Categories of Qigong (in Chinese) - The Origins of Qigong (Reprint)

V. Division from the Origin of Qigong

This is based on the different origins and evolutions of qigong. In detail, it can be divided into six categories: Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, medicine, martial arts and folk qigong. In fact, from the most fundamental origin is Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.

(1) Confucianism: People think that Confucianism is about learning, social science and national governance, and generally do not think that Confucianism has qigong. This is not something that has been said in this way only now. From the Tang Dynasty onwards, Confucianism is just passing on learning, talking about the Five Classics and Four Books (at that time it was not called the Five Classics and Four Books) and other Confucian writings, and how to engage in learning this point is not passed on. In fact, Confucianism has a fundamental way and a fundamental method of governing and cultivating the body, and the governing and cultivating of the body is itself the content of qigong, so that Confucian kungfu is also called the study of cultivating the body or the study of governing. Nowadays, people engaged in qigong are talking about "neutralization of qi", but what is meant by "neutralization of qi" is only clearly explained by Confucianism. What is "neutralization"? (It is not the neutralization of chemistry.) The Confucian term "neutralization" refers to the sum of two words, "neutral" and "harmony". "In" is "joy, anger, sadness and happiness is not issued is said to be in", that is, joy, anger, sadness and happiness emotions do not occur, there is no emotion in the brain, this state of mind caused by the body inside the state of the qi is called "in". This state of mind gives rise to a state of qi in the body called "zhong". This state of mind is called "zhong". "zhong" does not mean impartiality in the middle, but nothing, no emotion, peace and quiet. "He" means that emotions are not caused by external stimuli, but when you are stimulated by external things, you have to react to them, so it is not so quiet, and you have to show "he" in the process of reacting. What state of reaction is called "harmony"? According to the "Meanings of the Middle Ages", "to send out thoughts that are all in harmony is called harmony", the thoughts you send out are exactly appropriate to the external world, and the objective and subjective correspond to each other. In today's language, this is called the true materialistic theory of reflection. What it is like, you reflect what it is like, like a mirror, a thing outside a light, it is the same as the original light out exactly the same as it, called "and". If the state of tranquility and the state of dealing with things are combined, it is called "neutralization". "Neutralization" is the meaning of nature, is the original appearance of things, when quiet, what emotions are not, is the original appearance, is the normal law; when you and the outside world and the role of things, your own subjective and the outside world of the objective must be a very good combination of brain reflection is due to the objective existence of the outside world caused by the things. Let's make an analogy: the thing is five, you reflect exactly five, this is the objective reflection. If there are five and you reflect six, one of them is not objective, it is subjectively generated by you, and this is not true. If you reflect four out of five, and you subjectively eliminate one out of five, that's not right either, and it's not the state it should have been in. Therefore, both "neutral" and "harmony" belong to the natural state of things. This is the most fundamental truth of Confucian qigong, the most fundamental guiding principle of qigong practice, which calls for naturalness, and it is not like other gong methods that allow you to engage in a single set, which allows you to maintain the "neutral qi" in daily life, in the workplace, and in contact with others, so Confucian gong is the most difficult to practice. A lot of things taught in Confucianism are meant to be practiced, not just read from a book and that's the end of it. Confucianism's teachings of filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, faith, propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame all belong to qigong by definition. Now our intelligent qigong takes Confucianism as a way of dealing with daily life, cultivating temperament, and cultivating morality, which is the content of qigong living. Does Confucianism talk about special practices? Mencius talked about cultivating "the spirit of the vast nature" and "don't forget and don't help". As long as we practice qigong in our daily lives, keeping the natural state of qigong in a proper way, and taking the cultivation of "the spirit of the vast nature" and "don't forget, don't help" as our guiding ideology, it all belongs to Confucianism. The story of "pulling up seedlings to help them grow" was also told by Mencius, which means that one should cultivate one's own nature of mind in a natural way, not to help, and that one should "not forget and not help them grow". In the University, it is said that "cultivating one's body, keeping one's family together, ruling the country, and leveling the world", and before cultivating one's body, there are the eight major outlines, namely, "to cultivate one's body, to realize one's knowledge, to be sincere, and to correct one's mind". In fact, all of them are for you to practice better in your daily life and maintain "neutral qi".

