by Bob on Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:40 pm
I often think of Qi as not being measured but inferred and an indication of the quality of yin yang body/environment relationship. I worry less about qi creation/movement and more about alignment, breath, and intention to bring about transformation and balance and a general sense of well-being (neigong)
Confucius was also into qi cultivation:
"The important point for our purposes is that for well over two thousand years, Chinese of various philosophical persuasions believed that by cultivating their qi to the fullest extent, and thus harnessing the highly refined spiritual capabilities of their minds achieve extraordinary things. Daoist-oriented individuals, for instance, could attain immortality; Confucians, for their part, could alternatively "transform people" and ultimately change the world by means of ritual rectitude and moral force.
According to the Doctrine of the Mean, an extremely influential work initially composed in the late Warring State period, the key to Confucian self-cultivation was sincerity--the moral integrity that enables a person to become fully developed as an agent of the cosmos . . . What, then, should a such a cultivated individual do? The Confucian answer was to direct one's spirit toward achieving cosmic resonance--that is, a sympathetic vibration of qi across space
In short, harmony prevailed when like-things resonated and unlike-things were in balance. pp. 53-54
The I Ching: A Biography
Richard J. Smith
_________________________________
I don't think qi cultivation/development is unique to taiji and the martial arts in general.
Qi development/cultivation seems to be in service of more effective and efficient full body utilization in martial application.
Perhaps some of the martial arts masters attained this level for martial application and began to see qi development in a much more broader perspective than simply for fighting, seeing it as another pathway for spiritual development - for many martial artists this is totally unnecessary for fighting and far too complex
In one of Zheng Manqing's books he turned away from this pursuit of immortality as it drove him further from the realities of everyday life - the Confucian pathway was more of his liking.
Last edited by
Bob on Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.