Can Yuan Qi be replaced after birth?

[Antonius]

These posts have been split from a previous thread by a Moderator due to the nature of the discussion and to allow interested parties to contribute

I didn't say running killed him. But in my opinion, it contributed to his death. Certainly, anyone with advanced coronary artery disease has no business running.

Sifu Wong and I are not the only ones making an argument against running and overexercise. All of the professors at my acupuncture school, including Dr. Hammer (who is a medical doctor in addition to a Chinese doctor), make a similar argument about the dangers of jogging. Overexercise of this sort depletes Qi, especially Heart Qi. In severe cases, especially when patients suddenly stop their running routines, it can contribute to a separation of Yin and Yang, which in Chinese medical theory is a very bad thing.

I'm not interested in arguing about this. It's futile. I'm sure you can paste thousands of articles which talk about the benefits of running. Generally speaking, running is supported by the Western medical community, but not by the Chinese medical community. If you are a runner, it's a tough decision deciding who to believe.

I've read and experienced enough to make my decision. For further reading, I would recommend starting with Dr. Hammer's article: The Unified Theory of Chronic Disease with Regard to the Separation of Yin and Yang and “The Qi is Wild”; Oriental Medical Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2 & 3, 1998.

The article can be found here: http://dragonrises.net/articles.htm

[Chiahua]

Generally speaking, running is supported by the Western medical community, but not by the Chinese medical community.

On the other hand, I take the existence of exercises like art of a thousand steps or other qinggong training methods to mean that the act of running itself is not what is detrimental. It seems like the key difference is in the training strategy. I think it was in one of the Q&A's, but in general in the Eastern approach, a lot of attention is paid to increasing the body's capacity very gradually and respecting one's limits. This would be exemplified by training horse stance where I wouldn't really want to have severe burning in my thighs before I broke for qiflow.
Such an approach would be opposed to the western approach where many runners run to the point of pushing the physiological capacities beyond healthy levels of exertion. The "rush" would be caused by the body releasing endorphins, which in effect is saying,"Ow, I am being pushed too hard, and so I need to release something that will ease the strain". This response if I remember correctly is part of the sympathetic nervous system's "fight or flight" response which is normally reserved for emergencies(this is in the Q&A).

[Antonius]

On the other hand, I take the existence of exercises like art of a thousand steps or other qinggong training methods to mean that the act of running itself is not what is detrimental.

Agreed. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer in my post. The problem here is largely a clash of philosophies. Te philosophy of exercise in the West can almost be summed up in 4 words: "no pain no gain."

This philosophy clashes with the Chinese ideas of gradual progress, and quality training. It also conflicts with many principles of Chinese medicine (e.g. overexercise depletes Qi).

[Michael Udel]

no brain no pain

To follow up with Anthony's statement about not really wanting to argue the validity of jogging, I think if someone is into jogging, they've got their reasons, and they're going to stick with it until they have their own reason to change. I've got two friends, both a couple of years older than me in their late 30's, and it's obvious to me they overtrain frequently. I try to point out to them that being sick and injured most of the time is an indication of a problem, but for whatever reason, they enjoy jogging and cycling too much to stop now.

From a fairly simplistic perspective based on the Eastern philosophy, I wondered why people enjoyed sports like running so much. It seems repetitive and boring, and it drains your energy--considering that most of us don't get to run in the verdant forests like Phil H. I think I can suggest four reasons why someone would jog, lift weights, or eat competitively:

1) lose (or gain) weight, look better, be part of a social scene that participates in this kind of activity

2) physical activity feels good not only because of "runner's high", but because it activates the muscle-meridian system and enhances qi flow as a secondary effect

3) at various stages of life you have more or less amounts of different kinds of qi, and when younger, until you cross over the apex of the "flourishing qi of youth", exercising vigorously and expending energy feels good and has some benefits that will be totally absent after you begin the lengthy decline into the later years of your life

4) it is your fate to acquire one of the many diseases associated with frequent running like arthritis, spinal problems, ankle and knee problems, etc., and the suffering endured from these diseases may lead a person to look deeper into their health and give them a chance for the kind of knowledge people acquire in search of cures for their chronic conditions

Anthony, thanks for the link to your Chinese medicine teacher's articles. I'm reading the one you mentioned.

