Chi and God ?

[Tokezu]

Why not, indeed?

Agreed.

With words, most significantly when we are using those words to describe concepts that vary widely and wildly across cultures, we must be cautious, careful, and, shall we say, forgiving....erm... perhaps tolerant is better.

A sword, like words describing concepts with social dependencies, can be useful for many things, but only if you understand which is the business end and which is the friendly end. Words are just swords with out one of the S'es, after all.

In discussing concepts like Chi and God-

We have to know
what is useful to us
the costs for using it
when it stops being useful
when to let it go so we can pick up new tools

(what "it" is, I am not sure, but there you go!)

I actually prefer, when discussing that God thing, to use the phrase "The Creator" because them what believe typically are not offended and those that don't believe are less agitated and can remain in the discussion longer.

Chi has been discussed often here (and God so little, interestingly enough), yet we typically stumble with our WORDS. It all comes back to-

We almost never say what we thought we meant to say and the other person NEVER hears what she thought we said.

Ok. I give up. My head hurts and I have to go take a Chi now.

DL

[jorvik]

In terms of God, one thing that I notice is how primitive/aggrarian societies seem to have a much stronger belief system than your average " civilised" society............
The fanatics of Islam etc all seem to come from very basic existances .as did our own Christian forefathers.......but I did notice last year when I had an allotment and worked the land to grow vegetables and I was closer to nature.the existance of a God/creator etc seemed much easier to accept

[Deep Sea]

There are some who say Santa is of the Devil Evil or Very Mad Just rearange the letters Rolling Eyes

Does rearranged Satan practice kata with his pitchfork?

Curious questions about the notions God and/or Chi may/can never be answered. Maybe it is wasted time to titliate the brain wondering abut their existences and a wise man either accepts or rejects and moves his life forward, accordingly.

[Redbeard]

This is an interesting topic to me and one I have been pondering for years.
If there was a picture under the definition of fundamentalist Christian in the dictionary, it might be mine. I started reading theology and philosophy at about the age of twelve (I am now 29), when most of my friends were reading only comic books. Been reading primarily that sort of thing ever since, and am now a full time Christian Minister. In other words, I believe in God.
So here is my take on chi. We all know that there is a lot of mystery and legend that exists in the martial arts. When I was a young kid I remember my sister's boyfriend who was taking ninjutsu telling me that his Sensei could pop tires by looking at them and other sorts of ridiculous garbage that children love to hear. As insane as this sort of claim is, perhaps there is some natural source of explenation for belief in a powerful inner energy source.
I am not a doctor, but as far as I understand it, our bodies do run off of and with elecricity. I have more knowledge in the area of electronics, but here goes.
Our brain uses electric impulses to send commands to our muscles and body parts, and when a person's heart stops you can jumpstart it with an electric charge from a defibulator.
As another example, I don't know if anyone else feels this, but during a big thunder storm, you can almost feel a surge of energy, or a disturbance in the natural electic functioning of your body, almost like a power surge.
And what about spontaneous combustion? I wonder if that has to do with a flaw or disturbance in our bodies electric flow of energy.
My point is, we do have some sort of natural energy conected with our existence in our physical bodies. It is not at our command from some psychic or religious source, but is just a natural part of our design, like our bones, nervous, and blood systems. Maybe we don't fully understand it, but can focus it and command it to some small degree.
It is my observation that most legend and myth have some sort of basis or source in truth, no matter how far removed from fact the legend gets.
As King Soloman said, there is nothing new under the sun.

[Tokezu]

Deep Sea-

Maybe it is wasted time to titliate the brain wondering abut their existences and a wise man either accepts or rejects and moves his life forward, accordingly.

Maybe! Maybe not.

What did I read the other day on this forum? Something about someone who is trying to learn how to defend herself from criminals who are pounding on the door is unlikely to ask her sensei where his grandfather learned the "tode"...

So how does that apply here?

If I were a hunter/gatherer and had ZREO free time left over after hunting three-toed tree sloths, gathering mountain lettuce, defending my hut against those damn Neanderthals from the cave in the valley next door, and fornicating with my (various) fornicatees, I wouldn't likely spend energy on thinking about who created the universe or whether, when the lion bites me, I will bleed chi.

On the other hand, I DO have a little free time to ponder unanswerable questions. As i have said before on this thread- I believe that the right question is better than the right answer.

Like Zen and the martial arts, the benefit is in the journey, not the destination. So the benefit of pondering Chi or God is in the self-discovery, not the determination of existence.

or maybe not. Or maybe. or...

my best!
DL

[Bill Glasheen]

It's good to see you on board, Redbeard!

I am not a doctor, but as far as I understand it, our bodies do run off of and with elecricity. I have more knowledge in the area of electronics, but here goes.
Our brain uses electric impulses to send commands to our muscles and body parts, and when a person's heart stops you can jumpstart it with an electric charge from a defibulator.

These are both well-understood electrical phenomena. We have Hodgkin-Huxley models that explain nerve electrical energy, and we understand the frequency-modulated communication of nerves. We also understand the electrochemical events that happen at nerve synapses. And we know cardiac cells to operate sort of like leaky nerve cells that communicate with each other and generate their own electrical events when not stimulated. And we understand the coordinated electrical activity of a functioning heart, and how to get it coordinated when the cells get out of synchrony.

All this happens at the microvolt level. That's a volt divided by a million. Devices that attempt to measure nerve communication need to be so sensitive that they often pick up AM radio signals instead of the desired nerve traffic w/o the proper shielding. So you're going to tell me that microvolt activity per se knocks me on my duff? Nope...

It's not the electrical energy. It's the sophisticated pattern of electrical signals COMMUNICATING with muscles and their sensors that cause the "chi magic." But then when you understand it, it isn't magic at all. It's just really cool and very complex.

