The practice of Neidan(內丹)

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

2 hours ago, 29Gathering said:

You believe Chi is the ATP that was taught in high school. But what is the energy that we(and Chinese practitioners) use?

He believes qi is just air or breath

[Master Logray]

Just now, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

He believes qi is just air or breath

 

Oxygen

[ChiDragon]

3 hours ago, DynamicEquilibrium said:

Thank you, it is clear that you experienced an increase in quantity from your Taiji and Qigong practice, how about changes in quality? 

You welcome! I am not sure about the distinction between quantity and quality which is so characteristic of your remarks. Would you please clarify?

Edited 5 hours ago by ChiDragon

[DynamicEquilibrium]

6 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

You welcome! I am not sure about the distinction between quantity and quality which is so characteristic of your remarks. Would you please clarify?

Of course ! 

Quantity and quality of energy might be an important distinction to make and understand while we are trying to explore energy transformation processes such as Neidan.

 

 

[Nintendao]

20 hours ago, Master Logray said:

In China, most people, cultivators, health, martial and sport enthusiasts do not take time to investigate what is Chi or many of the abstract terms.   They mainly approach Chi on its energetic properties, lesser as a substance.   So it is natural the outsiders like the "West" would view Chi as totally energy.   It is unlike when we use a phone, who would bother about the chips and circuits or the theories behind them.   The Chinese work on the map, the west wonder what is in the map, but all are maps, not real.  

 

Hey now that's pretty good! It's like i always say: if you need to get potty-trained, would you rather find someone who can pick you up and put you on the throne, or hand you a book about how digestion works? Likewise if you like to drive cars, put your foot on the pedal and turn the wheel. Don't talk about pistons and crankshafts and fossil fuel distillation. Then someone who only ever owned an electric car comes along and says "why are y'all talking about fossils? That has absolutely nothing do with cars. Then goes on to talk about lithium ions and three phase induction motors.

 

Spoiler

I'm not trying to detract anyone by saying this stuff. There's some phenomenal discussion going on. I just like to wei in from left field. 

 

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Antares said:

Interesting how many people here and daoist masters of the Past would agree with your statements?

Or you do not care? Then

I do care about them. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here wasting my time telling them something. Just hopefully I will catch somebody's eyes to broadened the vision. Also, I wish someone is wise enough at least to listen or digest something that might be new to them. I bet none of the Taoist master can tell how our functional  body works. Besides, just telling some mysterious chi from thin air flowing in the body.  

PS I might mention something for the interest of the argument.
My wife has some illnesses that the western medicine couldn't help her cure. My brother-in-law introduced a person who practiced eastern and western medicines. He know something about mitochondria by reading online, he did not go into it as deep as I am. 

One thing for sure that he told me, all herbal practitioners in China must practice Taiji and Qigong. BTW His wife is a acupuncturist too. I must admit that he is a very very good doctor. He cured some of the illnesses for my wife. Sorry to say, about three years later, he die.

Another story. My brother-in-law financially supported a herbalist opened a clinic. The clinic was opened only about three years. The herbalist quiet and went to northern part of California to meditate and write a book about Qigong. Unfortunately, I heard that he die after little more than a year before he finished his book.

 

Edited 4 hours ago by ChiDragon

[steve]

20 hours ago, Cobie said:

The more I learn to read Chinese, the more I see there is no difference at all at the core. 

 

12 hours ago, steve said:

I agree there is no difference at the core. 

 

9 hours ago, DynamicEquilibrium said:

 

Please, can you explain what you mean by the term core ? 

 

 

I was simply quoting Cobie.

My agreement referred to my experience that as we get deeper and closer to what it means to be human, the fewer differences we are likely to find among ourselves. This can be seen on multiple levels - physical, emotional, psychological, energetic, metaphysical, etc...

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Master Logray said:

I think attributing Chi to oxygen and ATP don't make too much sense.  China side so many scientists and patriots have been fervently trying to find out the secret of Chi for many many years.   But they have no conclusive result yet.  Don't these highly qualified people never think of simplistic stuff like oxygen and ATP?    

Do you why they can't find Chi? It is because Chi doesn't exist.

 

FYI I recall sometime ago. When I post the "cell respiration" on a site. My response was there are some funds provided by the government for the research to find a way to measure the mysterious chi.  Perhaps, somebody might found the answer already. However, if the truth was told, then, the funds will stop. Therefore, it is better to keep it as a mystery. This is just a point of interest. I am not claiming that Chi has been found.
 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by ChiDragon

[Nintendao]

Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's been mathematically "proven" that so-called dark matter exists (mass-carrying particles who are incapable of interacting with any known form of light wave or particle) and comprises an even larger percent of the observable universe than visible matter. This is not to say that qi necessarily is a form of dark matter, btw.