(2) Taoism: Taoism is not the same as Taoism in terms of historical origin. Taoism flourished in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Taoism was founded after the Eastern Han Dynasty according to the doctrines of Taoism and the doctrine of immortals. Taoism is a variant of Taoism. When we talk about Taoist gong, we are actually including Taoist qigong in it. Nowadays, as long as qigong is practicing essence, qi and god, it belongs to Taoist gong. The practice of gathering and forming essence, refining essence and transforming qi, refining qi and transforming God, and refining God and returning emptiness have not left the practice of essence, qi and God, and all of them should belong to the Taoist gong. Nowadays, most qigong in China belongs to Taoist gong. Taoist kung fu is a native kung fu. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, essence, qi and god were all taught separately. It was only at the end of the Warring States period and during the Qin and Han Dynasties that the three elements of essence, qi and spirit were taught together. This is because Taoism was also developing gradually, and this development was linked to medical qigong, which is a point to be emphasized when talking about medical qigong. There are many schools of Taoist gong, and the evolution process is very complicated. Generally speaking, Taoist gong is the practice of practicing essence, qi and spirit. There are different ways to practice Taoist gong, starting with essence, qi, and god. In different times, they practiced different things. But Taoist gong, no matter which school, emphasizes essence, qi and god. There are Quanzhen and Zhengyi schools of Taoist gong. The Zheng Yi School belongs to the school of painting talismans, choking and reciting incantations, in fact, it also needs to practice essence, qi and god, not to practice essence and qi and god just choking and reciting incantations won't work, "Dao Collection" has written a lot of tips and incantations of the Zheng Yi School, and it says that choking and reciting incantations are also the role of essence, qi and god. The Qingxiu school also practiced essence, qi and god. The most common Taoist gong methods are Zhou Tian Gong, Breathing and Vomiting Gong, and so on.

(3) Buddhist gong: Buddhist gong was introduced to China from India. Buddhist gong it is not called practicing, called "cultivating the nature of the mind". The practice of kung fu talk about cultivating sex, practicing sex, is basically the Buddha's work. "Sex" is also known as "true nature", which refers to the vital functions of the human body or the sum total of the vital functions of a living organism, and is the most fundamental thing in a life. The earliest Buddhist work is to participate in Zen, participation in Zen has Buddha Zen, (Chinese ancestor Zen is native to China) Buddha Zen is the Buddha left to practice Zen method, which is basically to let you brain inside an impression or a concept, with the brain of this impression and concept to practice. For example, if a Buddhist practices Zen, they put something in front of you, let you take a look at it, and after looking at it, they close their eyes and think about that shape, and they practice through their consciousness. Starting from the spirit and practicing from the visible to the invisible, this is Buddhist gong. No matter whether you are going to practice Stop Guan or Zen Buddhism in the future, you can't get away from this most fundamental concept. I have not summarized it this way in my previous lectures, but this time I will give you the fundamental characteristics of the Ru Shi Tao practice. The Taoist "Cun Si" should be a variant of Buddhist gong, and now Buddhist gong has also changed, and many people who really practice Buddhist gong are from Tantric Buddhism, and it is only in recent years that Buddhist gong is really treated as qigong. In the old days, the Buddhists did not call it "gong" because they said that the physical body of a human being was useless and a burden, and after practicing it, they would throw it away and only want the spirit, and after practicing the spirit, they would use the spirit to play a role. It is believed that the spirit is immortal, and the spirit will not be destroyed.

