| | RE: Qi Gong Answer 9/24/14 11:01 PM as a reply to T DC. re T DC -- 9/23/14 4:31 PM
0) Being professionally involved in classical Chinese medicine (i.e. a "licensed acupucturist andherbalist"), and with a background in historical studies, I've also studied the history of the medicine and related practices. (To skip an introductory essay on the historical background of the term 'qigong' and go directly to discussion referencing prior messages in this thread, skip to section (2) below.)
1) 'Qigong' is a term invented in the 1930's Nationalist era (during a period of repression of classical Chinese medical practices, in the name of 'modernization'), meaning literally 'breath work', i.e. a rough equivalent of 'aerobics'. 'Qi' is air, breath, natural gas, vapor, etc. In the classical medicine it refers to the behavior, the physiological activity of living tissue and organisms, i.e. moving, warming, transforming (e.g. growth), defending, and holding things in place. In Western new-age terminology, it's often called (s/w problematically) 'energy' or'vital force'.
Qi embodies, actualizes the 'yang' principle, and just as 'yang' is inseparable from 'yin', the embodied 'yin' counterpart is called 'xue' or 'blood,' which refers to not only the red liquid, but also to the 'stuff', the material pole of physiology. Qi is living activity, xue is that which is acted upon or is the physical basis of that activity. Like yin-yang, qi-xue are mutually interdependent. Classically, "qi is the commander of blood, and blood is the mother of qi." Qi produces physiological activity, blood provides the raw materials (glucose, oxygen), plus the organic and musculo-skeletal system of stuff that manifests living activity (movement, transformation,…).
In the 1950's, the term 'qigong' was adopted by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party – the current dynasty) as a generic term for many types of exercise, under the umbrella of TCM ("Traditional Chinese Medicine"). "TCM" itself is a modern fabrication, actually a 'school' of thought among many others over a 2000 year history of the medicine, fashioned to make use of large resources of traditional practitioners, but on apath to the incorporation (the currently modish "integrative medicine" was invented by the Chinese) into a Western medical model. They use 'qigong' also as an umbrella term to include simple aerobic-like breath exercises, as well as traditional 'moving meditations', and even soft-form martial arts, like TaiJiQuan.Various practices involving posture and motion (s/t called 'moving meditation') were cultivated over the prior 2000-3000 years, but under other names. The most common is perhaps 'daoyin' (where 'dao' is a different word than that in 'Daoism,' and 'yin' is a different word than that in 'yinyang'). The earliest concrete documentation is an illustrated manuscript (actually a picture book) of medical exercises, titled 'daoyin, 'found in a tomb in 1972, where the tomb itself was sealed in 285 BCE.
Things like what T DC and others here refer to, particularly in connection with Daoist 'internal alchemy', were probably originally called daoyin – not to deny that everybody and their brother use the blanket term 'qigong today' –it's CCP orthodoxy, in large part to intended to strip the practices of their, in many cases, original connections with quasi-religious ideas and practices, which are a major no-no in the PRC. (Witness the persecution of the FaLunGong sect.)
2) T DC's description of methods from Robert Peng closely approximates the system of Daoist "InternalAlchemy" as I learned it from a Daoist master (Jeffrey Yuen) who specializes in the classical medicine. E.g. dealing with the three 'dan tiens' housed in the three major "boney cavities" ofthe body – the pelvic cavity, the thorax, and the cranium (skull). The proper progression of cultivation –the alchemy – involves careful practice (meditation and exercises) beginning in the lower dantien, working on the 'jing' based in thepelvis. When that's ripe (which may take months or years), spontaneously generating heat as in an alchemical oven ready to 'transmute' jing into something more refined. (In a daoyin form I learned from one Wu BaoLin, this is termed 'lian dan' – 'smelting the elixer'.) Then cultivation proceeds to the middle dantien in the chest, the seat of 'qi'. This is cultivated, heated, smelted (again, often many years), until it transmutes, before proceeding to the top, cranial dantien that houses the 'shui' (marrow, the grey stuff inside the head-bone, i.e. the brain). Often modern practitioners use the term 'shen' or 'spirit' for this dantien, but back in the early centuries of the first millennium, when internal alchemy was first being formulated, 'shui' was the original term in the texts (according to Jeffery; needless to say, other authors may differ on this, just like in Buddhism).
The interesting part (in the context of DhO) – cultivation of the top dantien (taking perhaps a lifetime, if at all attained) culminates in the blossoming, the 'opening of the third eye', whereby vision extends in all directions, near and far, in both time and space. Obviously a Daoist version of realization or awakening.
