Editing Qi (section)

==Philosophical roots==
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The earliest texts that speak of qi give some indications of how the concept developed. In the [[Analects]] of [[Confucius]], qi could mean "breath".<ref name="Confucius">{{cite book|last1=Legge|first1=James|title=The Analects of Confucius|date=2010|publisher=Floating Press|location=Auckland|isbn=978-1775417958}}</ref> Combining it with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, ''xue''–qi, blood and breath), the concept could be used to account for motivational characteristics:

{{quotation|The [morally] noble man guards himself against three things. When he is young, his ''xue''–qi has not yet stabilized, so he guards himself against sexual passion. When he reaches his prime, his ''xue''–qi is not easily subdued, so he guards himself against combativeness. When he reaches old age, his ''xue''–qi is already depleted, so he guards himself against acquisitiveness.|Confucius|Analects, 16:7}}

The philosopher [[Mozi]] used the word qi to refer to noxious vapors that would eventually arise from a corpse were it not buried at a sufficient depth. He reported that early civilized humans learned how to live in houses to protect their qi from the moisture that troubled them when they lived in caves. He also associated maintaining one's qi with providing oneself with adequate nutrition. In regard to another kind of qi, he recorded how some people performed a kind of prognostication by observing qi (clouds) in the sky.<ref name="Mozi">{{cite book|last1=Watson|first1=Burton|title=Mozi: Basic Writings|date=2003|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0231130011}}</ref>

[[Mencius]] described a kind of qi that might be characterized as an individual's vital energies. This qi was necessary to activity and it could be controlled by a well-integrated willpower. When properly nurtured, this qi was said to be capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe. It could also be augmented by means of careful exercise of one's moral capacities. On the other hand, the qi of an individual could be degraded by adverse external forces that succeed in operating on that individual.<ref name="Mencius">{{cite book|last1=Lau|first1=D. C.|title=Mencius|date=2003|publisher=Chinese University Press|location=Hong Kong|isbn=978-9622018518|edition=Revised}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2017}}

Living things were not the only things believed to have qi. [[Zhuangzi (book)|Zhuangzi]] indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic [[yin and yang]] "are the greatest of qi{{-"}}. He described qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects. He also said "Human beings are born [because of] the accumulation of qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death... There is one qi that connects and pervades everything in the world."<ref name="Zhuangzi">{{cite book|last1=Watson|first1=Burton|title=The Complete Works of Zhuangzi|date=2013|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0231536509}}</ref>

The [[Guanzi (text)|Guanzi]] essay ''[[Neiye]]'' (Inward Training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor ''[qi]'' and [[meditation]] techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C.<ref name="Cambridge">{{cite book|last1=Loewe|first1=Michael|last2=Shaughnessy|first2=Edward L.|title=The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC.|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780521470308|page=880|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cHA7Ey0-pbEC&q=cambridge++history+of+ancient+china|access-date=11 March 2017}}</ref>

[[Xun Zi]], another Confucian scholar of the [[Jixia Academy]], followed in later years. At 9:69/127,{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}} Xun Zi says, "Fire and water have qi but do not have life. Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity. Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have ''yi'' (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice). Men have qi, life, perceptivity, and ''yi''." Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of [[radiant energy]], but they were aware that one can be heated by a campfire from a distance away from the fire. They accounted for this phenomenon by claiming "qi" radiated from fire. At 18:62/122,{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}} he also uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age.

Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts at inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar [[Dong Zhongshu]] (ca. 150 BC) wrote in [[Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals]]:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Guilk|first1=Robert van|author-link=Robert van Gulik|title=The Gibbon in China: An Essay in Chinese Animal Lore|date=2015|publisher=E.J. Brill|isbn=978-7547507391|page=38}}</ref> "The gibbon resembles a macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." ("{{lang|zh|猿似猴。大而黑。長前臂。所以壽八百。好引氣也。}}")

Later, the [[syncretic]] text assembled under the direction of [[Liu An]], the [[Huainanzi|Huai Nan Zi]], or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the [[Neo-Confucianism|Neo-Confucians]]:

{{blockquote|Heaven (seen here as the ultimate source of all being) falls (''duo'' {{lang|zh|墮}}, i.e., descends into proto-immanence) as the formless. Fleeting, fluttering, penetrating, amorphous it is, and so it is called the Supreme Luminary. The ''dao'' begins in the Void Brightening. The Void Brightening produces the universe (''yu''–''zhou''). The universe produces qi. Qi has bounds. The clear, yang ''[qi]'' was ethereal and so formed heaven. The heavy, turbid ''[qi]'' was congealed and impeded and so formed earth. The conjunction of the clear, yang ''[qi]'' was fluid and easy. The conjunction of the heavy, turbid ''[qi]'' was strained and difficult. So heaven was formed first and earth was made fast later. The pervading essence (''xi''–''jing'') of heaven and earth becomes yin and yang. The concentrated (''zhuan'') essences of yin and yang become the four seasons. The dispersed (''san'') essences of the four seasons become the myriad creatures. The hot qi of yang in accumulating produces fire. The essence (''jing'') of the fire-qi becomes the sun. The cold qi of yin in accumulating produces water. The essence of the water-qi becomes the moon. The essences produced by coitus (yin) of the sun and moon become the stars and celestial markpoints (''chen'', planets).|Huai-nan-zi|3:1a/19}}Qi is linked to East Asian thought on [[Magic (supernatural)|magic]], and certain body parts were important to magic traditions<ref name=":03" /> such as some [[Taoism|Taoist]] sects.