From a general point of view, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are not the same source, and the method of practice is not the same. The Buddhists talk about practicing "nature", which is actually practicing the spirit, the Confucians practice qi, and the Taoists practice jing qi shen (which actually starts with jing). Each of these three schools takes up one aspect: essence, qi, and god, and none of the Taoist gongs does not start with essence, while the Buddhist gongs all start with god, and the Confucian gongs start with qi (not the qi of the human body). However, these gongs have been influencing and penetrating each other for thousands of years, and you have absorbed mine, and I have absorbed yours, and by the Song Dynasty, there were more gongs and gongs converging, and you have me, and I have you, and it has become more obvious since the Jin Yuan Dynasty. Such as the creation of the Taoist Quanzhen school of Wang Chongyang, he spoke of the unity of the three religions, "Jinlian Zhengzong" is the Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism together. Confucianism has accepted some of the views of Buddhism and Taoism since the Song Dynasty Songming Science. Only the Buddha is stubborn, do not accept the other, it opposes the Taoist, said the Taoist is "necrophiliac ghosts", said the Taoist family is afraid of death, always want to save the body, but they are in the cultivation method and steal a little Taoist things, such as the Tang Dynasty Zhiguan master Zhiyi, he took the Taoist "six words For example, Zhiyi, the master of the Tang Dynasty, took the Taoist "Six Character Recipe" and brought it over, and the Buddhists also have the Six Character Recipe. The "stop" of "stop and view" is to guard the dantian, which is also a Taoist thing. At the same time, Buddhists also agree with Confucianism's idea of doing good deeds in the world, doing good deeds, doing good things. Therefore, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism all absorbed the things of other schools to varying degrees, mainly by themselves. After the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was impossible to tell which school was which, except that the religious teachings were independent, and the contents of the real practice of kung fu were all mixed up. The main purpose of telling you this is to let you understand the present gong method, it is hard to tell which one is which. In the future, when you read the classical books, you will see that they are Buddhist writings, but there are also Taoist and Confucian thoughts in them, and that they are Taoist writings, but there are also Buddhist and Confucian thoughts in them.

(4) Medical qigong: Chinese medical qigong is a branch of early Taoist qigong. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, those who studied natural sciences belonged to the Taoists, and those who studied social sciences were Confucians and Legalists. Medicine is a part of natural science and should be a branch of Taoist qigong, and its practice method has a lot of the same places with Taoism, except that it emphasizes more on the meridians and veins in the human body. The development of Taoism and the achievements of medicine are complementary. As Chinese medicine moves forward, so does the Taoist theory of qigong. In the former Taoist theory of Taoism, later on the essence, gas, called "a gas theory", when the Chinese medicine of the essence, gas, God's point of view are established, the Taoist practice of qigong to practice the essence, gas, God, Taoist qigong and Chinese medicine qigong in a number of places are similar. Generally speaking, the later meridians and circumferential gong actually belong to the medical gong, but the Taoists also practice meridians, it should be influenced by the medical qigong.

(5) Martial Arts Qigong: Martial Arts Qigong took its place after Jin Yuan. After the rise of martial arts qigong, it enriched the content of qigong (the history of the development of qigong will have to be specifically mentioned later). Because of the history of the development of qigong, it went through a spiral of negation. Classical qigong had no religion, but after the Tang and Song dynasties, religious qigong was introduced, and then qigong negated religion. The earliest negation was in martial arts qigong, and medical qigong did not negate religion. Martial arts qigong emphasizes more on practicing the form, and it focuses on concentrating God and qi on the form and strengthening the functions of the various parts of the form. Martial arts qigong is useful to the general public, after practicing qigong, the body will be better, more practical, because martial arts qigong to fight, men or women, rivers and lakes or the country or to go to war, you can not be good health ah. Martial arts qigong is to focus the God and gas to the form, the function of the form to strengthen up, stronger, faster reaction speed. Taoist qigong focuses the spirit and form on the qi, while Buddhist qigong focuses the essence and qi on the god. Different gong methods have different concentration points and require different purposes. Nowadays, a lot of martial arts practitioners do not practice qigong, but just go to practice the frame. In fact, the real martial arts qigong is very useful for people nowadays. I think that the development of qigong should follow this path and become more and more practical. Martial arts qigong is very practical, but in the past it was used for fighting, which is not practical. Now let us turn martial arts qigong around, remove the methods of killing people, and instead of using it for fighting, use it for fitness. The whole process of qigong development has reached the stage of martial arts qigong, a step forward from the past. We are now taking another step forward on the basis of martial arts qigong to make people "live", not "die".

In addition, folk qigong is the Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism qigong run to the folk, not a system. Folk qigong should not be singled out as a category, it is only a form of existence.

6. From the role of practicing qigong on the human body

This classification method is based on the benefits of practicing qigong and what role it plays in classifying qigong, and the classification method and terminology are all arranged by us, and this classification has practical value. We have divided four types in one ****.