(Note: also obviously related to the 'opening of the Golden Flower', which we may recognize from thatfamous 18th-(or 19th-?) century Daoist-Buddhismesoteric practice guide ("The Secret of the Golden Flower, "as translated in the 1990's by Thomas Cleary, improving upon the seriously flawed translation in the 1920's by Richard Wilhelm and C.G. Jung.)
T DC points to a common problem that afflicts people, especially Westerners, who undertake some paths without proper guidance: immature jumping to cultivation of the upper dantiens (before adequate grounding in the lower) results in serious, even dangerous imbalance. We may recognize this when people speak of 'kundalini'-type cultivations, unleashing fire up through the body to the top. Unless it's adequately grounded in the lower dantiens (in water and earth), this fire becomes destructive, i.e. even to the point of psychosis.
3) Ascribing such an unbalanced approach to Buddhist practice is problematic. Depends on who is reporting what practice. Again, a tendency in some Western approaches, in the jumping right into advanced insight realms (vipassana to panna), without thorough grounding in the soil ofethical behavior (sila, including care of the body), and clarification of the mind with concentration practice (samadhi).
4) A footnote: PaAuk Saydaw, theBurmese master especially known for mastery and teaching of Jhana practice, mentions (somewhere in the book "The Workings Of Kamma") that the breath at the nostrils is the 'beginning' of the breath, in the chest (lungs) is the 'middle', and in the lower body ('kidney',in Chinese symbolism) is the 'end'. This is a play on a Buddhist saying (that he invokes regularly) that the Dhamma is good (fruitful, rewarding) at the beginning, through the middle stages, and especially at the end/goal. It also may be taken to symbolize that the anapanna meditation object at the nostrils corresponds to the mind (top dantien), and extends into, is properly rooted in, the middle and lower dantiens.
5) Jeff Grove (9/23/14 5:26 PM as a reply to T DC) correctly points out that disregarding the body's health is really not characteristic in the Buddha's teaching. (Not to say that some people's idea of "Buddhist thought" doesn't go in that direction.) Remember the Buddha's emphasis on a 'middleway' between acetisicm (punishing the body) and sensual indulgence. And also that one of the only four 'possessions' allowed to those'gone-forth' ('recluses', monastics) is medicine (in addition to food, clothing and shelter).
6) Jeff also mentions that "the Thais have some energy exercises." This is exmplified in the teaching of Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Than-Geof). Standard fare in his introductory meditation techniques "first get the body into position for meditation" -- getting the body into a state of comfort and ease, using the breath, e.g. in a version of 'body-scanning'. (Then, "get the mind into position into position", often using Brahmavihara practice establish goodwill, compassion, appreciation and equinimity as mental comfort and ease.)
Than-Geof s/t uses the word 'qi,' though perhaps as a general new-age usage. But, more significantly, he also uses images of dispelling, flushing out tensions, blockages in bodily feeling (sensed in the course of 'breathing though them'), eliminating them through the finger-tips (from the head and upper body), or the toe-tips (from the torso and lower body). This is distinctly a classical Chinese medical practice, and prominent in Daoist moving-meditation practices; the finger- and toe-tips are considered crucial foci of qi, the places where the channels meet and communciate. In the medicine, we often use heat or needling at the corners of the nails (where the skin is less thick from callousing) to strongly influence the qi and blood. (And in modern neuro-physiology, it is well know that the finger-/toe-tips have the densest concentration of nerve endings (along with the lips), and correspondingly the largest areas of influence in the mapping regions of the brain.)
Than-Geof also mentions that these practices stems from his teachers (Ajahn Fuang, going back to Ajahn Lee, and then to Ajahn Mun – a founder of that lineage of the Thai Forest Tradition). Thai, Vietnamese (and perhaps Cambodian, Burmese) peoples and cultures are known to have ancient roots from, or at least in common with, the Chinese.
Droll Dedekind also accurately depicts practices along similar lines, and exessive top-heavy vs bottom/grounded pathological tendencies in some Western circles. I would, however, agree more with Than-Geof that active qualities of skillful practice are the primary remedies to obstacles, the more passive (just watch it until it subsides) techniques being more last resort. (In line with his general critique of "acceptance","bare/choiceless awareness" etc. – i.e. the Vipassana/Insight Movement party-line -- as a one-sided, if not distorted understanding of the Buddha's teachings.)
(Examples of Than-Geof's guided-meditation techniques along these lines are abundant in recorded dharma-talks and day-long workshops available at the DharmaSeed and AudioDharma websites. I can point out specific ones, if anyone's interested.) |