Category: Science

What Is Qi?

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Chinese character for Qi

Energy of Life

Qi (pronounced chē) is the energy that fuels living – it’s the circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine.

In Chinese philosophy, we are born with Qi, or prenatal energy, which we get from our mothers, and we receive energy from various outside sources such as the food we eat, our environments, and from rest.

Worldwide Concept

Qi is Chinese — similar words and concepts can be found throughout a wide range of culture and history, including:

  • Prana in Hindu/Sanskrit  
  • Ki in Japanese
  • Pneuma in ancient Greek
  • Lung in Tibetan
  • Mana in Hawaiian
  • Ruah in Hebrew
  • Bioelectricity in contemporary scientific language
  • The Force in the pop cultural language of Star Wars

Cultivating Qi: The Root of Energy, Vitality, and Spirit
David Clippinger

What Was “In The Beginning”?

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In the Beginning

In the beginning was not the word; that much is clear. Not that the universe of the living was ever simple, quite the contrary. It was complex from its inception, four billion years ago. Life sailed forth without words or thoughts, without feelings or rea­sons, devoid of minds or consciousness. And yet living organisms sensed others like them and sensed their environments. By sensing I mean the detection of a “presence”—of another whole organism, of a molecule located on the surface of another organ­ism or of a molecule secreted by another organism. Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not construct­ing a “pattern” based on something else to cre­ate a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition.

Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious
Antonio Damasio

How Can We Achieve Excellence?

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Steps Toward Excellence

  • Starve your distractions, feed your focus.
  • Set goals.
  • Read every day.
  • Time is non-refundable — use it with intention.
  • Have a vision.
  • Live inspired.
  • If you don’t go after it, you won’t have it.
  • Make mistakes and pursue failure.

Physicist Richard Feynman

How Do We See Our World?

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Seeing Our World

Vision seems so simple. We open our eyes and there is the world. Yet scientists have long appreciated how difficult this is to explain.

For a start, we move our eyes about five or six times a second, fixating on something and then moving quickly on, but we don’t notice this, and the world appears stable. Also, what we can see clears only a tiny area around that fixation point, yet it feels as though we are seeing the whole scene at once.

Zen and the Art of Consciousness
Susan Blackmore


What Makes Life On Earth Precious?

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Our Place in the Universe

Modern astronomy has given us a perspective on our place in the universe. Life is a fragile development in an air pocket on the surface of Earth, a small planet revolving around a minor star in a galaxy of trillions of stars in a world of billions of galaxies.

Competing Agendas

Our fate is intertwined with our planetary air pocket and the life that shares it. Within the “small space” many competing agendas bump up against each other — species against species, group against group, individual against individual.

Importance of Life

If humans are important, it is because we are important to ourselves. And, if life is important, it is because life is important to us.

Staying Sane in a Crazy World
Sherwin Wine