As another example, I don't know if anyone else feels this, but during a big thunder storm, you can almost feel a surge of energy, or a disturbance in the natural electic functioning of your body, almost like a power surge.

It's the stimulation of the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system. You sense the physiologic changes in your body, which are a response to the environment around you. As for all those other ancestors of your who did not respond with such fear, well they became toast - literally - before they could spread their genes.

And what about spontaneous combustion? I wonder if that has to do with a flaw or disturbance in our bodies electric flow of energy.

Now we are talking about vapor pressure, flammability, and exothermic reactions.

Hey when I was a member of Alpha Chi Sigma chemical professional fraternity, I was the Chapter Magician. We used to go to the local schools and do "chemistry magic shows." Explosions and color changes were very popular, as was anything that burned rather brightly. I had this magic powder... When they least expected it,

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

FFFFFooooooosssssshhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

It scared the jeepers out of those kids every time!

Just like all those "karate magic shows" (a.k.a. demonstrations), the goal was to spark interest in the activity. Sometimes literally...

- Bill

[jorvik]

My TC teacher has told me about Chi, or his feelings about it and it is really quite subjective...when he trained with his teacher and was meditating he said he felt something give inside him and energy flow..and that was Chi, and you can't get much nore subjective than that .....however, he has tremendous strength gained from position, in Tai -Chi the talk is of postures.or positions of strength, and it is quite scary, to me anyway, because he feels pretty unmoveable..and I get the feeling that if he wanted to he could rip my head off.rather in the same manner a Gorilla casually breaks a bamboo....now that is objective, but still cool
Really I suppose it is our points of referance and the language we use to describe them. Folks assume that religion is easy to understand....but if you believe in God, then he created Science, and science is hard to understand
so I guess religion should be also

[Bill Glasheen]

Actually....

The real world existed first. It is what it is.

Then man created and is still creating science both as a method and as a body of knowledge to understand and interact with that real world.

- Bill

[jorvik]

Quote
"The real world existed first. It is what it is"

True, but it is how we interpret it, our values etc
it may be what it is.but it will be different to a fundamentalist Christian, a Buddhist or hazbulallah..or some Geek on a Microsoft course.............or me, sipping my glass of Chardonay ......even as we speak ( Californian, I hasten to add )...I guess it will be different again when we face death

[Harry Cook]

jorvik said " he has tremendous strength gained from position, in Tai -Chi the talk is of postures.or positions of strength, and it is quite scary, to me anyway, because he feels pretty unmoveable..and I get the feeling that if he wanted to he could rip my head off.rather in the same manner a Gorilla casually breaks a bamboo....now that is objective, but still cool"
It is not objective until he actually rips your head off. When this kind of thing is put to the test in things like knockdown tournaments, Ultimate Challenge etc etc those who claim to have ch'i tend to fail miserably.
Thai boxers have regularly fought masters of ch'i and what tends to happen is that the ch'i experts get sent to hospital.
That is a good objective test.
Harry Cook

[Bill Glasheen]

Amen, brother!

I will give these chi masters one thing though. They understand the psychological side of the art. If you can stop someone out of fear, then who is to argue with the method used? Just don't run up against someone who is too stupid to believe in the magic though...

Speaking of religion and chi...a good deal has been written about voodoo witch doctors who can intimidate and kill merely by fear and intimidation. Medicine itself is now initiating a good deal of scientific research on this softer side of the healing arts. A case in point... Patients who believe in a forgiving, loving, and healing God are a lot more likely to recover from serious illness than patients who believe in a vengeful God who punishes people for their actions on eearth.

Tap into that energy, Dr. Casey! Some do. They call it bedside manner.

- Bill

[jorvik]

Harry
My TC teachers strength is not subjective, he is incredibly strong. as I've said before it has to do with correct posture and positioning.but it is mindblowing.
Quote
"Thai boxers have regularly fought masters of ch'i and what tends to happen is that the ch'i experts get sent to hospital.
That is a good objective test."
I don't disagree with that either .look what they did to the Japanese Shotokan team about 20 years ago....none of these "champions" lasted more than a round
Bill
As I've said before it depends on how you define these things. Your definition of "Chi" is not the same as mine.
I don't like the Chimeisters either.but I do like magicians like David Blain and Deren Brown http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/t ... ndcontrol/
I think that all of the "tricks" are explainable...I've debunked a few of them myself

[JimHawkins]

Despite the chi thing I think Jorvik is really talking about how his Sifu is using his TC body structure and going with the opponent's force (using it) rather than fighting against it.

These elements are often talked about using chi and other chi like ideas to explain what many here like Bill would explain in terms of physics. In my opinion these elements, such as going with force, using the opponent's force against them, using body connection, energy issuing and being grounded are superior attributes that go light years ahead of simple brute force and speed oriented systems regardless of who has ripped anyone's head off or not.

The external systems will only take you so far, it's when you meet up with the stronger, faster, younger opponent that the hard falls apart. If the Western budoka can only see the external then that's all he will ever know and will be condemned in his later years or anytime the enemy is much younger, bigger, faster and/or stronger. IMO the West still has a lot to learn about being soft, but as I said once before the Century is still very young and there’s still lots to come.

[jorvik]

Yeah,
jim has pretty much said what I think, the Chinese MA's are all about energy/strength from posture stuff like that
if you ain't seen it then it's impossible to describe...and you can see how the Chi thing fits in with it all............buut that's a different subject.
http://www.fightingtaichi.com
Go tell these guys that they can't cut the mustard ,
As to God..........well I strive to be a man of Tao, I hope God will look kindly on me and mine

[JimHawkins]

Gotta love those crazy Chi-sters, over the top though they may be.

http://www.sifu-pfaff.com/video/Trailer ... %20DSL.wmv