Michael

[Michael Udel]

random examples

Different people are born with different balances of their yin/yang qi, which has a determining effect on their personality. Also, different people are born with different amounts of yuan, or pre-natal / pre-heaven qi. Almost any top pro athlete is a person who happened to be born, according to their fate, with a very high amount of yuan qi. This kind of person virtually never runs out of energy, even when they are sick and injured. It takes tens of years of over exertion from highly competitive professional sports to exhaust their qi reserves and for them to realize they traded their health—over a long period of time—for money, fame, status, etc.

Examining an individual case does not provide a realiable way to know about the methods that person used to achieve something. Their method may only be good for them, and perhaps a very few others. More likely, and especially when it comes to physical conditioning, an individual case is much more dependent on the individual's balance of yin/yang qi, and the amount of yuan qi they were born with than the method they are using. For a reliable way to examine a method for physical conditioning, you need a lot of evidence over a long period of time.

Considering how quickly the various physical conditioning fads have been changing during the past 50 years in the USA, which includes diet and nutrition, there is almost no method that has stood the test of time, even in the short term, when compared to the knowledge from older cultures. There is no medical or physical fitness authority that has not drastically changed its position on every major health and fitness topic frequently during the past 40 years in the USA.

Is Jack Lalane a fitness genius because at almost 80 years old he can swim across San Francisco bay towing a large boat from a chain in his mouth, or is he just someone who was blessed with tons of yuan qi? How many people have been able to use his methods with similar success as him? What is the actual benefit of repetitive, external training besides the apparent ability to perform more repetitions of external training? The answer isn't 100% good or bad, there are some benefits and some detriments to health, but done in moderation and without the desire to achieve artificial goals, it's mostly good, but it has diminishing returns over time.

In the 60's Jack Lalane was prescribing jumping jacks on TV as a miracle cure for whatever ails you. He used to do them with his German shephard. Now he's into raw foods. If raw foods are so great, why did mankind need fire and develope their cultures around the ability to cook and prepare their food? Is there anything in life where you get something for nothing? If an exercise can be learnt in 60 seconds, can it really provide profound benefits? To get a lot out, you have to put a lot in, that is the law of quality.

[shaolin_mike]

This kind of person virtually never runs out of energy, even when they are sick and injured.

Yes I think that adequately describes someone I know. He goes to lift weights at the gym 2 or 3 times a week, comes to breakdance training about 3 times a week, and now has started going to gymnastics lessons twice a week. All while studying for his degree in Engineering. People like that amaze me because I'm someone who gets tired easily.

[Daniel]

Hi,
From my point of view, anything you do with moderation and common sense is ok. But certainly you can´t compare chikung with cardiovascular training or any other kind of vigorous physical exercice or conditioning. The reason is quite simple: for cardiovascular exercise, first you have to be healthy and strong to begin with and you end with less energy at the end of every workout. Some western doctors recommend this kind of sport or activity to some people with health problems but from chinese medicine perspective the only result these practioners will get if they follow the advice is forced/conditioned internal organs, in other words, the body systems are forced but have no real force!!

Being healthy is a natural right, specially when you are young, but it´s also true that you can´t avoid getting old (which is also a natural truth in our ordinary existence). Many joggers and many gym addicts I´ ve seen may look strong and fit for most people (if you are used to judge health by muscle size or resistance) but if you look carefully you´ll find the effects ot their exercice in their faces, and they "feel" relaxed at the end of their sessions not because they got peace of mind but because they are tired and they have pent up their stress at their energy expense!.

To sum up, cardiovascular training is just what the name implies: you´ll have a cardiovascular system which is used to work over its capacity. Common sense makes easy to imagine if it is good for health!!

Another thing to consider is that in western thinking, mind and energy notions are lost when talking about health and vitality (at least as we know it), so they compare the human body to a machine and the heart as the motor. It doesn´t matter if your engine is very big and powerful, it may not be enough to have decent health, although you could run 50 miles every day.

