Qi - A Pot of Rice

[origami_itto]

Bear in mind I don't speak or read chinese.



I don't hesitate to write this but I struggle to find an entry point. The topic seems as vaporous as the steam rising from cooking rice, which is the description of a common character for Qi.

So the obvious conclusion to draw is that Qi is steam, like a steam engine, right? Breath and air. The character started with the three lines, suggesting steam, but over time they added rice to the mix to be clear about things.

It isn't just the steam. A considerable amount of effort needs to go into creating that steam.

We need water. Good water, preferably, that won't make us sick when we eat the rice we cook in it.

We need rice. That rice needs water and soil and sun and time, and hands to plant, tend, and harvest it. (and the soil needs tending and the people need feeding and clothing and shelter and art....)

We need a vessel. Something we can put in a fire that will hold the water and rice. Maybe a metal pot? That takes a mine, a refinery, a blacksmith....

We need fire, fuel and space to burn it, with something to hold the pot.

Oxygen to fuel the rusting of the wood.

It's kind of like making a cake in minecraft. Boiling a pot of rice is a pretty major achievement for a naked ape.

To produce the Qi of that steam, Qi needs to go into every step of every process needed to create it. The Qi needs to not only be present, but it needs to be properly aligned to inject the information and energy output of each component into the next step in the chain to produce the final result.

The Qi is not a singular substance, it's not a magic energy, it's the information and energy transferrable to/from a "thing" according to it's nature. So it changes and crosses boundaries and is more about the state of the system itself. The Qi of the grain, the Qi of the fire, the Qi of the infrastructure.

Yeah, Doc, I know I'm overthinking, thanks for mentioning it. This is fun for me.

I think I talked about the radio here?

Let's say we have a battery operated radio. Four batteries.
They are inserted into the battery box like this.
+-+-|
+-+-|

So positive to negative, and then a bar across one end connecting negative to negative.

I have advanced knowledge of the way electricity flows and I can tell you that it will never work like that.
The battery should be like this:
+-+-|
-+-+|

We've eliminated the double weighted and energy can flow, the negative connects to the positive.

But wait, there is more. To operate the radio, we need to turn it on, to complete the circuit and energize the components. Close the switch.

But the tuner still needs to be on the right frequency or we'll hear nothing but static.

For the same reason, we need the antenna extended and pointed in the right direction. Maybe you have to stand on one leg and touch your nose while you hold it pointing at Beijing with your toe to pick up your favorite channel.

It's just a bunch of chemicals, metal and plastic, but put the parts in the right order, energize them, tune them, and align them and you can hear music, news, radio free rumsoakedfist from thin air. Everything needs to be just right for the Qi to move and information and energy to flow.

And you might say this has nothing to do with Taijiquan or anything inside your body, but I say it does, please prove me wrong.

Cultivation is another matter, but I think that understanding what we're cultivating can help move us down the path.

[Doc Stier]

Jason: you read my mind, man. Impressive and very cool.

I have gone 90 days without solid food, several days without water, but can only hold my breath for a few minutes. Clearly, the most crucial of these three is breathing.

Thus, the intimate connection between breathing and chi cultivation is unmistakable. Several highly skilled teachers have all said that control of one's breath is necessary to control one's body, one's mind, and one's emotions.

As such, believing this to be true in observing their mastery of the breath, I have included Indian Raja Yoga pranayama and Chinese Tao-Yin breathwork in my daily training regimen for more than half a century to date. It's all good!

[origami_itto]

Jason: you read my mind, man. Impressive and very cool.

I have gone 90 days without solid food, several days without water, but can only hold my breath for a few minutes. Clearly, the most crucial of these three is breathing.

Thus, the intimate connection between breathing and chi cultivation is unmistakable. Several highly skilled teachers have all said that control of one's breath is necessary to control one's body, one's mind, and one's emotions.