(1) Disease-removing gong: or fitness-removing gong. When practicing this type of qigong, the effect of treating diseases is prominent, and the effect of other aspects is not so prominent, so we call this kind of qigong expelling diseases. According to reason, any kind of qigong should have the effect of treating diseases, but there are some gong methods that emphasize the treatment of diseases, such as Song Jing Gong and Xing Gong, etc. Of course, there are many kinds of disease-expelling gongs, and there are different ways of practicing them in combination with different diseases, and there are all kinds of guiding methods, such as Chao Yuanfang's "Treatise on the Origins and Currents of All Diseases," in which there are more than one hundred kinds of guiding methods, and there are different ways of practicing them in combination with different diseases. Completely against the disease to practice is also called to get rid of the disease, in the "Shou Shi Bao Yuan" inside the cure for the disease, the Qing Dynasty Shen Jin Ao wrote the "miscellaneous diseases source and flow of rhinoceros candles," inside the each disease are listed after the introduction method and practice methods, the Ming Dynasty, there is also a book "Do not medicine yuan huanyu," is not to talk about the specific method of practicing, but also to talk about getting rid of the disease work. Specific methods of practicing qigong are most prominent in the two books mentioned earlier, namely, "Treatise on the Origin and Waiting for Various Diseases" and "Miscellaneous Diseases Source and Flow of Rhinoceros Candles". Such gong methods and such gong doors are all called disease-expelling gong. If some people say, "I just want to cure my illness, and I don't want to do anything else, then practicing disease-expelling gong is fine. For example, Guo Lin's new qigong therapy was practiced by a lot of patients in the past few years, and they got well very quickly. For the patients, the expectorant gong is a good gong method.

(2) Strong Gong: If the most elementary utility of practicing qigong is to cure illnesses, after the illnesses have been cured, practicing qigong to raise the level of physical and mental health needs to raise the level of physical and mental health, so as to make the body more robust. Fitness mainly refers to the physical body, of course, after the human body is fit, the spirit will also be fit, but spiritual fitness and improving the spiritual level cannot be equated. Generally speaking, most of the martial arts qigong belongs to strong gong, and hard qigong also belongs to strong gong. When you practice martial arts qigong, your strength is strong, how big is it? Generally can be a thousand pounds of heavy things to hold up, such as Shandong Liu Yuanming (originally in our place as a tutor, now to Canada, he originally white hair, practice intelligent work hair black, and later practiced supernormal capabilities), he practiced from the age of twelve Shaolin Gong, later practiced Taiji Gong, hard qigong, can be eight hundred pounds of heavy cylinder (which is equipped with iron sand) to hold up to walk more than a dozen steps.

A leopard-fighting He old man in Henan Province, this old man is a member of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), seventy-nine years old, he used to practice martial arts, kung fu is very good. He fought seven tigers and more than 300 leopards in his life, all of them alive, what power that is! The year before last, I went to Meng County in Henan Province to give a lecture, and I happened to run into him at a county CPPCC meeting. I said at the general meeting of the 3,000-member Intelligent Gong study class held in Meng County that I had heard that there was an old leopard-fighting hero in your county, and I wanted to learn from him. We have to be humble wherever we go. I said so, and others told him, and after the meeting, he came to my place and said, "I am the old panther-fighting hero, and when you say that you will learn from me, I will really learn from you; you are a qigong master, and as soon as you come here and say in front of thousands of people that you will learn from me, just on that basis, I will learn from you." Then I chatted with him for more than seven hours. He then talked about learning and practicing kung fu when he was young. I said, "How did you fight the leopard?" He said that when the leopard came, it jumped, scampered, and bit, and I would just press my hands on it. I also asked, "I heard you can put a leopard in a bag?" He said, "That's a bit of a trick. He said: "This is a bit of a trick, with the hands of the leopard pressed the artery in the neck, it is lack of blood in the brain, coma will not move, the front legs of a back to let the head to the pocket, the back legs to the bag a stuffed, bundled up, carry on the go." He hit more than three hundred leopards, only killed one, is more than one hundred and eighty pounds of leopard king (general leopard is about one hundred and thirty pounds). How did you beat the leopard to death? That time the leopard caught, is being loaded into the cage, the surrounding people look at the leopard so big, yelling: "Leopard King, do not bite ......" He turned around, a hand, the leopard king "hoo" rushed out of the cage. The old man in hot pursuit, he can catch up with the leopard, generally not out of seven miles to catch up, the wolf generally a mile to catch up, he ran so fast. On a cliff, the leopard jumped. The leopard was gone, and he jumped after him. That's a real leopard king, real smart! There's a hole under the cliff. He went into it. The old man ran here, it pounced forward and bit it with its teeth, the old man turned around and killed it with a slap. The old man's scalp are bitten, leaving scars, as long as a little slower, the head will be blossomed, but turn around a palm on the leopard killed, go back to cut open the leopard found that the heart, liver and lungs are broken. This old man is still alive now. This shows that practicing strong gong can make a person very strong, very powerful, and running speed can be very fast.

