effect of directing the qi

[daodejing]

I don't really see that much of a difference between qigong and MA anymore, or between qigong and dancing. For me, qigong is cultivating my awareness of what's happening in my body as I move, and not just moving a certain way because "sifu told me to". Some of the incredible meditative experiences I've had have been on the dance floor in a crowded club, flowing to music with a beautiful young woman until i'm no longer certain where her body ends and mine begins. This is qigong to me. Losing the illusion of seperateness in any way possible.

[andrewr47]

Xin ze you, bu xin ze wu

i just wanna make a comment on someone's previous comment about people believing for a long time that the earth was flat and that just cuz alot of ppl believe in something doesn't mean it exists or is true.

it is true that alot of ppl believed the earth was flat until galileo or whoever it was that proved it was round. however, the belief that the earth is flat is no where nearly as long as the belief in "QI" . with the billions of people in china where qigong must be practiced much more widely than here, don't u think there are enough "galileos" there to have caused a "riot" if "Qi" didnt actually exist?

and also, the burden of proof laid on galileo and not on the adherents of a flat earth. it's all relative as to who is making the claim. people who are rejecting the status quo are the ones 'making a claim'

dogchow also mentioned that the NIH-recognized articles are a load of crap because they claim that qigong exercise is only beneficial in cancer pts if used with conventional therapy and therefore qigong exercises is unfounded in its health benefits, and that even tho it up-regulates t-lymphocytes, it's still BS. u should go look at cancer drug articles and u'll notice that no cancer drug is used alone. most cancer drugs are aalways used with other regimen to produce a better effect. some drugs even produce a secondary tumor. does that mean in isolation that particular drug is BS? why is it that in order to prevent cancer we have to have good diet, exercise, take vitamins and all that? u're saying those qigong NIH articles are a crap only cuz they didnt prove that qigong in isolation can have a better effect on cancer and that they "have to be used along with conventional therapy"

i may have contradicted to what i said before, but this is what i think right now. ijust woke up too so feel free to hack away at my logic and (for dogchow) feel free to make sarcastic comments too cuz u're really good at that

[dogchow108]

Andrew- in keeping with your steadfastly inconsistant logic, you have made yet another mistake in your reasoning. You present the case the world being round or flat. You take a testable item- the Earth- which can universally be agreed to exist, and start to ask questions about its nations. Things you can test: the roundnedd/flatness of the Earth, whetehr it is limited or vast beyond out measurements in area, etc.

Unfortunately, you liken it to something like Qi. I dont have to prove to you that the world exists. And you know that no matter who you ask, hey will be insincere or figurative when they say the Earth dosent.

But Qi is different. We are not debating whether Qi is round or flat. We are not debating as to whether it is straight or circular. You still have to give me reason to think Qi exists in the first place.

I'll talk about how Qi flows, how Qigong excerizes circulate Qi, etc. But i know that i am not sure whether this abstract and hypothetical component exists to begin with. I make the assumption there is Qi for the sake of conersation. But in this case, you are cheapening logic with your diatribe.

Anyway, i'm done with this thread as well.

[Firbolg]

Wading into the great debate..

I will first 'qualify' this by saying I do not do any qi gong or whatever (coz I don't know how!) and so can't say that I have experienced Qi, however I will not categorically deny that it exists for the same reason..

Anyway.. I believe that the mind has the ability to exercise immense control over the body in ways that most people will never know because they have not been taught how to do such things.. one small example is my old kung fu teacher who had the odd ability to bend the tips of all his fingers (at the last joint) while keeping the fingers straight at all the other joints.. the last joint then became a striking surface.. nothing amazing I suppose but most people cannot do it because they have never trained themselves to do it.. their brain does not know how to send the correct signals to the fingers to do that.

Another more extreme example I saw on a documentary recently (on NG I think) where a group of monks living up a (cold) mountain in india were able to raise their body temperature significantly at will - while meditating. Tests were done to verify that it was really happening and also tests on normal people were done to see if they could do the same - and they could when stimulated in some way. However they could only produce a small increase in temperature whereas the monks could do it much more and with no external stimulus.