Daniel

[Michael Udel]

validation without explanation

Yes I think that adequately describes someone I know. He goes to lift weights at the gym 2 or 3 times a week, comes to breakdance training about 3 times a week, and now has started going to gymnastics lessons twice a week. All while studying for his degree in Engineering. People like that amaze me because I'm someone who gets tired easily.

A person born with an exceptionally large amount of yuan qi will spend most of their life, until fate turns the tables on them, enjoying an exuberant existence where many tasks, mental and physical, that most people struggle to accomplish, are very easy for them to perform.

One of the disadvantages these people face is that many of their ideas and notions are not very well thought out or tested. Because they always have energy to carry out their desires, even when they are sick or injured, it seems from their perspective that what they are doing is always right. It's kind of like a person who was blessed with monetarily rich parents. They can be very irresponsible with their money, but because they never run out of cash, it seems from their perspective they are doing everything right. At the end of the day, they have enough energy or money to do whatever they want, so it's a validation of their beliefs and ideas. There seems no need to examine their own habits and practices. Also, it is common for this kind of person to feel superior to others simply because they have more energy and can do more. It's a normal instinct.

Unfortunately, for both the person blessed with lots of cash or lots of yuan qi, they do not learn valuable lessons early in life about how to conserve their resources, and they cannot appreciate the limitations of the majority of people who were not so blessed with an abundance of yuan qi or money. This kind of person will not have the necessity of learning how to conserve their resources until a relatively late stage of life.

When a high energy person finally begins to run low on yuan qi because they've exhausted their reserves from excessive sex, lifestyle, drug use, or perhaps repetitive physical over-exertion; or if none of those, usually fate deals them a blow with a serious injury or untreateable degenerative disease, they will have a difficult time adjusting to their situation. The later in life it occurs, the greater the difficulty.

I should add that I am making some suppositions about yuan qi and the role it plays in these matters. My experience with Chinese medicine is relatively limited, and I invite anyone who can offer some insight on this topic to please add to the discussion. Specifically, I invite Antonius, Black Hole, Luo Lang, Sifu Stier, and others with clinical experience to please share their knowledge. Thanks.

[beausimon]

Hi,
Will herbs such as ginseng replenish the qi that these people have used up in their excesses?

[Michael Udel]

two sources, both out of reach after birth

No, it is not possible to replenish yuan qi by any method I have heard of. A person is born with a certain amount, and uses a little bit with every activity. Normal daily activities like talk and washing the dishes use a tiny amount, but for men ejaculatory sex is one of the quickest ways to deplete yuan qi. For women, they impart their child with yuan qi at birth. My personal belief is that the creator gives the soul at the same time that a person's mother donates her share of the child's yuan qi.

Logically, if every person receives a limited amount of yuan qi from their mother and father, and if it can not be replenished, then each succeeding generation would have a diminished life force. If there is another source besides the parents, which there must be, this dilemma begs the question of this secondary source of yuan qi.

This is where I am basically talking about things without much knowledge on the topic, but here goes. Every health care system in the history of mankind, until 18th century Western medicine, used some kind of astronomy or astrology, whatever you wish to call it, to aid in the diagnosis of patients. This is based on the long held belief that a person will endure various illnesses according to their fate. The purpose of this may be according to one's opinion, but my opinion is that our many incarnations are for the purpose of learning various lessons and that the mechanism for mankind to learn depends upon suffering. If a person gains knowledge out of necessity and to avoid suffering, he advances. If he continues to suffer in ignorance, the experience ultimately has a tempering effect on his soul, and so he also advances over many incarnations. Illness present people with the necessity of gaining knowledge and looking to the roots of their problems, which can lead to advancement. What is the purpose of advancement? A matter of opinion, but I'll leave mine out for the sake of brevity and try to stick to Beausimon's question.

