The Root of Chinese Qigong. Jwing-Ming Yang

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theory, and determine what next needs to be studied.

      It is the same with Qigong practice. If you look and study carefully, you will see that, although many of the Qi-related theories were proven accurate and have been widely used in China, there are still many questions which still need to be answered.

      During the course of study you must be patient and persevering. Strong will, patience, and perseverance are the three main components of success. This is especially true in Qigong training. Your will and wisdom must be able to dominate and conquer your emotional laziness. I believe that a person’s success depends on his attitude toward life and his moral character, rather than his wisdom and intelligence. We’ve all known people who were wise, yet ended up losers. They may be smart, and they pick things up more quickly than other people, but they soon lose interest. If they don’t persevere, they stop learning and growing, and they never achieve their goals. They never realize that success demands moral virtues, and not just wisdom. A person who is truly wise knows that he must develop the other requirements for success.

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      In addition, a person who is truly wise will know when to start and when to stop. Many opportunities to succeed are lost by people who are too proud of their intelligence. There is a Chinese story about a group of people who competed in a snake-drawing contest. One man completed his drawing of a snake faster than anybody else. He was very proud of himself, and he thought “I’m so fast I could even draw four legs on the snake and still win!” So he drew the legs on, but when the judge chose the winner, it was somebody else. The man was very upset, and asked the judge why he didn’t win; after all, he had finished before everyone else. The judge said: “You were supposed to draw a snake. Since snakes don’t have legs, what you drew was not a snake.” So, as smart as the man was, he didn’t have the sense to know when to stop.

      A person who is really wise understands that real success depends not only his wisdom but also on his moral character. Therefore, he will also cultivate his moral character and develop his good personality. Confucius said: “A man who is really wise knows what he knows and also knows what he does not know.”² Too often people who are smart become satisfied with their accomplishments and lose their humility. They feel that they know enough, and so they stop learning and growing. In the long run they will only lose. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. If the rabbit had not been so proud and satisfied, he would not have lost the race.

      Once you understand what has been passed down to you, you should be creative. Naturally, this creativity must be under one condition: that you must understand the old way clearly and thoroughly. Only after you understand the old knowledge to a deep level will your mind be qualified to think “what if...” Then you will be able to come up with good ideas for further study and research. If all Qigong practitioners only practice the old ways and never search for new ones, the science of Qigong will stagnate at its current level. In that case, we will have lost the real meaning of and attitude toward learning.

      This book is the most fundamental of the YMAA Qigong book series. It offers you the foundation of knowledge and training practices which is required to understand subsequent YMAA Qigong books. This book consists of four major parts. The first part will briefly summarize Qigong history, explain the necessary Qigong terminology, and discuss the major Qigong categories. The second part will discuss the theory and major keys to Qigong training. This will enable the Qigong beginner to enter the door to the Qigong garden, and will offer the experienced practitioner a directory to the various types of Qigong. The third part will review the Qi channels and vessels to help you understand the Qi circulatory system in the human body. Finally, the fourth part will conclude the discussion in this book, and list some of the many questions I have about Qigong.

       References

      1. When Chinese medicine refers to an organ, such as the spleen, kidney, or bladder, they are not necessarily referring to the physical organ, but rather to a system of functions which are related to the organ.

      2.

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CHAPTER 2

       History of Qigong

      The history of Chinese Qigong can be roughly divided into four periods. We know little about the first period, which is considered to have started when the Yi Jing (Book of Changes, ) was introduced sometime before 1122 B.C., and to have extended until the Han dynasty (206 B.C., ) when Buddhism and its meditation methods were imported from India. This infusion brought Qigong practice and meditation into the second period, the religious Qigong era. This period lasted until the Liang dynasty (502-557 A.D., ), when it was discovered that Qigong could be used for martial purposes. This was the beginning of the third period, that of martial Qigong. Many different martial Qigong styles were created based on the theories and principles of Buddhist and Daoist Qigong. This period lasted until the overthrow of the Qing dynasty () in 1911, when the new era started in which Chinese Qigong training is being mixed with Qigong practices from India, Japan, and many other countries.

2-1. Before the Han Dynasty (Before 206 B.C.)( )

      The Yi Jing (Book of Changes; 1122 B.C.) was probably the first Chinese book related to Qi. It introduced the concept of the three natural energies or powers (San Cai, ): Tian (Heaven, ), Di (Earth, ), and Ren (Man, ). Studying the relationship of these three natural powers was the first step in the development of Qigong.

      In 1766-1154 B.C. (the Shang dynasty, ), the Chinese capital was in today’s An Yang in Henan province (). An archeological dig there at a late Shang dynasty burial ground called Yin Xu () discovered more than 160,000 pieces of turtle shell and animal bone which were covered with written characters. This writing, called “Jia Gu Wen” (Oracle-Bone Scripture, ), was the earliest evidence of the Chinese use of the written word. Most of the information recorded was of a religious nature. There was no mention of acupuncture or other medical knowledge, even though it was recorded in the Nei Jing () that during the reign of the Yellow emperor (2690-2590 B.C., ) Bian Shi (stone probes, ) were already being used to

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