As such, believing this to be true in observing their mastery of the breath, I have included Indian Raja Yoga pranayama and Chinese Tao-Yin breathwork in my daily training regimen for more than half a century to date. It's all good!

I definitely believe that our breath and air are a means of cultivation and would not question your attainment, but that speaks to the particularities of the specific types of Qi that we carry as human beings that nourishes life, right? There's all kinds of qi, internal to our bodies, external in the world around us, and the pattern repeats for every thing that can be said to be a thing.

And when we talk about Qi, what gets confusing is that we often mix meanings without regard for any sort of clarity. The TCM concept life energy qi that you're referring to as keeping you going without food and water isn't ALWAYS the same as what we're worried about with martial arts, right?

It gets confusing huh.

I see it like the radio, right? Kinda. In this case, the food/air/water qi is like the battery power, but then to induce the body to produce Jin we have to coax the various qi of the individual body parts out and adjust and manipulate them for effectiveness, like tuning and aligning the antenna.

Like with a weapon, there are ways it wants to move and ways it doesn't want to move and ways we can make it move that work but aren't as absolutely good as they could possibly be, right? And all of that is contextual, depending on what we are doing, what the weapon is doing, energy, movement, direction, mass, time of day, direction of the sun.

So we extend our Yi into "the weapon", ting informs us of these degrees of liberty and the desire of the system, and we respond according to our own desire in a way that harmonizes with the nature and context of the overall system.

I'm sure there are better words for this but that's the point of writing here, finding them.

Essentially, what you're referring to is a type or manifestation of Qi, and what I'm searching for is a universal understanding of Qi that applies there and everywhere.

To that end, qi is the information or energy that is carried or expressed by , for lack of a better term, the ten thousand things, that sustains the things and interacts with the world around them. Heat/vibration/movement, air, electricity... Crap... I got pulled away to tend to some business and lost my train of thought...

I go back to wind. The qi of cold air falls and the qi of hot air rises, wind is pulled between the two. The wind is not the qi, but the qi moves the wind and the wind carries qi.

Or something

[Appledog]

I don't hesitate to write this but I struggle to find an entry point. The topic seems as vaporous as the steam rising from cooking rice, which is the description of a common character for Qi.

Yeah I've heard that too. There's 2 main things I heard. One is the logical analysis of the analogy, much like you described; the steam, the rice, the effort, the breath, water, and so forth. Then there is an analogy of water and fire, where the fire is above the water and then the fire is under the water and this eventually heats the water and causes steam buildup. Previously I suspected this was purely an analogy however the description of filling up with peng and the description of "the cooking fire" which is, based on what I have read in books, one of the appelations -- possibly preceded by stress in the mingmen area. But that would again point to a practice, by which the analogy can be experienced and understood. Ex. if I told you an apple is "like a sphere", but you had never seen or touched an apple, you may doubt the application of that analogy. But if you were to actually feel or see the apple you would realize that the analogy is much closer to the reality of it than otherwise. I think analogies like the steam and the rice have some truth to them, which is a little closer to the reality of it that is usually suspected.

Or something

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mr. Nishad says there is a certain level where you open your mind beyond the physical constraints of the body. I can't bring myself to accept that the cross domain sensations that he mentions can lead to receiving tangible information from outside of the body. So I think if Mr. Nishad is right, then just doing tai chi as we know it can't really get you to that level. There must be some other concept, some other practice, which is informing it. Maybe this is why Tai Chi is said to be so hard to learn. Maybe I am just stuck in a western scientific mindset and I cannot accept certain things I should have. I'm too stubborn.

[everything]

Better minds than on here have tried to “do the math”. The only universal understanding albeit only a hypothesis is that it all boils down to energy which all boils down to “strings” vibrating.

If you look at the ultimate physics, we are at a similar place to saying it’s all “Qi”.

So it’s fascinating but maybe frustrating depending on where one wants to focus.

To have perception of a “Qi ball”, perception of “Qi moving inside” or “Qi outside” as some neigong baby steps is one area for example.

