Are you sure about the existance of Chi?

[Guest allan]

Hi everyone!

 

For those Taijiquan, Qigong, and Neigong practitioners who still cannot feel their Qi (Chi) after practising their respective arts for a decade or more, try this simple exercise.

 

Think about your Qi at 9.00 pm, your local time.

 

Regards

 

allan

[Taomeow]

Another idea:

quit being racist, quit being white-supremacy driven, quit being a cultural colonialist. Out of over a billion Chinese, there's not so many who "don't believe in qi." There weren't that many (if any) throughout thousands of years of prior history of this oldest and greatest civilization on the planet, so quit thinking of yourself as smarter than all of them, as superior to all of them. Quit thinking of yourself as better educated, equipped with better judgment, or a better human being than all those "gullible suckers" who "believe in qi." You aren't and they aren't.

 

I only know of one noteworthy Chinese who didn't believe in qi: Mao Zedong. I read his biography written by his personal physician, someone who knew him more intimately than perhaps anyone else in the world. Being insensitive to qi comes complete with a whole host of interesting personality traits. Cruelty, lack of connection with own body (Mao's was a mess, although he thought of himself as a great athlete), lack of interest in other human beings aside from their "usability" for own purposes, stuff like that. No qi, no humanity. Whole cultures are like that, are based on that, so you can't really blame an individual product of such a culture for having had his or her sensitivities psychosomatically amputated -- often as early as in infancy.

 

Taoist cultivation is all about remedying this affliction. All it really does is gives one back his or her lost connection with oneself and fellow humans, animals, natural phenomena, the cosmos, reality itself. That's what qi really is. Not an "energy" but an ability to form meaningful connections with oneself and others. When one's cultivation is successful, that's what happens. Not a buzzing here and there, not a set of "special sensations" or "special abilities" but only one very special ability: to be real.

[seadog]

Damn fine post Taomeow.

 

All of us have sheilds of one kind or another.

"Prove it to me" is one of the most finely crafted and utalitarian of the lot.

[Uncle Fester]

quit being racist, quit being white-supremacy driven, quit being a cultural colonialist. Out of over a billion Chinese, there's not so many who "don't believe in qi." There weren't that many (if any) throughout thousands of years of prior history of this oldest and greatest civilization on the planet, so quit thinking of yourself as smarter than all of them, as superior to all of them. Quit thinking of yourself as better educated, equipped with better judgment, or a better human being than all those "gullible suckers" who "believe in qi." You aren't and they aren't.

 

Bravo!

[Buddy]

"Out of over a billion Chinese, there's not so many who "don't believe in qi."

 

Could you site your source for this? I'm betting not.

 

"quit being racist, quit being white-supremacy driven, quit being a cultural colonialist"

 

You clearly don't know the definition of racism, nor was it ever brought up here. There was no mention of anyone being Chinese nor white. No mention of culture was ever made. It's this sort of bullshit strawman hyperbole that is rampant among The True Believers. When you can't make a cogent point, you resort this. But your Steve's "mentor", aren't you?

Edited February 3, 2008 by Buddy

[Wayfarer64]

TaoMeow -

That was very well put. I've been trying to relate my experiences of feeling "at one" with nature, animals other humans - yes being real is an apt way to say it ...

 

I get (what I call) qi energy, when practicing martial arts while trying to tap into it , but before I began training, I was able to feel completely strong and at one with the world around me...being at ease and "rooted to the earth", ( in a very phisical almost magnetic attraction to the ground)- and the whole of life around me the feeling has always been very real to me, and I think of it as qi and I can "tap into" it when I need to,,,

 

The energy that binds us together and is part of each of us... can be shared and nurtured and even spoken of between us. Being aware of past lives, our own and other various types of spirits, even useing the vast powers within us is all doable for some. With training and practice and our own inner light as a basis for activity...

Then the path of least resistence becomes easier and easier to follow, giving up attachments as you go/grow...

 

This may not even be the same energy that Chinese practitioners call qi but it is what I think of as qi...

 

I'm sure some here will differ also...

[Buddy]

Wayf,

You and I have been at odds, but what you say here resonates with my experience. If you want to call it "qi", I'm fine with that. Not magic, no tricks, no wizards nor sorcerers. But I respect what you've written.

 

Buddy

[Guest winpro07]

Edited February 11, 2008 by winpro07

[witch]

Buddy, I'd like you to try my diet for six months. I think it might change your perspective on some things.

