marujiana (weed)

[unkokusai]

do you believe in anything?

I believe you are an idiot.

[cjurakpt]

I don't believe in Qi.

In Russia, Qi doesn't believe in you!

[uki]

I believe you are an idiot.

well thats a start.

[SimonM]

I believe that reason can help to make the world a more compassionate place.
I believe that compassion is right.
I believe that religion is not a necessary prerequisite to morality.

In short there are things I do believe in... but most of them are things that can be verified.

I also believe there are no gods.

This can not be verified as it is a position on what is called a non-disprovable idea.

However I stand by it anyway.

[GreenCloudCLF]

See potheads are so scattered they cannot stay on one thread dedicated to their drug use. They need to use 2 threads...

[SimonM]

Come on GCCLF, threads go off-topic all the time regardless of the topic and participants. You know that.

And because I always post from work I never post stoned. Because the closest to a drug I will EVER get while at work is coffee and advil.

[QiFlowMaster]

Hi Simon,

This is not an attack, just a neutral question:

If you don't believe in Qi, why do you practice Qigong? I'm assuming you do practice, since you are posting in the Qigong/Meditation forum.

Regards,
QiFlowMaster

[cjurakpt]

Hi Simon,

This is not an attack, just a neutral question:

If you don't believe in Qi, why do you practice Qigong? I'm assuming you do practice, since you are posting in the Qigong/Meditation forum.

Regards,
QiFlowMaster

being in the same camp as Simon (practice qigong, but skeptical towards "qi" as an actual "thing"), I'll take a stab at this:

it's not a question of disbelieving in "qi", it's a question of what "qi" actually is and is not; in other words, many people believe that "qi" is a separate, quantifiable, observable "thing", a discreet force similar to the way electricity, heat, magnetism, gravity, etc. are discreet phenomena; as such, they believe that "qi" can be measured by just the right machine, or that showing how someone intentionally projecting "qi" can have an effect on other types of living matter (plants, people)

then there is the perspective I subscribe to, which is that "qi" is not a thing, but a descriptor used in Chinese culture to describe functional interrelationships within the body and with its environment; it is a descriptor developed over many centuries based on observation of how the body functions in health and disease, in context of Taoist metaphorical theory (e.g. - internal body landscape, 5 element theory, etc.); not having the technology to directly view structure and function at the level first available in the 19th & 20th centuries, "qi" is used to organize and predict the often non-linear manner in which body / organ systems interact, on their own, when dysfunctional and when receiving treatment

therefore, when looking at qigong, what we are considering are the effects of movement, breathing and visualization on the human organism; IMPE, having subjectively practiced various qigong, including Micro / macro orbits, muscle change, six healing sounds, and other Complete Reality, Dragon Gate Sect sequences (just to give you an idea of my background for correlation), I have subjectively experienced numerous things "internally"; now, I could have simply attributed all these experiences to "qi"; however, as a medical professional (PT), my personal interest has been to correlate my internal subjective experience with current understanding of anatomy / physiology; what I believe is that what I have experienced thus far is fully describable via that understanding; as such, since I have come across no experience that completely defies current knowledge, I do not feel the need to qualify my experiences in terms of "qi"; not that, as a system, it is incorrect per se, and I certainly disparage no one's judicious use of it, but I simply do not think it is necessarily required to describe the internal effects in terms of "qi" at this juncture; personally, my feeling is that if I am able to substantiate qigong based on contemporary understanding, it does not nullify the "old" way, it actually strengthens it, because it verifies that qigong "works" based on a set of criteria that were not around when it was "created"!

so again, if I feel certain things happening internally when I practice micro orbit, I ca use the classical "dragons ascending in the field" imagery; or, I can assess it from the stand point of autonomic nervous system function in context of postural organization and respiratory function; now, some will say that doing so from the second perspective makes the practice loose it's essence, to describe it "only" from this perspective is inherently limited; I disagree - just because I describe something from so-called western perspective does not cause me to loose my admiration for it, my sense of awe - to me, the way we organize posturally in gravity is an amazing, complex and multi-layered process that one can explore in great depth and derive significant understanding about many things not directly related to it!

anyway, I just feel that the "supremacy" of "qi" as a concept in regards to qigong is something that must be questioned strenuously - so-called 'western" science is more than up to the task of describing what goes on w/qigong practice, but it requires thinking about it a certain way, a way that I personally have invested a great deal of time in with just that purpose in mind

I don't know if this answers your question, but, given the degree of equanimity with which you posted your question, I am certainly happy to correspond with you on the matter; please contribute any thoughts you have on the matter (and hopefully Simon will chime in as well)

[SimonM]

Hi Simon,

This is not an attack, just a neutral question:

If you don't believe in Qi, why do you practice Qigong? I'm assuming you do practice, since you are posting in the Qigong/Meditation forum.

Regards,
QiFlowMaster

I practice Iron Thread... which is an excelent form of isodynamic exercise nicely packaged with a form of meditation.

Furthermore meditation, as an activity, is one that has absolutely nothing to do with Qi and as you pointed out: this is the Qigong/Meditation forum. I have practiced various forms of meditation for over 20 years.

As far as I am concerned Qigong represents nothing more than a category of controlled breathing meditative activities and exercises which have been mystified by the combinations of poor translation of Chinese concepts such as "breath" (qi) and adherence to pre-scientific paradigms by martial arts and religious instructors.

I also do not believe in the internal/external divide and yet I will post about Xingyi in the internal arts forum since that is where topical posts on this style, which I have practiced, are.

[uki]

As far as I am concerned Qigong represents nothing more than a category of controlled breathing meditative activities and exercises which have been mystified by the combinations of poor translation of Chinese concepts such as "breath" (qi) and adherence to pre-scientific paradigms by martial arts and religious instructors.

in other words, until there is satisfactory proof of the existence of qi beyond your limited comprehension, you will ultimately deny it's existence because you lack the capability to believe otherwise...

[SimonM]

I do lack the ability to blindly believe in phenomena that can not be objectively demonstrated to exist especially when the reputed consequences of those phenomena can be explained more easily by the actions of phenomena that can be objectively demonstrated to exist.

We call that clear thinking.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I do lack the ability to blindly believe in phenomena that can not be objectively demonstrated to exist especially when the reputed consequences of those phenomena can be explained more easily by the actions of phenomena that can be objectively demonstrated to exist.

We call that clear thinking.

Someone has just toe kicked the prostate gland !

[uki]

Someone has just toe kicked the prostate gland !

maybe yours...

[SimonM]

Ah, the much maligned "I'm rubber, you're glue" defense.

Real grown-up of you Uki.

[uki]

Real grown-up of you Uki.

growing up is for people growing old...