 

What's more is that other than its resultant distortions in gravitational fields, there has been zero confirmed experimental evidence of what dark matter itself is made of, despite large and expensive detection apparatus. For better or worse there's a real possibility that such a thing does not actually exist at all, and we have simply been misunderstanding gravity the whole time. Wouldn't that be a major upset!

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Nintendao

[steve]

18 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

Yes, it is very true that the Chinese really don't care. I had been asking many fellow men. My answer from them was that "chi is chi" with a smile. They do not give a final answer. However, an English speaker would demand an answer. So, a Chinese would say "it is "energy."

I was told by a TCM herbalist, chi could be meant it is the function of an organ as an esoteric meaning in TCM. When they say "the chi of an organ was blocked". It was actually meant "the organ is malfunction." Somehow, the translation came across the west ended up "the energy of the organ was blocked." If we think about it, If chi is so mighty, how can it be blocked so easily with anything. Does that make any sense to you? Unfortunately, I could not accept this blockage logic. Could anyone of you?

 

IMO, an accurate definition of Qi is certainly not the English word energy, particularly as that word is loosely used in non-scientific contexts. Qi is far more fundamental and relational/contextual than what is meant by the English word energy, even ATP related energy, and IMO the idea of storing, building, and blocking Qi, even the idea of feeling Qi can be very misleading, even an obstacle. My Daoist teacher, who was Chinese, was just like you describe - not overly concerned with things like translations and definitions of words and concepts. For him, any time we spent reading and studying concepts was wasted time we could have devoted to experiential practice.

 

5 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

 

I am talking about the biochemical ATP energy that nobody is familiar with. Even though, it is in their own body. 

 

What makes you say "nobody is familiar with" ATP energy?

It is a very basic concept in biochemistry and I suspect many of us here are quite familiar with it.

There was a time that I had it memorized down to each chemical formula but I let that go about 40 years ago.

While I do understand and appreciate your point related to the important association between "ATP energy" and Qi, I would disagree with defining Qi solely as energy, even that generated through the TCA cycle. I think that is too reductive and does not account for the many different contextual associations with 氣 or 炁 both in neidan and more general usage.

[ChiDragon]

3 minutes ago, Nintendao said:

Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

Thank you. We just have to treat Chi like Laotze treats Tao. Laotze made up the existence of Tao. Somehow, TCM didn't make up Chi as Laotze. It was some people misunderstood what Chi is. The term Chi has been helping people making lots of money just by explaining it exists.

[steve]

10 minutes ago, Nintendao said:

Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's been mathematically "proven" that so-called dark matter exists (mass-carrying particles who are incapable of interacting with any known form of light wave or particle) and comprises an even larger percent of the observable universe than visible matter. This is not to say that qi necessarily is a form of dark matter, btw.

 

What's more is that other than its resultant distortions in gravitational fields, there has been zero confirmed experimental evidence of what dark matter itself is made of, despite large and expensive detection apparatus. For better or worse there's a real possibility that such a thing does not actually exist at all, and we have simply been misunderstanding gravity the whole time. Wouldn't that be a major upset!

 

 

Thank you for making that last point. Just because we had to invent the idea of dark matter to account for observations that our present theoretical framework cannot explain, does not mean dark matter actually exists. it may simply be that our theoretical framework is missing something important. That said there is some recent evidence that may further strengthen the idea of the existence of dark matter.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251129053349.htm

[Master Logray]

44 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

Do you why they can't find Chi? It is because Chi doesn't exist.

 

FYI I recall sometime ago. When I post the "cell respiration" on a site. My response was there are some funds provided by the government for the research to find a way to measure the mysterious chi.  Perhaps, somebody might found the answer already. However, if the truth was told, then, the funds will stop. Therefore, it is better to keep it as a mystery. This is just a point of interest. I am not claiming that Chi has been found.
 

 

 

This theory doesn't work.  Once they found an answer, there could have been even more funding, to find out how it works, how to harness it, how to heal, how to put into electric cars, AI and robots.....

 

As to your post about substantial increase in health, it is commonly observed that a healthy person would encounter less result from QG or cultivation e.g. a young person.   While a sick or old or both person could see a more substantial improvement.   This seems strange.  You say you have been healthy all along, right?