There are many belief systems of which I am nearly completely ignorant that focus on fate and how to understand an individual's origin, which is connected to their date and time of birth. In the future I hope I have a chance to properly learn one of these systems, but at the moment my knowledge is limited to the following notion:

Whoever is in charge of this whole thing set up an elaborate system whereby someone's personality and amount of yuan qi would be determined by their date and time of birth, certainly down to the hour and minute, perhaps down to something less than a second of time. According to a person's fate and the lessons they need to learn individually during their many incarnations, also in combination with the lessons that everyone needs to learn (all people are connected by many things, one of which is the fact that each person's experiences and suffering will ultimately be beneficial to others and teach others important lessons they did not have time to cover during their own lives), the relative position of heavenly bodies to earth determines a person's yin/yang balance and amount of yuan qi they receive in addition to what their parents give them.

So, yuan qi is not replenishable, and there is an obvious source from the parents, and a less obvious source from the cosmos. The father gives his yuan qi at the moment of conception, and the mother at birth. I think the cosmos gives its share at the moment of birth and according to the time and date.

It is possible that there are ways to steal another person's yuan qi. I know from unfortunate personal experience that it is possible to steal one of the other four kinds of qi another person has, such as taking some of their wei (defensive) qi during a fight when touching, or even during a conversation if you know how. I have known a few people who perhaps unknowingly steal other people's qi by making them angry, getting the other person's qi to rise, and then manuvering them into a submissive or aggressive emotional state where they can have their qi stolen. This is often small scale, and not too uncommon in my experience. A high energy person would be the least likely to have accidentally figured out a technique to steal another person's qi during conversation. It would be like someone who just won the lottery holding up a convenience store at gunpoint.

I wonder if it's possible using some evil method to steal another person's yuan qi, but would it enter your own body as yuan qi, or another kind of qi? In the Q & A from Septmeber 2001 Part 3 Sifu Wong mentions something called Drawing Jade Juice from Golden Pond as an unrecommended way to steal someone's qi during sex. Sifu Wong always mentions in the Q & A pages when people ask about using qigong techniques that lead to someone else being harmed that it should never be done. People have written him asking about black arts and things like that, and his advice is always steer clear of it. I agree!

There are two interesting topics that have come up in this post, both of which have to do with human physiology. One is the topic of the deleterious effects of childbirth on a woman's health, and the other is the effect of certain kinds of drugs on the level of yuan qi. Perhaps a third would be the deleterious effects of ejaculatory sex for men.

Topic 1: Deleterious Effects of Childbirth for Women Due to Loss of Yuan Qi:
Often called postpartum depression, many women experience a significant loss in energy and strong feelings of fatigue and malaise following childbirth. In Western medicine, I think it's treated as either a psychiatric problem or a hormone deficiency. I don't know what the standard prognosis would be. My theory is that such symptoms as fatigue and depression are due to a loss of yuan qi, which was donated to the new child.

Topic 2: Reduction of Yuan Qi by Certain Drugs such as Opiates and Methamphetamines
Let's take methamphetamines as an example. The active ingredient in crystal meth, as any speed freak knows, is pseudo-epenephrine, commonly found in over-the-counter cough and cold remedies. Human epehephrine is stored in the adrenal glands, which are next to the kidneys. According to Chinese medicine, yuan qi is stored in the kidneys. My theory is that in human physiology epenephrine releases yuan qi from the kidneys to give a person a boost of energy when they need it, which is often caused by sudden fright, or fear for one's life. In Chinese medicine, fright injures the kidneys.

If people who use methamphetamines get a huge boost of energy, where does it come from? It is not contained in the substance they are ingesting. Why does prolonged use of methamphetamine lead to the person becoming run down, ragged, and aged before their time?

Topic 3: Deleterious Effect of Ejaculatory Sex Due to Reduction of Yuan Qi in Men
A topic for the Taoists, who have a long history of knowledge in how sexual practices affect a person's health. In Chinese medicine, a Taoist art, it is well known that excessive sex will damage the kidneys, which is where yuan qi is stored. Damage to the kidney energy system often leads to lower back pain, knee pain, and ankle pain. This is also common knowledge to Chinese internal martial artists, whose training may include abstinence from sex.