Mr. Liu Yuanming, who spoke earlier, told me about his past practice of qigong when he was on his way to Canada. They practiced martial arts qigong to practice running fast, on the legs bundled sandbags, wearing an iron sand undershirt, day and night old wearing, with, cold days and hot days can not be removed. Ten days and half a month plus four two (undershirt front plus one or two, back plus one or two, two legs each plus one or two), 350 days a year, is more than 30 four two. Five to ten years later, the sandbags all unloaded, people can be like flying. This strong gong is martial arts qigong, and it makes a lot of sense. In addition, in the sixties, I met a person who practiced toad qi standing Zhuang, he practiced toad qi differently from the novel, that is, he practiced standing Zhuang. He stood parallel to the ground and slowly practiced so that his thighs were leveled, his body was tilted back and straightened, forming two right angles above and below, and as long as he stood like this, he could do anything. If you stand down like this, you will be able to do anything. You will be able to jump up three or four floors at once. We practice the three hearts and stand Zhuang is also a very simple strong gong method. The key is to see if you can stand very low, the best to stand against the wall, take off your shoes, toes against the wall, thighs stand flat, lean back, slowly away from the wall a fist wide, two fist wide, three fist wide, your kung fu will rise. This is how kung fu is practiced.

(3) Zhou Tian Gong: After practicing this kind of Gong, the body's qi channels, the circumference of the sky can be passed. Circumference of heaven is not the meaning of a circle around the sky, the ancients view of the sky to the Big Dipper handle according to a certain orbit rotating around called a circumference of heaven. That people and nature is the same, the human body and the sky is also a small world, blood in the human body according to a certain meridian or route to turn a circle, called the circumference of the sky. After practicing some gongs, the effect is obvious in this aspect, so these gongs are called Zhou Tian Gong. Zhou Tian Gong is the fundamental content of Taoist Gong, and most of the Taoist Gong is Zhou Tian Gong, and in the past, there were Big Zhou Tian and Small Zhou Tian in practicing Taoist Gong. After practicing the circumference of the heaven, the next step up is to make a dan, and to develop supernormal capabilities, which is the level at which the ancients practiced the circumference of the heaven. Nowadays, many popular qigong methods and many gong doors are the evolution of zhou tian gong. People tend to regard Zhou Tian Gong as the authentic traditional Chinese qigong, but in fact it is only one of the traditional Chinese qigong. The practice of Zhou Tian Gong is more complicated, one layer at a time. There are three types of Zhou Tian Gong: Meridian Zhou Tian, Dandao Zhou Tian, and Idea Zhou Tian. Taoist qigong is generally practiced in the authentic Taoist style, medical qigong and Wudang school qigong in the meridian style, and martial arts qigong in the idea style. These three kinds of circumference work, "through" the degree of difficulty is not the same, Dandao circumference is the most difficult to practice, now practicing Dandao Gong not many people, generally practicing a small circumference practice, should be practiced without the sexual function. I've been running around the country for almost twenty years, and I've only seen three people in the country who practiced Dantao zhoutian and got a small dan. The meridians are a little easier, and it generally takes about a hundred days for the meridians to clear up. Ideas of the circumference of the sky rely on the intention to think, can be passed very quickly. The best way to get through is to practice with a group, and it takes a few minutes to get through; it takes a few months to get through the meridians; and it takes a few years to get through the dan dao. Generally speaking, when the meridians and veins are cleared, the body will not fall ill, but when the idea is cleared, it will not be able to, and it will fall ill as usual. The content of the three types of circumference is not the same, the degree of "through" is not the same, the effect is not the same. We engage in intelligent gong people, it is necessary to understand all the reasoning to be able to do. This is the way we should understand the ZhouTian Gong in a comprehensive way. Specifically how to practice, later to talk about the specific gong method of each family.