[Buddy]

Before I scoff at phony pagan lineages (and since you assume that I need your diet............) bring it on.

[steve]

TaoMeow -

That was very well put. I've been trying to relate my experiences of feeling "at one" with nature, animals other humans - yes being real is an apt way to say it ...

 

I get (what I call) qi energy, when practicing martial arts while trying to tap into it , but before I began training, I was able to feel completely strong and at one with the world around me...being at ease and "rooted to the earth", ( in a very phisical almost magnetic attraction to the ground)- and the whole of life around me the feeling has always been very real to me, and I think of it as qi and I can "tap into" it when I need to,,,

 

The energy that binds us together and is part of each of us... can be shared and nurtured and even spoken of between us. Being aware of past lives, our own and other various types of spirits, even useing the vast powers within us is all doable for some. With training and practice and our own inner light as a basis for activity...

Then the path of least resistence becomes easier and easier to follow, giving up attachments as you go/grow...

 

This may not even be the same energy that Chinese practitioners call qi but it is what I think of as qi...

 

I'm sure some here will differ also...

Well said Wayfarer.

Whatever you are tapping into - existence, being, reality - I feel that I'm connecting with it also. My interpretation is that through training (particularly neigong, taiji, and Dao meditation), I'm becoming more sensitive to that connection to existence directly, physically, yet sensed consciously, if that makes any sense. That interaction of awareness with existence is what I refer to when I use the word qi. That's why I think of it more as a process than stuff. In Chinese theory, all living things have qi. THis would be consistent with the sort of picture we're describing of qi being an interaction of the living awareness with the vessel.

[witch]

Before I scoff at phony pagan lineages (and since you assume that I need your diet............) bring it on.

 

Honest pagans are generally pretty upfront that there is no pagan lineage, unless you are dealing with something like santeria or pow-wow. Modern wicca is mostly ripped off wholesale from the Masons and Rosicrucians and suchlike.

 

This is the scientist in me talking, not the witch. I think not chi itself but an awareness of chi comes with robust omega-3 fatty acid levels in the body. It might be an eye-opener for you to at least take high-dose fish oil and a multivitamin for six months. See dosages and medical disclaimers in my diet thread.

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=23783

[Onigiri]

Wayfarer - "but before I began training, I was able to feel completely strong and at one with the world around me...being at ease and "rooted to the earth", ( in a very phisical almost magnetic attraction to the ground)- and the whole of life around me the feeling has always been very real to me, and I think of it as qi and I can "tap into" it when I need to,,,"

 

And xuesheng too.

"I'm becoming more sensitive to that connection to existence directly, physically, yet sensed consciously, if that makes any sense."

 

That's exactly what I have always felt and although I am a beginner at the arts of Taoism I am hoping to increase my abilities to feel this. I don't think it's magic. I don't understand it but that's ok with me.

[三江源]

Another idea:

quit being racist, quit being white-supremacy driven, quit being a cultural colonialist. Out of over a billion Chinese, there's not so many who "don't believe in qi." There weren't that many (if any) throughout thousands of years of prior history of this oldest and greatest civilization on the planet, so quit thinking of yourself as smarter than all of them, as superior to all of them. Quit thinking of yourself as better educated, equipped with better judgment, or a better human being than all those "gullible suckers" who "believe in qi." You aren't and they aren't.

 

I only know of one noteworthy Chinese who didn't believe in qi: Mao Zedong. I read his biography written by his personal physician, someone who knew him more intimately than perhaps anyone else in the world. Being insensitive to qi comes complete with a whole host of interesting personality traits. Cruelty, lack of connection with own body (Mao's was a mess, although he thought of himself as a great athlete), lack of interest in other human beings aside from their "usability" for own purposes, stuff like that. No qi, no humanity. Whole cultures are like that, are based on that, so you can't really blame an individual product of such a culture for having had his or her sensitivities psychosomatically amputated -- often as early as in infancy.

 

Taoist cultivation is all about remedying this affliction. All it really does is gives one back his or her lost connection with oneself and fellow humans, animals, natural phenomena, the cosmos, reality itself. That's what qi really is. Not an "energy" but an ability to form meaningful connections with oneself and others. When one's cultivation is successful, that's what happens. Not a buzzing here and there, not a set of "special sensations" or "special abilities" but only one very special ability: to be real.

