Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity by Jason Elias

Author:Jason Elias
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307420428
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

9♦ LEVEL TWO: THE CHI

When you look for it, there is nothing to see.

When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear.

When you use it, it is inexhaustible.

—Tao Te Ching

When the wei chi is weakened and disease is able to penetrate deeper into the system, symptoms of distress intensify. Digestive disturbances, chills, fevers, migrating aches and pains, lack of energy, and chronic fatigue signal that the immune system is on constant alert. As the weeks and months go by and the symptoms stubbornly persist, you begin to wonder if something serious might be wrong. Doctor visits increase. You take over-the-counter and prescription medications to allay chronic pain, induce sleep, and boost your flagging energy. Inevitably your emotional health is affected, and you begin to feel anxious, irritable, and depressed.

These wide-ranging physical and emotional symptoms arise when the body’s second level of defense—the chi—is under siege. The relationship between chi and wei chi is complex and deeply intertwined. In truth, they are not separate entities at all but different manifestations of the same basic force. The wei chi is the visible manifestation of an invisible but massive inner force: chi.

In traditional Chinese medicine, chi is synonymous with life itself. In the world around us, chi is the energy that allows night to become day and day to become night, the force that keeps the earth rotating on its axis, and the power that radiates the sun’s warmth through space. Inside your body, chi is the vital energy that begets all movement, generates all heat, produces all moisture, and protects every cell in your body from harm. Chi gives you the energy to walk, talk, think, reason, feel hunger and thirst, and experience emotions such as passion, empathy, desire, and love.

Because you can’t see chi, you may find it difficult to believe that it really exists. Yet chi is not the only form of vital energy that is ethereal and impalpable. Life depends on the involuntary act of inhalation and exhalation, for example, but the life-giving essence of breath is intangible and invisible.

The wind offers another example of a powerful but invisible energy source. When the wind circles through the aspen tree, the leaves quiver and shake. When the curtains rise and fall, seemingly of their own volition, you know the wind is a guest in your house. Although you can’t see the wind, you know it exists because you have witnessed its effects on the visible world.

Like breath and wind, chi is beyond your grasp and control. You can’t hold it in your hands, feel its rounded or squared edges, mold it, bend it, divide it, or clone it. You can’t measure it in meters or decibels; nor can you analyze its properties under a microscope. When you reach for it, it disappears.

This story may help you to understand the nature of chi, the dynamic energizing force underlying all movement—even the movement of your mind.

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, “The flag is moving.”

The other said, “The wind is moving.

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