The Chinese made the assumption that everything has Qi and everything that has Qi has Yin and Yang as well. From what we can see, we can contemplate what we cannot see, from we can cannot see, we can also contemplate its potential manifestations.īut unlike Einstein’s’ equation, there is no one fixed and measurable constant we can rely on, instead we make up correlations to investigate the relationship between the two Yin and Yang aspects of the same Qi and the answers are often, depending on the circumstance, more than just one predictable result, which Science demands and is not possible with correlative thinking. So Qi is both matter and energy it is the seen and the unseen, the form and the formless, the manifested and the un-manifested, the tangible and the intangible, etc. To understand it solely as “potentiality” would be wrong, just as it cannot be translated simply as “matter”. It thus combines “potentiality” with “matter”. It is energy that has the capacity to become material object while remaining what it is. This meaning is then expanded to encompass all phenomena, both physical and spiritual. As a philosophical category, qi originally referred to the existence of whatever is of a nature to change. Qi is the life principle but is also the stuff of inanimate objects. To stress one at the expense of the other would be to misunderstand qi. Qi is both what really exists and what has the ability to become. The philosophical use of the term underlines the movement of qi. In popular parlance qi is applied to the air we breathe, steam, smoke, and all gaseous substances. The philosophical use of the term derives from its popular use but is nonetheless distinct. In places the material element may be to the fore, in others, what we term energy. According to this equation matter and energy are convertible. Perhaps the best translation of the Chinese word qi is provided by Einstein’s equation, e=mc2. I am reading “The Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy” by Zhang Dai-Nian (1909-2004) at the moment and the translator, Edmund Ryden does a very good job in summarizing the essential meaning of Qi even though it might have changed over time in Chinese history: We use the term “Qi” or “Chi” all the time in Feng Shui but it is a term difficult to define.
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