to contribute what I can. I sincerely hope that the government, universities, or private organizations will sponsor this project to expedite this Qigong cultural exchange.
In this new edition, some new concepts have been added and some old concepts have been deleted. Not only that, for those readers who understand, the Chinese characters are immediately included in the text when the Chinese is mentioned. In addition, when this book was written, the Chinese romanization system called Pinyin was not yet popular. Therefore, an older system was used. However, Pinyin is now widely used in the West in both scholastic and lay societies, so this book follows the Pinyin romanization system. In addition, new typesetting has been done to make this book easier to read. Finally, the glossary and translation of Chinese terms have been combined, and an index has been added.
Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming Boston, January 15, 1997
Qigong (
Until recently, Qigong training was usually kept secret, especially within martial arts systems or religions such as Buddhism and Daoism. Only acupuncture and some health-related Qigong exercises were available to the general public. During the last twenty years these secrets have become available to the general public through publications and open teaching. Medical professionals have finally been able to test Qigong more widely and scientifically, and they have found that it can help or cure a number of diseases that Western medicine has difficulty treating, including some forms of cancer. Many of my students and readers report that after practicing Qigong, they have changed from being weak to strong, from depressed to happy, and from sick to healthy.
Since Qigong can bring so many benefits, I feel that it is my responsibility to collect the available published documents and compile them, filter them, understand them, and introduce them to those who cannot read them in their original Chinese. It is, however, impossible for one person alone to experience and understand the fruit of four thousand years of Qigong research. I hope that other Qigong experts will share this responsibility and publish the information that they have been taught, as well as what they have learned through research and experimentation.
Even though Qigong has been researched in China for four thousand years, there are still many questions which can only be answered through recourse to today’s technology and interdisciplinary knowledge. Contemporary, enthusiastic minds will have plenty of opportunity to research and promote the art. This is not a job that can be done through one individual’s effort. It requires a group of experts including Western-style doctors, Qigong experts, acupuncturists, and equipment design specialists to sit down and work together and exchange their research results. A formal organization with adequate financial support will be needed. If this research is properly conducted, it should succeed not only in providing validation of Qigong for the Western mind, but it may also come up with the most efficient methods of practice. I feel certain that Qigong will become very popular in a short time, and bring many people a healthier and happier life. This is a new field for Western science, and it will need a lot of support to catch up to the research that has already been done in China. I hope sincerely that Qigong science will soon become one of the major research fields in colleges and universities in this country.
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PART ONE
In their seven thousand years of history, the Chinese people have experienced all possible human suffering and pain. Chinese culture is like a very old man who has seen and experienced all of the pain of human life. Yet through his experience, he has also accumulated a great store of knowledge. Chinese culture, as reflected in its literature and painting, ranks among the greatest achievements of the human spirit. It reflects humankind’s joy and grief, pleasure and suffering, peace and strife, vitality, sickness, and death.
Within this complex cultural and historical background, the Chinese people have long sought ways of living healthy and happy lives. However, as they looked for ways to better themselves and seek spiritual fulfillment, they have also tended to believe that everything that happens is due to destiny, and that it is prearranged by heaven. Despite this fatalistic belief, they have still looked for ways to resist the apparent inevitability of sickness and death.
The Chinese have devoted a large part of their intellectual effort to self-study and self-cultivation in the hope of understanding the meaning of their lives. This inward-feeling and looking, this spiritual searching, has become one of the major roots of Chinese religion and medical science. Qi, the energy within the human body, was studied very carefully. As people perceived the link between the Qi in the human body and the Qi in nature, they began to hope that this Qi was the means whereby man could escape from the trap of sickness and death. Over the years, many different sectors of Chinese society have studied and researched Qi.
Of all the researchers, the scholars and the doctors have had the longest history, and they have brought the understanding of Qi to a very deep level. It was they who learned the methods of maintaining health and curing sickness. Chinese medical science has developed out of the Qi research of the physicians.
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When Indian Buddhism was imported into China, it profoundly influenced Chinese culture. Naturally, Chinese Qigong was also affected by the Buddhist meditative practices. The Daoist religion was created out of a mixture of traditional scholarly Daoism and Buddhism. Since that time, Buddhist and Daoist Qigong have been considered among the greatest achievements of Chinese culture.
Daoism and Buddhism have not only brought the Chinese people a peaceful, spiritual mind which may untie the mystery of human life and destiny, they have also created a hope that the development of Qigong may give people a healthy and happy life while they are alive, and an eternal spiritual life after death. When viewed from this historical background, it is not hard to understand why a major part of Chinese culture in the last two thousand years, other than warfare and possibly medical science, were based on the religions of Daoism and Buddhism, and spiritual science.
The emphasis on the spiritual life, rather than the material, is one of the major differences between Eastern and the Western cultures. An example of this is in the maintenance of health, where the West emphasizes the physical body more, while the East tends to also treat the person’s spiritual and mental health.
Most Westerners believe that if you strengthen your physical body, you also improve your health. They emphasize the exercising and training of the physical body, but they ignore the balancing of the body’s