Recently on this forum, MoMo quoted from an interview with a Bagua master in Beijing who talked about it taking 100 days of training to recover from the loss of yuan qi during sex. I don't have a theory to throw out here, I just think it's a worthwhile addition to the current dicussion of yuan qi.

I hope some of the excellent members of this forum with clinical experience will respond to these theories.

Best wishes,
Michael

[Kenrik]

I refer to Michael's above posting:-
1. Yuan qi is not replenishable 2. Yuan qi is stored in the kidneys

Quote from Daniel Reed's - A complete guide to Chi Gung - Page 12.
"Prenatal energy, also known in Chinese as yuan qi (premordial energy) is the energy converted from the prenatal essence of glands, as well as the energy assimilated from cosmic sources in the sky (Heaven)

Eighteen (18) years ago both my kidneys stop functioning and I was dying.
Can you imagine, it took me one minute or more to gather strength to move one step. And there was a day (before dialysis) I know I was dying. I fought back. With my eyes a little opened I managed to have a glimpse of the immediate surrounding and it was brown though it was daylight and bright.
I refused to close my eyes and that I believe was when I turned away from the gate of hell.
I believe then my yuan qi must be zero or whatever other chi.
I went through the machine for peritonial and later haemo-dialysis to keep me alive - i.e. cleaning my blood through the machines.
Thereafter I took up Waidankung excercise and surprisingly I could climb up seven storeys in one go, after three (3) months training.
Bear in mind, I was still under dialysis and as a dialysis patient, one is allowed to drink only one cup of water a day, not more than 30 gm of protein and controlled food intake (I can't remember).
Question: Where does that energy comes from - Answer: Heaven

In another situation, there was a female dialysis patient and she gave birth to a child.
Question: Is she contributing yuan qi to the new born baby.

I hope the above can add some light to the topic discussed.

kenrik

ps: Hi Michael, your second paragraph is very meaningful.

[Michael Udel]

more about yuan qi

Thanks for the quote from the chi-kung book, and for the other information, Kenrik.

I treated a person once with qigong therapy who had kidney failure. How is your health now?

I think that when you have no yuan qi, then you are dead. I look at yuan qi as the water you must have to prime the pump of your body's functions and activities. Without the water to make the pump function, nothing happens.

Michael

[Kenrik]

Thank you Michael,

I am now enjoying my best level of energy since my kidney transplant.
(Thank you Grandmaster - Thank You Shaolin Wahnam)

Was your kidney patient on dialysis then?
I really like to know.

Best wishes
kenrik

[Michael Udel]

Kenrik,

I happened to write about this patient on the forum . Please take a look.

He was on dialysis three times a week, and was getting very good results from qigong practice, including completely curing his high blood pressure. However, as I explained in the other post, I put too much pressure on him to practice qigong more frequently, and he stopped, also asking me not to contact him any more. I haven't heard from him since around June 2004.

An interesting side note: one day when I went to my patient's dialysis clinic to give him qi during the blood filtering process, another dialysis patient became very weak and fell down in front of me as he was walking out the front door. I helped him up and gave him a qi healing for about 10 minutes until he felt fine. I drove him home, and when I returned to the clinic to see my patient, the nurse in charge was very cross with me and tried to prevent me from seeing my patient. She insisted I was doing something wrong by standing still next to my patient although many other patients had multiple family members visiting them, talking and hanging around. I guess she thought I was making her look bad by helping someone who collapsed in her clinic?

[Kenrik]

Michael,

Wonderful experience you had with your patient and at the same time very sorry that your patient stop practising. We could have learned more from his continuing.

Michael, I am sure you are a kind hearted and nice person.

Talking about kidney failure and recovery. You know kidney failure means the kidneys are 'dead'. Question is will they come alive again.

Of late, when I smile to the organs, my liver and left 'dead' kidney is especially strong and when I massage the said left kidney with my chi (by visualizing), my whole body moved. I am just wondering - Is my kidney reacting or what else that I don't know?
Can I look forward to a recovery of that kidney? - Big Job.
So I just practise without expectation - chi kung always give you surprises.

I hope to meet our Grandmaster one day and maybe I will then get an answer.

kenrik