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What is Qi? (Part I)
Qi
or Chi as we know it in our practice
of Tai Chi and Qi Gong is related to the ancient Chinese medical theory of the Life Force or Vital Force. Although the
concept of Qi dates back to the
fifth century B.C. in Chinese writings, the earliest mention of the concept of
a Life Force existed in the Vedas of
ancient India around 1500 – 1000 B.C.
In Mencius’ writings in the fourth century B.C., he
describes Qi as a person’s vital
energies. He explains that this Qi is necessary for all activity and
could be controlled by willpower, which is very much the same theory as that of
Yi or Intention in the Tai Chi
Classics and transmitted through the various lineages to modern day
practitioners.
Mencius also proposed that Qi could be cultivated and made to extend beyond the body and
pervade throughout the Universe. It
could be further nurtured or corrupted by the individual’s sense of morality or
attraction to adverse external forces, a belief held by both modern day
Buddhism and Hinduism.
Around the second century B.C., the Yellow Emperor’s
Classic of Medicine, Huangdi Neiijing, described
the pathways or meridians in the human body through which the Qi circulates. In China,
these writings led to the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine while in
India the theory of prana found in the
Vedas and Upanishads became the basis of Ayerveda practices.
While the philosophical roots of QI and prana are solely
Eastern developments, nevertheless, Western philosophers had similar ideas
around the same period.
In the fifth century B.C. Greek physician, Hippocrates
expounded on the theory of the four
humors or temperaments which may have had its roots some one thousand years
before in the Nile Delta. Hippocrates
believed that our moods or temperaments were caused by fluids or humors. He speculated that there were four such
humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm.
In the second century A.D., the Roman physician, Galen
of Pergamon, combined Hippocrates’ four humors with the elements of the four
seasons - hot and cold, wet and dry – and mapped them together in a chart of
the body’s main organs, much like we have in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
According
to Galen, the liver was represented by blood, spring and air. Its qualities were warm and moist and the
persona, sanguine. Its characteristics
were courageous, hopeful and amorous.
The gall bladder was yellow bile, summer and fire. Its qualities were warm and dry, and the
persona, choleric. Its characteristics
were easily angered and bad tempered.
The spleen consisted of black bile, autumn and earth. Its qualities were cold and dry, and the persona
melancholic. Its characteristics were
despondent, sleepless and irritable. The
brain and lungs consisted of plegm, winter and water. Their qualities were cold and most, and the
persona, phlegmatic. Their
characteristics were rational, calm and unemotional.
About the same time in India, Ayurvedic medicine
developed its main principles of the three vital energies or humors – vata,
pitta and kapha – and connected them with the five Hindu elements – earth,
fire, water, air and sky.
So, in theory if not in concept all three models – the
Chinese, the Hindu and the Greco-Roman – in ancient times had many similarities.
While the Chinese and the Hindu theories
have developed down through the ages in TCMand Ayurveda respectively, modern
medical science in the West has thoroughly discredited humorism, which had in
fact dominated Western medical thinking for nearly 2,000 years.
In the 18th century, for example, bleeding a patient
or applying hot cups were based on the humor theory of surplus fluids. Perhaps, bloodletting killed more patients
than it cured. But that is the extreme
example of the humor theory being carried too far.
However, two hundred years earlier, a 16th century
Swiss physician and occultist, Paracelsus, realized the beneficial medicinal
properties of herbs, minerals and their various alchemical combinations. He believed the use of herbs was central to
the treatment of unbalanced humors just as we find in TCM and Ayurveda today.
Paracelsus’ formulations became the foundation of
mainstream Western medicine well into the 1800s and still exist today in naturopathy
and traditional Western folk remedies.
But as science and scientific inventions like the
microscope became more and more sophisticated, the role of the four humors in
Western medicine succumbed to the challenges of the germ theory and the
cellular composition of the organs as well as molecular analysis. Eventually, modern medicine had little need
for nebulous vital forces and looked to concrete substances for its cures.
But just what are these vital forces, if they truly
exist?
The ancient Chinese believed Qi permeated everything and linked their surroundings together the
same way the flow of energy around and through the body, formed a cohesive,
functioning entity.
Chuangzi,
the fourth century BC Taoist philosopher, wrote that wind is the Qi of the Earth and that cosmic yin and
yang are the greatest Qi.
Furthermore,
he said, "Human beings are born [because of] the accumulation of Qi. When QI accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is
death...There is one Qi that
connects and pervades everything in the world."
So, what exactly is this one Qi that connects and pervades everything in the world including the
cohesiveness of these very bodies we possess?
I will take a look at the answer to this question in What
is Qi? Part II
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