The Concept of Qi
Qi – Vital Energy
The word Ch’i, or simpler Chi (in Wade-Giles Anglicization), spelled also Qi (in Hanyu Pinyin Romanization), or Ki (in Romanized Japanese) is pronounced in Mandarin Chinese something like “chee” in English, but the tongue position is different.
Central to the Chinese analysis of energy and its behavior is the concept of Qi. The Chinese character for Qi has several meanings. It can mean air, breath, vapors, but it is most commonly used to represent the concept of Life Energy or Vital Essence.
The Chinese have studied the energy of the human body for thousands of years. This study is one of the earliest activities recorded in human civilization and dates back to the reign of Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor – 2690-2590BC).
In the human body, Qi is the fundamental energy that sustains life and is present in the vibrating biological process of every single one of the millions of cells. It drives all the activities throughout the organism.
This energy is not uniquely human. Every being shares in and is a natural manifestation of the vast Qi of the fundamental energy of the Universe. Just as modern science demonstrated the unity and constant inter-relationship of all matter and energy in the elemental structures and processes of our planet and known Cosmos, so too has the Chinese understanding of Qi been on minute observation of a corresponding delicate and interdependent web of energy patterns flowing through and forming the basis of all that exist.
The study of Qi continues to expand and develop to this very day. The result forms a sophisticated and meticulous body of knowledge bringing together three disciplines usually treated as completely separate in the Western medicine, philosophy, and martial arts.
Etymology
The earliest way of writing Qi consisted of three wavy lines, used to represent one’s breath seen on a cold day. You can see this simple form of writing in the Oracle bone character illustrated here.
In the Seal script form (style widely used for decorative engraving and seals) of writing Qi, the bottom line became longer than the upper two and expanded downwards, as you can see on the left.
A later version, (identical to the present day’s simplified character) is a stylized version of those same three lines. For some reason, early writers of Chinese combined the three-line Qi character with the character for the grain we call rice. This traditional character is still used today. in the modern “school standard” or Kai shu writing system. The etymological explanation for the form of the Qi caracter in the traditional form is “steam rising from rice as it cooks”and it has the general meaning of nourishment.
The Japanese kanji version of Ki is identical with the standard Chinese form of Qi. The simplified Japanese version dating immediately after the World War II is shown on the left.
Qi in Early Chinese Philosophy
The philosopher Mo Di (also known as Mo Zi or “Master Mo”) used the word Qi to refer to a few different concepts. He reported that early civilized humans learned how to live in houses to protect their Qi from the moisture that had troubled them when they lived in caves. He also associated maintaining one’s Qi with providing oneself adequate nutrition. And also he recorded how some people performed divination observing the Qi (clouds) in the sky.
One of the earliest existant book that speaks of qi is the Analects of Confucius composed from the notes of some of his students and written some time after his death in 479 B.C. Unlike the legendary accounts mentioned above, the Analects can be precisely located in time. ” In this book Qi can mean “breath”, and it can be combined with the Chinese word for blood, making Xue-Qi the energy caried by the blood.
Meng Ke (also known as Meng Zi, Master Meng, or Mencius) described a kind of Qi that might be characterized as an individual’s vital energies. This Qi was necessary to activity, and it could be controlled by a well-integrated will power. But this qi could not adequately be characterized by English words like lifebreath because when properly nurtured it was capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe. This qi can be augmented by means of careful exercise of one’s moral capacities. On the other hand, the Qi of an individual can be degraded by averse external forces that succeed in operating on that individual.
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Zhuang Zi was a contemporary of Mencius. He gave us one of the most productive insights into the nature of Qi.
Human beings are born [because] of]the accumulation of Qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death… There is one Qi that connects and pervades everything in the world.
Xun Zi followed them after years. He affirms that Qi is not specific to humans, but to everything in the Universe: This passage gives us some insight into his idea of Qi.
Fire and water have Qi but do not have life.
Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity.
Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have yi (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice).
Men have Qi, life, perceptivity, and yi.
The development of the concept of Qi has never stopped since and continues to our days.
Qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine
One of the great contributions of the early Chinese culture was the discovery that it is possible to trace and analyze very precisely the patterns of energy within the human body. This knowledge could then be used as a basis for both preventive health care and the treatment of disease.
China’s most famous physicians and philosophers have contributed extensively to the analysis and practical application of the body’s energy system. From this study have come the distinctive characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and herbal medicine, and a set of exercise systems that strengthen the body internally.
Throughout the body the energy circulates along channels, which in the West are called meridians. These often run in parallel with the cardiovascular system. Throughout a fine network of radiating routes, the Qi animates the entire living matter of the body. The description of these meridians is beyond the scope of this article.
Symptoms of various illnesses are believed to be the product of disrupted, blocked, or imbalanced Qi movements through the body’s meridians, as well as deficiencies or imbalances of Qi in the associated organs. Traditional Chinese medicine often seeks to relieve these imbalances by adjusting the circulation of Qi in the body using a variety of therapeutic techniques. Some of these techniques include physical training like Qi Gong, healing with foods and herbs, massagetechniques like Tui Na, acupuncture, and moxibustion to clear blockages.
Qi in Feng Shui
The traditional Chinese art of placement and arrangement of space called Feng Shui is based on the flow of Qi. This flow of energy is conditioned by the interactions between the five elements, the balance of yin/yang energies and other factors.
The retention or dissipation of Qi in a specific environment is believed to affect the health, wealth, energy level, luck and many other aspects of the occupants of the space. Color, shape, and the physical location of each item in a space affects the flow of Qi by slowing it down, redirecting it or accelerating it, which directly affects the energy level of the occupants.
Qi in Martial Arts
When Venerable Bodhidharma came to China from India in 527 BC, he started to teach, besides Budhism, Qi Gong in order to keep the monks at the Shaolin Monastery fit and healthy. Later, from there evolved the most known martial art, the Shaolin Gong Fu (Kung Fu).
From that time, all martial arts developed in China, and later in Korea and Japan, incorporate in a different purcentage Qi Gong techniques. The degree to which they use the concept of Qi (Ki) and energy training divides the martial arts in Internal martial arts and External martial arts.
Most systems which incorporate the idea of Qi believe that a practitioner may harness the energy stored in a special point in the lower stomach referred to as tan t’ien in Chinese, tan den in Japanese, tan jon in Korean and dan tian in Thai, and utilize this energy in their martial technique. This training program include breathing and meditation and it has as purpose the strenghtening and the harmonizing of the vital energy. After achieving the ability to “circulate” the Qi, practitioners find their sense of touch is enhanced, along with dramatically improved power, balance, and coordination. These skills in return enhance their martial arts performance.
After the World War II, the concept of Qi and its applications in medicine and martial arts were brought in the Western world. In the last decade of the 20th century, the application of Qi in Feng Shui started to spread to the West as well.
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