Most people probably want to skip important steps and break a board or something and that is probably fundamental error one. I know I wanted to just learn some throws and not just template fixed PH roll back.

[Bao]

Actually, the original character is the same as the "new" or the simplified character without the rice radical: 气

The radicals were added to distinguish different characters from each other or to simply suggest the proper pronunciation.

"Human Qi", as described in the OP, is only one type of "Qi". Qi doesn't even have to mean breath or energy, it can be understood as "movement", "heat" or "that something has qi" can simply mean that something is functioning properly without hindrance.

"Qi" is in fact a very broad philosophical concept that has meant different things over the centuries, been interpreted differently and used in many different ways. Zhang Zai (1020–1077) for instance meant that the origin of the universe was Qi and that Qi is everywhere. That there is nothing earlier or beyond it. Well, today there are similar opinions, that there is no genuine "nothingness", but some kind of field that permeates everything (quantum foam).

[origami_itto]

I don't hesitate to write this but I struggle to find an entry point. The topic seems as vaporous as the steam rising from cooking rice, which is the description of a common character for Qi.

Yeah I've heard that too. There's 2 main things I heard. One is the logical analysis of the analogy, much like you described; the steam, the rice, the effort, the breath, water, and so forth. Then there is an analogy of water and fire, where the fire is above the water and then the fire is under the water and this eventually heats the water and causes steam buildup. Previously I suspected this was purely an analogy however the description of filling up with peng and the description of "the cooking fire" which is, based on what I have read in books, one of the appelations -- possibly preceded by stress in the mingmen area. But that would again point to a practice, by which the analogy can be experienced and understood. Ex. if I told you an apple is "like a sphere", but you had never seen or touched an apple, you may doubt the application of that analogy. But if you were to actually feel or see the apple you would realize that the analogy is much closer to the reality of it than otherwise. I think analogies like the steam and the rice have some truth to them, which is a little closer to the reality of it that is usually suspected.

In meditation the fire under water is also related to the unification of the pre-natal and post-natal breath in the dantien. After Completion in the I Ching.

The problem is when we lose sight of our practice and over-engage in speculation as a replacement for discussing the practice itself. Or doing so from a position of not really understanding why the analogy was made in the first place. Eventually someone says something that breaks the analogy -- ex. "We've eliminated the double weighted and energy can flow, the negative connects to the positive." This is meaningless. It doesn't connect with the feelings we get from practical experience. It isn't something we can use as shared cultural experience.

ex. "qi is the information or energy that is carried or expressed by, for lack of a better term, the ten thousand things, that sustains the things and interacts with the world around them. [...] Or something"

?

There is a difference between "I don't understand what you are saying" and "What you are saying is wrong"
It's not always apparent to the one saying it. Refer to Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching.

I think a greater problem is when we try to police the mental activity of others by limiting them to our own understanding instead of expanding our understanding to meet them. I can throw out analogies all day long, but really just takes one to land.

Why don't you want to talk about the feelings that arise during practice? I look up to people like you who have been practicing for decades. It scares me when I present something like this and there is no answer. I want to believe.

That's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about what Qi is from a broad perspective. What is this thing that the Chinese say is everywhere?
Sensations and perceptions and individual and independent phenomenon are relevant, but this is where I feel we get confused. We see something that is Qi and think "Okay this is QI, this is everywhere" then when someone says "this is Qi" we can't accept that, because it is different.

The qi of the fire is different than the qi of the water, and together they produce the qi of the steam.

Sometimes Qi is like touching your tongue to a battery. Sometimes it's like a solid wind. Sometimes it's a steel cord. Sometimes it's a firehose. Sometimes it's a tiny pearl. Sometimes it's the entire universe.

None of that is meaningful or useful beyond a certain limited scope without understanding more of what this concept is and realizing that we work with different manifestations of it and we aren't feeling the Qi so much as we are feeling what it's doing.

