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The next 'Traditional Qi Gong' course starts Sunday 1st November. Check the detail here: www.gigimirto.com/seminars.htm

This is the last course for the year, although there will be a few one-day workshops also coming up...

QI: VAPOUR, BREATH AND VITAL ENERGY The most complicated and difficult to articulate concept in the ancient Chinese thought and philosophy is certainly that of Qi, Vital Energy. It is present in all that is manifest in the universe, in any which form. Qi is, in fact, the ‘matrix’ of everything. Breath, vibration, wave, quark, weave.

 The rice, in the lower right portion of the character, is the material (Yin), nourishing and sustaining aspect, while the vapour is the ethereal (Yang), evolutionary and moving aspect. Without movement Qi ceases to exist. In human beings, Qi is categorised in a variety of different ‘types’, representing the evolution of Qi through different, specific aspects of the organism. 

QI: PRE-NATAL ENERGIES

The first ‘types’ of Qi to impact on the person are known as ‘pre-natal Qi’, which is very much the equivalent of the western concept of ‘genetic pool’ and DNA, and is composed by: 

[  Yuan Qi – species

[  Zong Qi – progeny

[  Jing Qi – parents (conception) 

The specific combination of these ‘energies’ (aspects of Qi at different evolutionary stages) determines, inalterably, the personal characteristics of the individual, at all levels.

QI: POST-NATAL ENERGIES 

Post-natal Qi is, instead, the sum total of the ‘external’ energies that the organism has the ability to utilise and the ‘internal’ ones it can produce independently, through them, in its lifespan. The main external energies are: 

[  Gu Qi – food (Earth)

[  Da Qi – air/oxygen (Sky/Heaven) 

The food is macerated in the Stomach and divided there into ‘useful’ and ‘scrap’ (faeces). The useful part is transformed into Gu Qi by the Spleen, which further transforms it into blood (Xue), and transports it to the Lungs, which potentiate it combining it with Da Qi from the air (sometimes also known as Feng Qi), ultimately creating Zhong Qi. The Lungs use a portion of Zhong Qi to produce Wei Qi, our protective Energy (equivalent to the western concept of ‘immune system’), they distribute it to the skin and send the rest to the Kidneys, which ‘blend’ it with Jing (pre-natal Energy or Essence) giving origin to the Zhen Qi (post-natal Energy), which supports and sustains all energetic and physiological functions of the organism.

Tao: Yin and Yang 

The Tao represents the creative principle, as well as the essence, of all which exists in the universe. The matrix and a perpetually moving, and evolving, force. Pure manifest energy and, as such, totally elusive to human perception, limited by duality and the five senses. Lao Tzu, the great Taoist Master, wrote: ‘The Tao I speak of is not the true Tao’. By this, Lao Tzu was referring to the impossibility of communicating the Tao with words. The human intellect relies on a dualistic and discriminating perception and is, thus, incapable of perceiving and estimating the Tao in its wholeness and indivisibility. By this I mean, for example, that light is perceived, through sight, in contrast to darkness (the lack of light), and that this involves an intrinsic polarity (light-dark).

Yin and Yang are nothing but the interpretation of the Tao when it is subjected to intellectual observation. This two opposing aspects, complementary and interdependent, make discrimination and, consequentially, evaluation possible. Nothing can be only Yin or only Yang, in and of itself, if not relatively to something else (or some own intrinsic aspect). It is, rather, the very nature of that which is observed to determine its own relative prevalence of the Yin or the Yang aspect within itself. For example, a body part can be categorised as being Yin or Yang only relatively to another: the abdomen is Yin in relation to the head, but it’s Yang in relation to the feet (see the 'coordinates' outlined below). One can only exist, and thus be observed and estimated, in relation to the other and only ever as the ultimately equal portion of the fundamental wholeness, the Tao. 

Yin and Yang: invariable coordinates 

The Neijing (a notorious Taoist and TCM* text of antiquity) gives us universal coordinates to categorise the relative prevalence of the Yin or the Yang aspect in that which is observed: 

• up/high is Yang in relation to down/low

• The left is Yang in relation to the right (except in male living beings)

• The posterior aspect is Yang in relation to the anterior one

• The external/distal is Yang in relation to the internal/proximal

Generally, it can also be said that external or meteorological pathogens (Yang – Heaven) prevalently injure Yin organs, whilst the internal and nutritional (Yin – Earth) ones injure prevalently the Yang organs.