image in the photo is the world’s biggest stone dragon measuring 2.5m high and 369m long, unearthed in Hebei Province

The dragon was discovered accidentally in 1988 when the workers at a village brick factory collected mud nearby to make bricks.

Also unearthed were 9 smaller stone dragons, displayed on both sides of the big one, coincident with the ancient Chinese mythology that claims a dragon would have nine kids (龙生九子).

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS:

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
This must be CHINESE KIDS ancient PLAYGROUND 😮 for FROLICKING + PLAYTIME 😉

All Things Chinese:
I would be more inclined to suggest it could be a feng shui matrix.

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
FENG SHUI MATRIX? 😮

All Things Chinese:
Feng shui matrix is a way to reconfigure the energy balance in a certain spacetime by rearranging the landform.

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
😮😮😮😮😮 I have never seen one or know one. So, this is it? 😮 Sure, looks like KIDS PLAYGROUND to me 😐

All Things Chinese:
I’m pretty sure even if you see one you won’t be able to recognise it. Ideally, they should look like naturally formed or being built artificially for some more mundane purposes, such as, like what you said a children’s playground.

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
A SHAPESHIFTER? 😮 MALLEABLE?

All Things Chinese:
Using landforms or physical objects to change qi flow directions and speed.

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
Like the WIND FARMS are CHANGING the FLOW of WIND + Hence, worsen the CLIMATE CHANGE instead of HELPING IT? 😮

All Things Chinese:
Exactly.

Qi and Thunderstorm

In Chinese folklore, violent thunderstorms are often triggered by some well-cultivated animals.

The scenario goes like this: our universe is a hierarchical place with strict laws and regulations for everyone to observe. For some obvious reason, it is very easy for a being to fall from the ranks but extremely difficult to rise up.

Worse still, the beings below the human rank do not even have a license to cultivate for possible rank promotion. They have to get a chance to be reincarnated as humans first, which isn’t easy either.

Some smart folks (like those among foxes, weasels and snakes) don’t like this arrangement at all and do qigong cultivation regardless, hoping to manipulate their qi (chi) into human form.

Yet at the crucial point where a well-cultivated animal qigong master is about to sneak into human rank through qi manipulation, cosmic law enforcement body acts. It shouts out thunderous warnings and hits the master with lightsabers.

There are countless Chinese claims in the past and at the present, normally from rural areas, saying they witnessed the badly burned remain of a giant snake, a white fox, or a yellow weasel following a violent thunderstorm.

There is no scientific research to verify the link between a burned animal body and its qigong cultivation activities. But there is one established practice: when someone (a human of course) begins to learn qigong, his/her master would always warn him/her not to practice during thunderstorm weather conditions.

Qi and Food

Dead animals and plants are coarse food sources for humans containing various toxic substances.

When your qi cultivation progresses, you will be able to absorb qi directly from plants, water, air, the sun, the moon and the stars through your skin, your nose and your eyes then send them straightway to circulate within and around your body without being processed by the stomach.

So, yes, when you live high in isolation on the top of the mountains you have better access to pure energy sources than when living in crowded urban areas.

However, even for the highly advanced Buddhist and Daoist cultivators, they cannot live there for entire their life, as transforming a raw physical body to a subtle qi entity is not their ultimate goal, since qi, albeit intangible, is still an elusive existence.

The enlightenment of our true and whole self can only happen on the mental-spiritual-consciousness level.

The way to achieve this is very simple yet extremely difficult — It requires you to expend your perception of self. The more is included in the sphere of “yourself”, the more you are enlightened; when you identify the entire universe as “yourself”, you will be able to cross the line from 2 (yin-yang) to 1 (Taichi), then from 1 (Taichi) to 0 (Wuji), then you will be able to view your entire world from outside.

After you jump out of the elusive existence, you can be a conscious creator of your world, as opposed to now when we are a passive creator-driven by habit – we can only use this error-ridden program that we accidentally coded but cannot fix its problems since we are denied the access to the root level as admin.

Who denies our access to the root and condemns us to the slavedom of our own creation? Ourselves. We are focused on and obsessed with the tiny portion of the universe that to you is an elusive object called “Aquil” in this lifetime, or to be known as “Awen” at this moment.

You may be so concerned about how “Aquil” is viewed and treated by your world beyond “Aquil’, and I may be worried sick about how “Awen” can be free from the constraints of life that surround “Awen. All these become conditions of self-limiting.

Only when you forget about “Aqui” and I ignore “Awen”, we then will be able to reclaim the ownership of our whole universe.

And to accomplish this, one will have to live among the crowd in the world at some stage. No other way around.

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS

Aquil A Rahman:
It’s always difficult to describe the difference between Tai Chi and Qi Gong.
The more you try to explain, there is no difference, is there?
One seems to be a dimension of something that’s not really separable…
Small Circulation …..Grand Circulation. ….the wisdom of energy.

