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In traditional Chinese culture, qi, also spelled chi or ch'i in English, is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Other spellings include . Qi is pronounced in English; in Standard Chinese; Korean: gi; Japanese: ki; Vietnamese: khí, ) The approximate English pronunciation of qi, similar to "chee" in cheese, should also be distinguished from the pronunciation of the Greek letter chi, which has a hard c sound. like "c" in car, and a long i, similar to other Greek letters phi, psi, xi.
Qi is frequently translated as "energy flow". Qi is often compared to Western notions of energeia or élan vital (vitalism), as well as the yogic notion of prana, meaning vital life or energy, and pranayama, meaning control of breath or energy. The literal translation of "qi" is air, breath, or gas. Compare this to the original meaning of the Latin word "spiritus", meaning breathing; or the Koine Greek "πνεῦμα", meaning air, breath, or spirit; and the Sanskrit term "prana", meaning breath.
character qì, also used in Korean hanja. In Japanese kanji, this character was used until 1946, when it was changed to .]]
In the Japanese language, the Chinese character corresponding to "qi" (氣) is pronounced 'ki'. The Japanese language contains over 11,442 known usages of "ki" as a compound. As a compound, it tends to represent syllables associated with the mind, the heart, feeling, the atmosphere, and flavor.
Philosophical conceptions of qi from the earliest records of Chinese philosophy (5th century BC) correspond to Western notions of humours. The earliest description of qi in the current sense of vital energy is due to Mencius (4th century BC).
Manfred Porkert described relations to Western universal concepts:
Within the framework of Chinese thought no notion may attain to such a degree of abstraction from empirical data as to correspond perfectly to one of our modern universal concepts. Nevertheless the term qi comes as close as possible to constituting a generic designation equivalent to our word "energy". When Chinese thinkers are unwilling or unable to fix the quality of an energetic phenomenon, the character qi (氣) inevitably flows from their brushes.
The ancient Chinese described it as "life-force" and for good reason. They believed qi permeates everything and links the parts of our surroundings together. The tai chi practitioner and acupuncturist are said to understand qi energy. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, linking each part forming a cohesive and functioning unit. By understanding its rhythm and flow they believe they can guide exercises and treatments to give us stability and longevity.
Although the concept of qi has been very important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries their descriptions of qi have been varied and may seem to be in conflict with each other. Understanding of these disputes is complicated for people who did not grow up using the Chinese concept and its associated concepts. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas (primarily by way of Catholic missionaries), they knew about things like stones and lightning, but they would not have categorized them in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li (理, li, pattern) are their 'fundamental' categories much as matter and energy have been fundamental categories for people in the West. Their use of qi (lifebreath) and li (pattern, regularity, form, order) as their primary categories leaves in question how to account for liquids and solids, and, once the Western idea of energy came on the scene, how to relate it to the native idea of qi. If Chinese and Western concepts are mixed in an attempt to characterize some of the problems that arise with the Chinese conceptual system, then one might ask whether qi exists as a "force" separate from "matter", whether qi arises from "matter", whether "matter" arises from qi, or whether qi really exists at all.
Qi.]] Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there are different fractions of qi, in the sense that different fractions can be extracted from crude oil in a catalytic cracker, and that the coarsest and heaviest fractions of qi form solid things such as rocks, the earth, etc., whereas lighter fractions form liquids, and the most ethereal fractions are the "lifebreath" that animates living beings.
Yuán qì is a notion of innate or pre-natal qi to distinguish it from acquired qi that a person may develop of their lifetime.
In the Analects of Confucius, compiled from the notes of his students sometime after his death in 479 B.C., qi can mean breath, and it can be combined with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, xue-qi, blood and breath), and that concept can be used to account for motivational characteristics. The Analects, 16:7, says:
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" or "bio-plasma" because when properly nurtured it was capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe.
Not only human beings and animals were believed to have qi. Zhuang Zhou (also known as Zhuangzi or Master Zhuang) indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi." He describes qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects.
Zhuang Zi, a contemporary of Mencius, said, "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."
Another passage traces life to intercourse between Heaven and Earth: "The highest Yin is the most restrained. The highest Yang is the most exuberant. The restrained comes forth from Heaven. The exuberant issues forth from Earth. The two intertwine and penetrate forming a harmony, and [as a result] things are born."
"The Guanzi essay 'Neiye' 內業 (Inward training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor [qi] and meditation techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C."
Xun Zi, another Confucian scholar of the Jixia Academy, followed in later years. At 9:69/127, Xun Zi says, "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." This passage gives us some insight into his idea of qi. Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of radiant energy. But they were aware that one can be heated by a campfire from a distance away from the fire. Clearly, something is emitted by the fire and reaches the camper. They called it "qi". At 18:62/122, he too uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age.
Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts in inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (ca. 150 BC) wrote in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals: "The gibbon resembles a macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." ("猿似猴。大而黑。长前臂。所以寿八百。好引气也。")
Later, the syncretic text assembled under the direction of Liu An, the Huai Nan Zi, or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the Neo-Confucians:
The development of the ideas of qi and of qi zhi zhi xing (氣質之性) in Neo-Confucianism go beyond the scope of a fundamental account of Chinese ideas about qi, but the fundamentals are contained in the above passage.
It is hypothesized that qi could be transmitted through the fascia independent of any neurological activity.
There are other uses of the term qì which are slightly more concrete; for instance, following an organ network, it means "function". For example, gān qì (肝氣) or "liver qì" should be interpreted roughly as liver function. Further confounding matters, the Chinese term gān is itself a bundle of functional interactions with other organ networks, rather than referring specifically to the tissues of the liver.
There have been a number of studies of qi, especially in the sense used by traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. These studies have often been problematic, and are hard to compare to each other, as they lack a common nomenclature. Some studies claim to have been able to measure qi, as understood in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, or the effects of manipulating qi, such as through acupuncture. Conversely, other studies have shown that sham acupuncture is almost as effective as real acupuncture, putting the concept of qi moving along specific meridians into question.
It has been hypothesized that the effects of acupuncture can be explained by endorphin-release, by relaxation or by placebo effects. A United States National Institutes of Health consensus statement on acupuncture in 1997 noted that concepts such as qi "are difficult to reconcile with contemporary biomedical information but continue to play an important role in the evaluation of patients and the formulation of treatment in acupuncture."
More recent investigations point to connective tissue mechanotransduction, a domino effect caused by twisting and knotting the fabric of the body. Connections between Qi and electrical conductivity were studied in the United States in the late 19th century, and are currently the subject of active research.
In 2007 the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas published an article covering the concepts by which Qi is believed to work and research into possible benefits for cancer patients. A review of clinical trials investigating the use of internal qigong for pain management found no convincing evidence that it was effective.
Demonstrations of qi or ki power are popular in some martial arts and may include the immovable body, the unraisable body, the unbendable arm and other feats of power. All of these feats can alternatively be explained using biomechanics and physics.
;Further reading
Category:Chinese thought Category:Chinese philosophy Category:Chinese martial arts terms Category:Qigong Category:Vitalism
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