 

Another explanation could be some of the QG, breathing exercises have a stimulating effect but they also use up your reserve fast.   It is ok for a young and vital person who replenish easily.   Cultivators could feel full of energies, pinkish face and skin, sleep very little and yet full of drive, strong voice.   Old books say it is burning your Jing/essence, your body is emptied with internal fire raging on uncontrolled.   Just be careful.

 

 

[ChiDragon]

28 minutes ago, steve said:

What makes you say "nobody is familiar with" ATP energy?

I wouldn't know unless they speak up like you. I know that the Ancient Taoist didn't know for sure. Indeed, they had the wisdom to come up with the Neidan method which made us feel so mystery trying to figure out what it really was. Those who believed the Taoist saying about Chi might or might not know about ATP for sure!

Edited 3 hours ago by ChiDragon

[Nintendao]

14 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Thank you for making that last point. Just because we had to invent the idea of dark matter to account for observations that our present theoretical framework cannot explain, does not mean dark matter actually exists. it may simply be that our theoretical framework is missing something important. That said there is some recent evidence that may further strengthen the idea of the existence of dark matter.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251129053349.htm

 

Holy crap I'll read up on that! I just bumped an old thread so as not to clutter this one if anything turns out

[Apech]

39 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

 

Thank you. We just have to treat Chi like Laotze treats Tao. Laotze made up the existence of Tao. Somehow, TCM didn't make up Chi as Laotze. It was some people misunderstood what Chi is. The term Chi has been helping people making lots of money just by explaining it exists.

Laotze didn’t make up the existence of Tao.  He gave his commentary on the nature of Tao.

 

 

[ChiDragon]

2 hours ago, DynamicEquilibrium said:

Of course ! 

Quantity and quality of energy might be an important distinction to make and understand while we are trying to explore energy transformation processes such as Neidan. 

Thank you for being a good listener. You are a gentleman and a scholar. This is not a yes or no answer. Please allow me to have more time to prepare myself to share and explore this complex subject. Especially, it is my pleasure sharing it with an open mind person. 

Edited 2 hours ago by ChiDragon

[cake1234566]

44 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

 

Thank you. We just have to treat Chi like Laotze treats Tao. Laotze made up the existence of Tao. Somehow, TCM didn't make up Chi as Laotze. It was some people misunderstood what Chi is. The term Chi has been helping people making lots of money just by explaining it exists.

Or more accurately, Tao made up the existence of Laotze 

[ChiDragon]

9 minutes ago, cake1234566 said:

Or more accurately, Tao made up the existence of Laotze 

Yes, the universal theory of yin/yang. Thank you for mention it!

[DynamicEquilibrium]

2 hours ago, steve said:

I was simply quoting Cobie.

My agreement referred to my experience that as we get deeper and closer to what it means to be human, the fewer differences we are likely to find among ourselves. This can be seen on multiple levels - physical, emotional, psychological, energetic, metaphysical, etc...

 

Thank you so much, it echoes to something in my own experience. When we can find some kind of 'resonance ' and start to share something with the nature and other living beings around, all these differences start to fade away. 

When this something lies in a field outside of our human capacities to concieve, the biggest hindrance to enjoy the very real feeling seems always to be our incapacity to say 'i don't know '. 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by DynamicEquilibrium

[Antares]

1 hour ago, ChiDragon said:

. Laotze made up the existence of Tao

Thus this site must be renamed to thefakedaobums.com

[ChiDragon]

2 minutes ago, Antares said:

Thus this site must be renamed to thefakedaobums.com

 

I second to that.

[Antares]

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

I do care about them

 

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

Do you why they can't find Chi? It is because Chi doesn't exist.

 

Alright, if you care how would you translate and understand this one here:

古圣有言曰命由性修  性由命立 命者炁也性者神也炁  则本不离神神则有时  离炁

 

and this 炁则本不离神 ?

[DynamicEquilibrium]

36 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

Thank you for being a good listener. You are a gentleman and a scholar. This is not a yes or no answer. Please allow me to have more time to prepare myself to share and explore this complex subject. Especially, it is my pleasure sharing it with an open mind person. 

哪裡哪裡, i sincerly enjoy the discussion and learn a lot from it. 

[DynamicEquilibrium]

@ChiDragon , this speech given in 1922 may inspire you: 

 

http://www.millionbook.com/mj/l/liangqichao/000/055.htm