Moderators: nyang, Dvivid, Inga
That sounds like some people I hear say jeez, isnt meditation boring? You're not really doing anything!ErikMcBride wrote:I thought it was, "The joy is not in the accomplishment, but in the work put forth to achieve it."
It would be incredibly boring to reach a point of omniscience or omnipotence. I believe that if I reached that point, I would choose to start over with no memory of how I achieved it, or even that I had.
It's pretty much the same thing as using IDDQD in "Doom." (That was the god-mode cheat code.)
"Avoid Prejudice, Be Objective in Your Judgment, Be Scientific, Be Logical and Make Sense, Do Not Ignore Prior Experience." - Dr. Yang
We can use concepts of energy to explain things well enough to cause nuclear reactions, when the understanding of qi reaches a point where people can use it to explain it's behavior in a predictable manner then it will have reached the understanding that energy has, until that time it is just mumbo jumbo.
The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal... This visible light differs from the infrared radiation — an invisible form of light — that comes from body heat.)
I am not a skeptic
I have no need for doubt
I simply do not know
What do YOU call that life force?... The body is a conscious bioelectromagnetic field. What is the energy that keeps our cells alive, that animates our body, and that can be cultivated and developed?
The traditional way to define qi is by showing what it is not.
It is not breath, because it is present in things that don't breathe -- e.g., books, paintings, or swords.
It is not life force, because it is present in corpses, stones, and ghosts.
It is not electricity, because it is present in the antistatic fluid.
It is not energy, because it can both create and undergo transformations without any energy involved. E.g., Monday becomes Tuesday without having spent any energy on accomplishing that. Everybody knows what a "Monday" is but the only thing that can cause it to exist is the qi of its meaning. Similarly, if your parents already have a son and you are then born to them, their firstborn undergoes a qi transformation that will affect him for the rest of his life -- to wit, one that has caused him to become someone's brother -- without having spent any energy on the transformation.
Qi is a rearrangement of the Pattern. Qi both causes and is caused by a rearrangement of the Pattern. Qi is Change Itself, Potential for Change, and the Outcome of Change all wrapped into one. "Change" is a far vaster concept than "life," "breath," or "energy," let alone "electricity" or some such. Change is an inherent property of tao-in-motion, a space-time phenomenon of the most fundamental order. However, qi is most useful to understand as "meaningful change," which is why the Book of Changes doesn't go beyond 64 transformations thereof, which cover the whole scope of meaningful situation of change possible in space-time; a greater number of subdivisions creates meaningless fragmentation, and that's the level where you lose qi and are stuck with "pure energy." Shudder.
When tackling qi, it is always useful to remember that it is always meaningful. Energy may or may not be meaningful -- break a cup and you will be hard pressed to figure out what the meaning is of every shard and every sliver, though energy is what caused each one of them to manifest. Break a cup by throwing it against the wall while arguing with your significant other, and the qi of the act means lots and lots of things besides and beyond its sheer energy. In fact, it can generate or destroy energy far surpassing that of the breaking point of the cup, It can break up a marriage, e.g., and eliminate a whole line of posterity for the next three billion years. Or it can generate it. Qi of the moment, i.e. potential for change inherent in it, is not inferrable from the amount of strong, weak, gravitational, or electromagnetic forces it contains. It is inherent in the nature, quality and timing of the pattern, in its meaning. It can be tremendous if the pattern places it in such a position -- or none at all beyond the sheer muscular energy you've spent on the act.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Qi is the medium and message of meaningful change.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 57 guests