[edit] Here I will give you a direct example of my concern from the what is Chi video. Mr. Nishad says that all of the Chinese practices were perception based--based on the actual perceptions of the people who studied the arts. Great, same page, thats what I said above, I think you said you agreed with what he said in the video. So then he continues, qi is the primary function within the system -- again, same thing was said in the other thread. So far, we are all on the same page. But then he says there is a certain level where you open your mind beyond the physical constraints of the body. This is an analogy break. The cross domain sensations that Mr. Nishad explains cannot lead to verifiable experiences outside of the physical domain of the body. You cannot "feel chi in the space around you" -- at least, if you can, it is not a result of the practice of physical sensation.

Being as charitable as possible let me pose the problem this way. When that kind of 'analogy break' occurs, even if the thing being discussed is real, there is no way to approach or understand it from within the art. If Mr. Nishad is right, then just doing tai chi can't really get you to that level. There must be some other concept, some other practice, which is informing it. Maybe this is why Tai Chi is said to be so hard to learn. Maybe I am just stuck in a western scientific mindset and I cannot accept certain things I should have. I'm too stubborn.

I really need to get back to work but this may be helpful?

The nature of water is to seep into the earth and dissipate, the nature of fire is to rise to heaven and dissipate.
A human saw this and saw the Qi of fire and water and brought fire into alignment over water to create the qi steam. Instead of letting them take their natural course, they reversed Yin and Yang and were able to synergize a new energy. By combining their natural energy and information we create a third and we can push a freight train with it.

This is Qi, this is seeing the Qi of the thing and seeing how it affects the things around it. This enables you to manipulate it and then to manipulate them.

So we start inside the body, what can we see in the body, how can we manipulate it? Not just one thing. Many things. How do they work together? What is the pipeline? Not just one thing.

That sorted, how does that body fit into the world? What can we reach out and touch? How can we touch it? We can't grasp a flame, but we can blow it out, we can divide and feed it. It's all Qi.

In some ways it's like color. Some of us are colorblind, some super-seers. Some have no pallate, some are super-tasters. You can expand your natural ability, but I think there is ultimately a ceiling on what you can achieve based on nothing more than genetics and not damaging yourself.

I think that is the real danger in talking too much about it. Can you imagine if you were the only one in the world that could see your favorite color? How much could you talk about that without getting crucified?

[Appledog]

I don't hesitate to write this but I struggle to find an entry point. The topic seems as vaporous as the steam rising from cooking rice, which is the description of a common character for Qi.

Yeah I've heard that too. There's 2 main things I heard. One is the logical analysis of the analogy, much like you described; the steam, the rice, the effort, the breath, water, and so forth. Then there is an analogy of water and fire, where the fire is above the water and then the fire is under the water and this eventually heats the water and causes steam buildup. Previously I suspected this was purely an analogy however the description of filling up with peng and the description of "the cooking fire" which is, based on what I have read in books, one of the appelations -- possibly preceded by stress in the mingmen area. But that would again point to a practice, by which the analogy can be experienced and understood. Ex. if I told you an apple is "like a sphere", but you had never seen or touched an apple, you may doubt the application of that analogy. But if you were to actually feel or see the apple you would realize that the analogy is much closer to the reality of it than otherwise. I think analogies like the steam and the rice have some truth to them, which is a little closer to the reality of it that is usually suspected.

In meditation the fire under water is also related to the unification of the pre-natal and post-natal breath in the dantien. After Completion in the I Ching.

The problem is when we lose sight of our practice and over-engage in speculation as a replacement for discussing the practice itself. Or doing so from a position of not really understanding why the analogy was made in the first place. Eventually someone says something that breaks the analogy -- ex. "We've eliminated the double weighted and energy can flow, the negative connects to the positive." This is meaningless. It doesn't connect with the feelings we get from practical experience. It isn't something we can use as shared cultural experience.

ex. "qi is the information or energy that is carried or expressed by, for lack of a better term, the ten thousand things, that sustains the things and interacts with the world around them. [...] Or something"

?