 

 

aaaaaaaah.what a relief. thankyou for articulating what was so offensive about all the disrespect about qi. It wasnt a personal defensiveness that I felt, I knew that.

 

It's the cultural disrespect that I found so very distasteful. Some sort of vandalism.

[Taoist81]

Where exactly is everyone seeing "disrespect" or even "disbelief" in "qi"? Everything seemed to be a debate and question about the "nature" of qi. In other words, is qi an energy in the way it was described in the ancient texts, or is it an interpretation by the mind of a mind-body mechanism. Since qi can only be detected by living creatures and, unlike every other known form energy, cannot be detected by any machines that we have thus far invented (all of the acupoint finders test not for qi but for electrical conductivity) it cannot be proven either way. As another poster said above, it has nothing to do with racism, or "cultural colonialism" (which by the way, EVERY culture, including China, is guilty of), but a questioning of our understanding of things. If the best way for us to understand the world around us was to just trust what "the ancient people" or "the Chinese people" (how racist is that, only Chinese people could possibly be right), or whatever, then perhaps we should go back to thinking that lightening comes from Zeus, after all, the ancient Greeks believed that, and they are ancient, they must have had it right because ours is a "degenerate" modern society. Or perhaps the Chinese buddhists should give up their faith, beliefs and practices, because they are not indigenous to China. While they are at it they might as well stop using any technology that has come to them by way of the west, and the west had best give up all our spicy dishes whose spices originated in china. The cultures around the world have always and will always take pieces from each other and then blend them and merge them with their own creating something new. It is not just the "evil, capitalist, colonialist west" that does it, or has done it. Honestly, it is sad that people feel such self loathing just because they aren't from a particular part of the world, and that people are so hateful just over the continuing evolution of our view and understanding of the world and universe around us. A healthy dose of skepticism is...well, healthy. Otherwise progress (right, another dirty word) is not possible. New acupoints have been discovered and new techniques using them have come along. This all from deviating from the "ancients" techniques.

There it is, it was probably a waste of time to even type this, but all the berating of questions, and the praising of ignorance was just too much to ignore...

[Guest winpro07]

Edited February 11, 2008 by winpro07

[rain]

God! Thanks. This is by far the best I've heard in years!

I am gonna read evvvwrything about it.

 

put them together. the crazy taobums. synthesize these ideas.

 

and its all music.

 

................ok.

 

(calm down rain)

[Guest winpro07]

Edited February 11, 2008 by winpro07

[Taoist81]

These days many more people sense this stuff than used to. The increased Great potential brought on by interacting at a most subtle level is something that nay sayers waiting for thier proof will have to do without for now. I have no proof apart from the validation of experience, but in believeing I have gained the great rewards of increased insight, higher reason, greater energy, and ability. The proofs of all this stuff is coming. Why wait till then? We have insight in order to understand what we dont yet see. Need for proof prevents insight in a bad way.

 

There is a good point there winpro. One does not have to understand everything about something to know it works. This really gets back to the original posters question "Is Qi "real"". Well, no one really knows, but most of us here do know that by applying certain practices certain results occur. A sensation in the meridians, an unexplainable extra force in a punce or palm, whatever. Is it the mind manifesting some near perfectly aligned or working system or is it some otherwise undetectable energy? Does it matter? If it works, work on it. Just like the placebo effect. People talk about it like it is a bad thing, but is it not amazing, pure proof that the body can and does heal itself soley because it thinks it is being healed. Is that qi? Maybe, maybe not. Labels and names tend to get in the way. Personal experience works for the individual. But it is not proof of anything beyond that particular individual.

[rene]

Honestly, it is sad that people feel such self loathing..

 

Yes, it is sad and they're taught that crap, and it is effective. Convince someone they're shit and watch them run to buy the cure, which is usually whatever psycho-babble the promoter is hawking. Good post, btw.

[sam]

Unless there are three in the room, one producing a very strong field, another standing as witness, and the third ear plugged, and blind fold totally unaware of thier relative position to the others. This thirds experience of a strong field being very obvious to them even though they were asked to participate without knowing what to expect even to te point of being bolwed over by the field......has anyone here ever observed a true telekenetic?

Personal experience works for the individual. But it is not proof of anything beyond that particular individual.

Personal experience works for the individual. But it is not proof of anything beyond that particular individual.