All Things Chinese:
Without the management of qi, it is not authentic Chinese kung fu, which is why some Chinese kung fu men would question if Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun can be considered Chinese kung fu. They say it’s more like Karate or Jeet Kune Do, mainly focusing on physical skills than qi cultivation and manipulation.

Aquil A Rahman:
Of course, I might have worded it a little different …..but I’ve never considered Bruce Lee to be a pure martial artist.

Of course, he was good at what he did, but so many Americans think he’s some kind of god, but he was made by the media.

I’ve never heard mention of the internal aspect.

All Things Chinese:
Actually, when Bruce Lee did Wing Chun, there was qigong involved, which is why he could deliver his strikes as swiftly as lightning while his disciples are never able to do so.

Aquil A Rahman:
I would imagine that his master taught it, but it has been my understanding that those deeply immersed in Qi Gong are very reluctant to show off or reveal much of their craft to the uninitiated.

I’ve not taken any kind of survey, but I get the impression that many Westerners think Qi Gong is some sort of magic and useless.

In fact, there was this guy from Taiwan that did a demonstration at the National Institute of Health in front of some highly trained medical people.

The response from some? They would have to observe it in a more isolated situation.

He could set a paper on fire with his hand and break rock without touching it and could detect small imbalances in the body.

I was fortunate to somehow contact him and learn the exercises before he left the country.

Ironically, there were about 14 people .3 Americans and one seemed to be there for the purpose of debate and speculation.

Something typical of western thought.

While people are so fascinated by the skills of Bruce Lee, they hardly have the attention spans or curiosity to explore the deeper realities.

This is how the western mind tore down so many cultures. He sought to possess only what he could visibly see. But the things ethereal, always ignored or denied.

All Things Chinese:
You’ve touched the deep core of the subject. You see, when a clock pendulum swings too much to the left, what is going to happen next? It will swing too much to the right. This is the action and reaction, and this is karma, the only law in the universe.

The West thinks it has wakened up from the Dark Ages since the Renaissance and has been enlightened by science and logical thinking, but in fact, the mindsets between the two are quite similar – it just goes from one extreme to another and they are mirroring each other.

They used to place blind faith in an external force, now they put blind faith in their own brain and eye, and the products of their brain, the logic (way of thinking), and the extension of their eye, the instruments. They still think they are chosen, still believe they are the spokesmen for truth, still cling on to one portion of the fact and are exclusive of the rest, therefore are still the slaves to blind faith, albeit a different faith.

Hyoon-dae Cheon:
And, just like pastries, pancakes, eggs, and cakes, these are things you can’t unbake…

I went from one egg stream to a not there… hahaha…

“They used to place blind faith in an external force, now they put blind faith in their own brain and eye and the products of their brain, the logic (way of thinking), and the extension of their eye, machines and instruments. They are still slaves to religion, albeit different religion.”

And, by going from a serious force to a forced belief, they’ve made a good force a farce, you see.

Instead of telling them, “May the Force be with you” say “I know the FARCE within, been withering you”…

Aquil A Rahman:
I agree we are still in the dark ages. The dark ages never had anything to do with sunlight, but a profane condition of the mind, that has not gone away but has only become more malignant with time.

Qi Management

There are three ways to temper the qi movement.

The first is external intervention: massage. When you press your finger on an acupoint, the opening in a qi meridian, the effect will be a bit like pumping up a bike tire, especially when the massager is qigong or Chinese medicine practitioner, because he/she will release a certain amount of his/her healthy qi into your system through his/her fingertips.

The second is a semi-internal intervention: acupuncture. When you insert a needle into an acupoint, the needle directly engages in the qi flow. Similar to massage, when acupuncture is executed by a Chinese medicine doctor with qigong training, there will be his/her healthy qi injected into your meridian through the noodle.

The third is internal management: qigong. When you are doing sitting or standing or slow-moving qigong, you use your mind to lead your qi to go through the meridians — to remove the junkies, to open up the blockages and to repair the damaged parts. As internal and external qis are constantly exchanged, when you are practising alongside a well-trained qigong master, his/her qi movement will synchronise yours to a certain extent.

The more advanced a person’s training in qigong, the bigger and more powerful the sphere of his/her qi influence on the environment and other sentient beings including people.

It is more so with our mind. With each thought, the qi is consumed and released to the immediate environment and spread around the universe with a package containing the info that can be developed into a world and all the events taking place in that world when the condition is ripe.

Which means we are communicating all the time without speaking to each other.

However, since the qi is a flow with pattern (inner structure), those that are more transparent (with a more organised and/or simpler inner structure, or better still, with no inner structure at all) can overwrite the flow patterns of the messy or clumsy ones of others, thus their thoughts will be picked up by more consciousness or subconsciousness.