In my readings I've come across various concepts which seem all to have some energetic component to them. I figured that these all must be related in one way or another. In Daoism you'll hear of jing, qi, and shen. There's also de or virtue. And there's gong which I came across in falun gong which I'm not sure if it has an equivalent in another system. And it's said that having a pure heart helps one to keep a calm mind. And having good karma also helps with this. I've experienced something like this before. When I act wrongfully I feel regretful and have an accompanying physical feeling of uneasiness--probably something going on with the qi. How do these different concepts from different systems fit together? Maybe there are different energetic manifestations with some being subtler than others. For example, attaining good karma or 'merit' seems to me to be more suble than doing qi work. That is, one can dig 'deeper' and refine their psyche (for lack of a better word) more so when cultivating with karma than cultivating with qi. Take for example one of the compassionate Buddhists who are described as having compassionate energy radiating from them and who have beautiful qi auras. And the Buddha was also described as having a rainbow-colored aura whereas Lao-zi's was only purple (see "Qigong Empowerment" by Liang and Wu). The Buddhists didn't cultivate their qi in specific, but the qi-like manifestions were of natural consequence of their doing 'deeper work'. [Sorry, I'm trying to be coherent with all this but I don't know how this will turn out.] What is the deepest or subltest 'psychic work'. Maybe my ideas are all mixed up; I'm still sorting this out. Can anyone point me to helpful sources