There is a difference between "I don't understand what you are saying" and "What you are saying is wrong"
It's not always apparent to the one saying it. Refer to Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching.

I think a greater problem is when we try to police the mental activity of others by limiting them to our own understanding instead of expanding our understanding to meet them. I can throw out analogies all day long, but really just takes one to land.

Why don't you want to talk about the feelings that arise during practice? I look up to people like you who have been practicing for decades. It scares me when I present something like this and there is no answer. I want to believe.

That's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about what Qi is from a broad perspective. What is this thing that the Chinese say is everywhere?
Sensations and perceptions and individual and independent phenomenon are relevant, but this is where I feel we get confused. We see something that is Qi and think "Okay this is QI, this is everywhere" then when someone says "this is Qi" we can't accept that, because it is different.

The qi of the fire is different than the qi of the water, and together they produce the qi of the steam.

Sometimes Qi is like touching your tongue to a battery. Sometimes it's like a solid wind. Sometimes it's a steel cord. Sometimes it's a firehose. Sometimes it's a tiny pearl. Sometimes it's the entire universe.

None of that is meaningful or useful beyond a certain limited scope without understanding more of what this concept is and realizing that we work with different manifestations of it and we aren't feeling the Qi so much as we are feeling what it's doing.

[edit] Here I will give you a direct example of my concern from the what is Chi video. Mr. Nishad says that all of the Chinese practices were perception based--based on the actual perceptions of the people who studied the arts. Great, same page, thats what I said above, I think you said you agreed with what he said in the video. So then he continues, qi is the primary function within the system -- again, same thing was said in the other thread. So far, we are all on the same page. But then he says there is a certain level where you open your mind beyond the physical constraints of the body. This is an analogy break. The cross domain sensations that Mr. Nishad explains cannot lead to verifiable experiences outside of the physical domain of the body. You cannot "feel chi in the space around you" -- at least, if you can, it is not a result of the practice of physical sensation.

Being as charitable as possible let me pose the problem this way. When that kind of 'analogy break' occurs, even if the thing being discussed is real, there is no way to approach or understand it from within the art. If Mr. Nishad is right, then just doing tai chi can't really get you to that level. There must be some other concept, some other practice, which is informing it. Maybe this is why Tai Chi is said to be so hard to learn. Maybe I am just stuck in a western scientific mindset and I cannot accept certain things I should have. I'm too stubborn.

I really need to get back to work but this may be helpful?

The nature of water is to seep into the earth and dissipate, the nature of fire is to rise to heaven and dissipate.
A human saw this and saw the Qi of fire and water and brought fire into alignment over water to create the qi steam. Instead of letting them take their natural course, they reversed Yin and Yang and were able to synergize a new energy. By combining their natural energy and information we create a third and we can push a freight train with it.

This is Qi, this is seeing the Qi of the thing and seeing how it affects the things around it. This enables you to manipulate it and then to manipulate them.

So we start inside the body, what can we see in the body, how can we manipulate it? Not just one thing. Many things. How do they work together? What is the pipeline? Not just one thing.

That sorted, how does that body fit into the world? What can we reach out and touch? How can we touch it? We can't grasp a flame, but we can blow it out, we can divide and feed it. It's all Qi.

In some ways it's like color. Some of us are colorblind, some super-seers. Some have no pallate, some are super-tasters. You can expand your natural ability, but I think there is ultimately a ceiling on what you can achieve based on nothing more than genetics and not damaging yourself.

I think that is the real danger in talking too much about it. Can you imagine if you were the only one in the world that could see your favorite color? How much could you talk about that without getting crucified?

[origami_itto]

I guess that information isn't meant for you. Carry on.