A yet more extreme example from these same monks is when once a year on some special holiday they all go up the mountain even higher where it is REALLY cold.. and then they spend the night there outside with almost nothing on.. they just sleep through the cold with no shivering at all (shivering is apparently the way the body tries to generate heat when its too cold) and don't suffer any effects from the cold.. normal people would actually be dead in such conditions.

This was all documented and filmed - the film crew nearly froze even with all their layers of protective clothes and whatnot..

Maybe a similar thing happens when climbers die on Everest or somewhere while their sherpa guides survive - the sherpas have learned to survive longer in fairly extreme conditions, perhaps even unknowingly generating heat, like those monks, to keep them alive until help arrives or whatever. Their minds and bodies are conditioned for this.

So - is this Qi? Is it mind over matter? In a way I think it is both.. I think its really an example of the mind exercising extraordinary control over the body - things that we normally don't and can't do but probably everyone could do with the right training.. generating heat (energy) at will, manipulating the body/musculature to maximize strength/power or resistance etc. but no levitating or dispersing clouds or other weird stuff.. there's no magic.. just training and conditioning of the mind and body to do the extraordinary.

[andrewr47]

"if u believe, then it exists; if u dont believe then it doesn't exist."

arguing with skeptics is just like what XJ is saying, it's like proving to a blind man the existence of colors; like proving to a deaf man the existence of sound. there's just no point in wasting your time trying to explain.

XJ said something of the sort that "if feel the qi movements in my body, and that's enough reason to believe it exists." He was discredited by zachsan and/or dogchow as following a fallacious argument that just because you feel something doesn't mean it exists. To those two or anyone else, prove to me the existence of emotions without going by the argument that "I feel it" or that "you can see the effects of it."

well dogchow, gl living life following ur protocol of logic and reasoning. I'm sure everything in life can be explained by logic and reasoning, and your well regarded scientific method.

[onesp1ng]

"信自有, 不信自無" = xin zi you, bu xin zi wu
"if u believe, then it exists; if u dont believe then it doesn't exist."


這是你要教我們怎麼合理化的方式, 對吧?
This is the way you want to teach us how to rationalize, right?

g

[andrewr47]

onesp1ing: yea that's the quote i was trying to use, but u're right, that's definitely not a quote that we can use to rationalize anything. I only put it there because there are things in life that can't be rationalized nor logically explained.

for example, if you can rationalize to me what all the emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc) are without using the arguments of "i feel it" or "i can see the effects of it", (both of which were regarded as non-logical when they were used to argue for "QI"), then i will give up my argument for Qi (which i don't believe in currently anyways because i dont practice qigong; im just being a devil's advocate)

[zachsan]

andrew actually brought up something somewhat new with that last post, so i'll respond to it.

comparing qi to emotion is actually a great idea. words that describe emotion, like "love" or "sadness", are simply useful terms that describe something we're feeling. we use the word "love" as a useful term only; that is, using the word doesn't imply an understanding of how it works. the idea of emotion isn't a metaphysical one but simply a useful description of how you're feeling.

so, if you use the word "qi" as a useful description of things you are feeling, that's fine, as i've said before in this thread. but using it in a way that implies that you understand how it works at all - for instance, calling it a kind of "energy", and especially anything beyond that - turns it into a metaphysical claim.

here's some practice. try to see if you can tell the difference between the two following statements:
"i love you", and;
"i love you, and thus our souls are bound together in the grand plan of unitaris, the emperor of magnon seven, for this, indeed, is the true meaning of love."

here's a hint: one is bullshit.

[andrewr47]

so, if you use the word "qi" as a useful description of things you are feeling, that's fine, as i've said before in this thread. but using it in a way that implies that you understand how it works at all - for instance, calling it a kind of "energy", and especially anything beyond that - turns it into a metaphysical claim.

so would i be correct to assume that I can use the word "qi" without having to understand the inner workings of it all as long as I use it as a useful description of what I feel?

To take it a step further, if i made the statement "I feel qi" (just as if though i said "i feel anger/i love you"), would i be correct in assuming that I dont have to prove what exactly "qi" is (just like i dont have to prove exactly what anger/love is)?

