In traditional Chinese culture, qì (also chi or ch'i) is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as "lifeforce" or "energy flow", and is comparable to the Hindu yogic science of prana, meaning "life force" in Sanskrit. Notions in the west of energeia, élan vital, or vitalism are purported to be similar. Qi is the central underlying principle in Traditional Chinese Medicine, as prana is in ayurveda. The literal translation of "qi" is air, breath, or gas.
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The ancient Chinese described it as "life-force". They believed qi permeated everything and linked their surroundings together. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, forming a cohesive and functioning unit. By understanding its rhythm and flow they believed they could guide exercises and treatments to provide stability and longevity.
Although the concept of qi has been important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries the descriptions of qi have varied and have sometimes been in conflict. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas, they would not have categorized all things in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li (理, li, pattern) were 'fundamental' categories similar to matter and energy.
Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there were different fractions of qi and that the coarsest and heaviest fractions of qi formed solids, lighter fractions formed liquids, and the most ethereal fractions were 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 over the course of their lifetime.
In the Analects of Confucius, compiled from the notes of his students sometime after his death in 479 B.C., qi could mean breath, and combining it with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, xue-qi, blood and breath), the concept could be used to account for motivational characteristics.
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 willpower. When properly nurtured, this qi was said to be capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe.
Not only human beings and animals were believed to have qi. Zhuangzi indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi." He described qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects. He 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." 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. They accounted for this phenomena by claiming "qi" radiated from fire. 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:
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." 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.
Category:Chinese thought Category:Chinese philosophy Category:Chinese martial arts terms Category:Qigong Category:Vitalism
ar:تشي ast:Qi ca:Qi cy:Qi da:Qi de:Qi es:Qì eo:Ĉi (koncepto) fa:چی fr:Qi (spiritualité) ko:기 (철학) hr:Qi id:Qi it:Ki (filosofia) he:צ'י lt:Či (filosofija) ms:Qi nl:Qi (concept) ja:気 no:Qi (filosofi) pl:Qi (energia życiowa) pt:Ki ru:Ци sr:Чи sh:Qi fi:Qi sv:Qi tr:Çi vi:Khí (triết học) zh:氣This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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