[everything]

well broadly speaking people usually say one of these:

1. life force
2. "energy".

those are incredibly abstract and so people have a giant problem (not sure if you are saying you have a problem or if you are just saying this is abstractly interesting).

according to this astronomer, ultimately all our "energy" we use for Earth purposes comes from the Sun. In some sense we say it's "Heaven Qi" or something like that. "Earth Qi" I suppose has been converted via photosynthesis or whatnot. "Human Qi" draws from all of it (see the Huberman Lab videos on getting sunlight). "IMA Qi" is very poorly understood as some niche subset of "Human Qi".

Whatever avenues might have been traveled along the way, all the energy we use in our everyday lives, whether it be for electricity, for food, for powering our cars, whatever, started off in the deep interior of the sun hundreds of thousands of years ago. Indeed, the energy that comes from petroleum – which is basically chemical energy stored within long-dead living forms – and from coal deposits has been stored here on Earth for much longer than that, although it, too, originally came from the sun.

https://www.alamogordonews.com/story/ne ... 0the%20sun.

[robert]

Yeah I've heard that too. There's 2 main things I heard. One is the logical analysis of the analogy, much like you described; the steam, the rice, the effort, the breath, water, and so forth. Then there is an analogy of water and fire, where the fire is above the water and then the fire is under the water and this eventually heats the water and causes steam buildup. Previously I suspected this was purely an analogy however the description of filling up with peng and the description of "the cooking fire" which is, based on what I have read in books, one of the appelations -- possibly preceded by stress in the mingmen area. But that would again point to a practice, by which the analogy can be experienced and understood. Ex. if I told you an apple is "like a sphere", but you had never seen or touched an apple, you may doubt the application of that analogy. But if you were to actually feel or see the apple you would realize that the analogy is much closer to the reality of it than otherwise. I think analogies like the steam and the rice have some truth to them, which is a little closer to the reality of it that is usually suspected.

I agree, I think that's a good point. I think it's useful to point to the practical. When something is difficult to discuss analogies are often turned to, but as you point out they are only useful for those with a common experience.

[everything]

tangible information

if we want to contemplate the nature of the Universe, physicists don't really have it figured out. That quantum foam thing sure is interesting.

if we want to talk about things like perceiving a push, perceiving the hot stove and your hand automatically reacts to the "information" as Bruce Lee said, even doing "hug tree" and feeling "Qi".... it's more and more tangible, but you have to try to not skip the baby steps ime ymmv. it's like theorizing about swimming w/o dipping a toe into the water. it won't be possible to feel more tangible info. even on an IMA (supposedly) forum, people want to reject the "neigong" part of "neijia". I mean, there is nothing wrong with doing "just" judo. It worked for Fedor and Royce just fine. So I get it, but... once you have some rough idea that "umami" is a thing, "sweet" and "salty" on their own are a little boring.

[charles]

…

[origami_itto]

As everything pointed out, you are "contemplating the nature of the universe". It is a noble thing to contemplate and is something that humans have been contemplating since at least recorded history.

While I appreciate the.. encouragement? that's not what I'm doing.

And neither am I speaking in analogy... maybe a little, but not really. It's more of a comparison between similar systems.

If you don't understand what I am saying or why I am saying it then I don't think piling more speech on is going to clarify anything for you.

I very much am interested in learning what others think of Qi.

[everything]

for the non-cosmology stuff, we don't really know what each person individually perceives, kinda just like the see color analogy. i assume nishad can perceive a lot more than me. but what he says seems in accord with my experience and practically helpful.

And you might say this has nothing to do with Taijiquan or anything inside your body, but I say it does, please prove me wrong.

totally agree. qi comes first.

Cultivation is another matter, but I think that understanding what we're cultivating can help move us down the path.

i don't know. the "qi" feels "fuller", more aligned with "yi" for me at super baby level. then that is there while doing "mechanical song" and a "soft art" technical move. ka-blammo... "breaking a board" level unlocked. hopefully the training partner felt the "jin" while you felt the "qi" and the "song".