[zachsan]

absolutey. if that's all you mean when you say "i feel qi", then you're not making any metaphysical claims. except that the way it's generally used, the word "qi" implies metaphysical claims (whereas the words "love" and "anger" do not); such as, it comes from living things, it flows through meridians, it causes/heals illness, etc., etc.

so it would be more accurate, and certainly less confusing, to simply say "i feel something". you can use the word "qi" to describe a feeling without making any claims about it, but usually, use of the word implies certain claims about the nature of the feeling.

since neither you nor BS or XJ seem willing to define "qi", all i have to go by is the common definition:

The vital force believed in Taoism and other Chinese thought to be inherent in all things. The unimpeded circulation of chi and a balance of its negative and positive forms in the body are held to be essential to good health in traditional Chinese medicine.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

these and other claims that generally go along with the use of the word are what i've been reacting to in this thread. which is why, if you refuse to define it, and i have to default to the traditional definition of it, you are making claims about it, whether or not you believe that you are.

[andrewr47]

I guess we can conclude this thread by saying that it is the fault of the person who coined the word "qi" for actually attaching a metaphysical definition to such a word.

I (and maybe XJ too) use the word "qi" only as a placeholder for such feeling just as we use emotions as a placeholder for what we feel, because it just wouldn't be practical to say "I feel something" since this "something" can be markedly different in what we feel.

[zachsan]

lol... yeah, blame some guy from 3000 years ago. certainly it has nothing to do with the fact that you, XJ and BS refused to just define the damn word in the first place.

the ancient chinese didn't have the advantage of the scientific method, so i don't find any "fault" with them. in fact, for all of their mysticism, i think they were really onto something when it came to body mechanics. if anything, i find fault with people today who insist on adhering to millennia-old traditions, even though today we know better. for instance, not the practice of qigong itself, but the assumptions and metaphysics that traditionally go along with it.

also, i suspect that XJ has some very different views from your own. read the first few pages of the thread, they are replete with metaphysical and unsubstantiated empirical claims on his part. you avoided those claims but still managed to liken a conversation with a skeptic to "explaining color to a blind man."

[Blue Sky]

definition of Chi

See if you can try and read The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. He shows that Chi is identical to the quantum field, "As in quantum theory, the field- or the Chi -is not only the underlying essence of all material objects, but also carries their mutual interactions...". For example, If say the the entire universe is connected, you want some kind of proof. Well, for one, there is a physical center of mass of the universe. I'm sure you will agree to that. Now, every time you move, you change that center - albiet ever so slightly. You want a more complicated example? Subatomic particles have a property called 'spin'. When particles are examined, each particle will have the oppisite spin of its partner. At any given time they may be spinning in any direction, but when a 'picture' of them freezes the motion in time - the spins will be opposite. An experiment was conducted where one particle was physically moved a kilometer away from its partner. When either particle was 'looked' at, the other was 'looked' at at the same time. No matter when the particles were looked at - they were still spinning in opposite directions. The connecting force of the universe dictates this will happen. Ask any particle scientist. The Yin and Yang will maintain harmony, even at the cost of Western hubris.

So, may the Force be with you, my friend, because it is as real as Tao. (You do believe in Tao, don't you?)

[arhat]

fritjof is a reporter. he is not qualified to make any kind of statement like that. the book is not a peer reviewed book, and it's basically a slip shod attempt at mapping some kind of new age feng shui housewife BS over science.

there are about 10 million other very good books about physics.

"Tao of Physics" is a read for non serious, granola nut eating goofballs who spend lots of time deep in the woods banging on bougarabous. That's about it.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9701/quantum-quackery.html

[Blue Sky]

Fritjof

You gotta be hosing me. Dr. Capra, Ph.D., has gone through years of theoretical physics and years of research, mostly high-energy physics at places such as University of California, Stanford, University of Paris, and Imperial College in London. Everything he wrote about can also be found by reading Gordon Kane, Edward Witten, Daniel Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, Howard Haber, and Yuri Golfand. These are experts in the field. Capra does the best job of drawing parallels between quantum physics and Eastern philosophy. None of them disagree on these basics ideas. It has been agreed upon that the new thinking is to ask anthropic questions on the subject and the final truth will not be able to be mathmatical - the Ultimate reasoning will only be understood philosophically [you know, like Taoism (my choice)]. I cited Dr. Capra because he is easier to understand for people not as educated in these fields.