GLOSSARY
Qi
Qi [pronounced "chee"] is a traditional Chinese word that refers to all the energy and matter that exists in the universe. In Neo-Confucian philosophy, it is organized by the li to create everything that is tangible in the universe.
In traditional Chinese thought, qi was understood as an energy force that is both perceptible and somewhat intangible. One scholar summarizes the traditional conception of qi as "the formless but configuring primal energy present in everything that existed. Qi was associated with wind, breath, life, vapors arising from cooked grain, the human spirit, strong emotions, and sexual arousal."
[1] Chapter 9, "The material soul," page 143.
[2] Trigger, B. G. (2003). Understanding Early Civilizations, New York: Cambridge University Press, 416.
Still another approach was developed by Zhang Zai (1020-1077), who focused his attention on the qi – the energy force, both material and spiritual in character, which, as described in Chapter 12, was understood by the Chinese to pervade the entire universe.[1] Qi was, in Zhang’s view, “the fundamental substance by which all processes of the universe can be explained.”[2] Instead of the Buddhist emptiness, Zhang’s universe was entirely filled with qi. Zhang characterized qi as both indestructible and continually transforming, an understanding which – in the first of many such instances – accurately presages the law of conservation of energy first formulated in Europe in the 19th century, which states that while energy can change its form within a system, it can neither be created nor destroyed. Zhang emphasized the dynamic, ever-changing nature of qi, which he saw as manifesting what he called the Great Harmony of the Dao. “It embraces,” he wrote, “the nature which underlies all counter processes of floating and sinking, rising and falling, and motion and rest. It is the origin of the process of fusion and intermingling, of overcoming and being overcome, and of expansion and contraction.”
[1] Chapter 9, "The material soul," page 143.
[2] Trigger, B. G. (2003). Understanding Early Civilizations, New York: Cambridge University Press, 416.
Still another approach was developed by Zhang Zai (1020-1077), who focused his attention on the qi – the energy force, both material and spiritual in character, which, as described in Chapter 12, was understood by the Chinese to pervade the entire universe.[1] Qi was, in Zhang’s view, “the fundamental substance by which all processes of the universe can be explained.”[2] Instead of the Buddhist emptiness, Zhang’s universe was entirely filled with qi. Zhang characterized qi as both indestructible and continually transforming, an understanding which – in the first of many such instances – accurately presages the law of conservation of energy first formulated in Europe in the 19th century, which states that while energy can change its form within a system, it can neither be created nor destroyed. Zhang emphasized the dynamic, ever-changing nature of qi, which he saw as manifesting what he called the Great Harmony of the Dao. “It embraces,” he wrote, “the nature which underlies all counter processes of floating and sinking, rising and falling, and motion and rest. It is the origin of the process of fusion and intermingling, of overcoming and being overcome, and of expansion and contraction.”