" No-one who understood what is implied by Qi would say they don't believe in it. Saying you don't believe in Qi is like saying you don't believe in 'relationship' or "influence".

Qi is an old idea. The model I will try to explain is at least 2300 years old as it is clearly laid out in the Huangdi Neijing, the seminal work of chinese medicine. While essentially a medical text it also lays out a metaphysical model that is basic to chinese philosophy. The oldest character for Qi represented vapours rising. In time the radical for grain was placed below to show the steam that rises from cooking millet. What happens when you smell food cooking? Your body responds; stomach gurgles, mouth waters, etc. So something about cooking food exerted influence on you. Qi.

What is the nature of this influence? It requires that we introduce two other philosophical concepts that have been subject to ideational mutilation, Yin and Yang. We often see the simplistic folk models of Yin and Yang that are lists of things associated with the two concepts. ( Yin is feminine, cool, dark, receptive/ Yang is masculine, warm, light, creative). These lists are not strictly wrong, yet they obscure the reason the lists were made in the first place.

' Between heaven and earth are qi and it's laws' ; between Yin and Yang are Qi and it's laws'. This classic statement points to the most important aspect of Qi, it's context. So qi is the interplay of Yin and Yang. This brings us back to the nature of Yin and Yang.

Yin is the tendency of things in the universe to coalesce and slow down. Yin is the tendency to crystalization and struction. Yin is the tendacy of matter to fall down and shadows to form in opposition to light.


Yang is the tendency for things to change and become other things. The tendency to dissolve and tendency to grow. The tendency for clouds to boil and skin to tan.

All objects of sense experience are an interplay of Yin and Yang. This includes individual things as well as systems. This is why the concept of Taiji is the great terminus or the grand ultimate, because it includes all things in the universe. Yin and Yang are linked and one cannot be discussed without invoking the other. Structure cannot be divorced from function.

They stand in mutual opposition.
They are rooted in each other.
They define each others limit.
They transform into one another.

When we discuss the balance of Yin and Yang at any given moment or in any given state we are talking about Qi. It is important to understand that Yin and Yang are not absolute states of being, rather they are part of a moving frame that can applied in a variety of ways to any situation. There are many situations where the place of Yin and Yang is considered to be understood and relatively predictable so they are left out of the discussion. One of these places is in the context of the relationship between body and mind.

When we look at the basic idea of body and mind in Chinese philosophy we are talking about Jing(essense), and Shen( spirit, or summation of mental-emotional aspects of the individual). The relative interaction of Jing and Shen is the normal context for the discussion of Qi in martial arts. When someone says 'lead qi to your fingertips" the implication is to focus the mind on the fingertips to perceive the interaction between Jing and Shen at that point, hence qi. However, you could also say, ' absorb the opponents force to use their strength against them.' In this case Yin is found in the reception and relaxed connection of the defender ( song) , and the Yang is found in the aggresor's force( Li). The resulting Qi is how the interaction plays out. If the defender is subtle and skilled the qi will be the qi of a throw perhaps. If the aggressor is more subtle or skilled the result may be the qi of a successful hit.. If the aggressor is very subtle they may be able to become more Yin that the defender and so invert the frame of Yin and Yang."

Light travels at 296,000 meters per second or 186,000 miles per second and doesn't need a medium to travel in. All colors of light travel at the same speed, but they have different wave frequencies (short and long waves).

Light can be reflected or refracted. In reflection, light bounces off a surface and is diffused. Light travels in a straight line and refraction is the bending of this light. The light breaks up into different frequencies therefore causing a rainbow or a "broken" look.

Light falling on an object may be absorbed, or reflected. What happens to it depends on the color of the object: a red object reflects red light and absorbs much of the rest of the other colors that we see. The color of an object is that color which is reflected rather than absorbed.

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its velocity. This is most commonly seen when a wave passes from one medium to another. Refraction of light is the most commonly seen example, but any type of wave can refract when it interacts with a medium, for example when sound waves pass from one medium into another.

In optics, refraction occurs when light waves travel from a medium with a given refractive index to a medium with another. At the boundary between the media, the wave's phase velocity is altered, it changes direction, and its wavelength increases or decreases but its frequency remains constant. For example, a light ray will refract as it enters and leaves glass;

Light Pigment relationship. To experiment with light complementary is rather simple, look at an intense red for one minute and then turn your eyes to look at a white surface, there you will see appearing the same shape of the red object in a slightly fluorescent cyan. Or project a spectrum from a prism on to a white wall, if we put in front of the projected rainbow colors a red filter the portion of blue cyan of the spectrum will disappear or putting a cyan filter the red portion of the spectrum will disappear. Instead if we put a magenta filter the portion of green will disappear, so it is relatively simple to know that cyan and red are complementary, as well as green to magenta in the radiant light principle. It is not as easy to find out this complementary color in the pigment absorption quality of color. Whenever we mix three color pigments together we reach black, meanwhile whenever we mix three coloured lights we reach white coherent light. If we mix green light with red light we get yellow going to white, meanwhile if we mix a red pigment with green pigment we get brown, going to black

* Matter is effected by forces or interactions (the terms are interchangeable)
* there are four fundamental forces in the Universe:
o gravitation (between particles with mass)
o electromagnetic (between particles with charge/magnetism)
o strong nuclear force (between quarks)
o weak nuclear force (that changes quark types)

“The symbolism and structure of Yod-He-Vau-He is simple, yet deeply profound. And when its few simple elements combine, they give birth to the entire complexity of life. In part, YHVH represents that perfect simple pattern we spoke of earlier - the atom or solar system. It also speaks of human procreation, and stellar/planetary procreation. The first part, “Yod”, represents the positive (+), “Sun”, “light”, “the Father” principles. The first “He” represents the “negative”, not in the sense of “bad” or “evil”, but in the sense of (-), negative polarity, pure darkness like that of the void of space, the receptive, the Mother principles. “Vau” is the meeting of Yod and He; the place of interplay, intercourse, and combining of the first two principles. It is its own principle, and the place of conception of, and the birth of, the second “He” (again, pronounced “hay”). The second “He” is the offspring of Yod and He, the result of their interaction, their subsequent creation. The second “He” has the same attributes as its Father, the Yod, in that it actually IS a Yod in its own macro or microcosmic realm. The second “He” is on a vibrational plane an octave apart. The second “He” begins the cycle (Yod-He-Vau-He) again, but AS THE YOD in micro-cosm or macro-cosm, and its polarity is reversed from its “father” YOD. Interestingly, the “father” principle, Yod, was distorted through translation over time from “Yod” into “God”, which is also often given a “father” principle connotation.”

This took me some time and deep contemplation to grasp the entirety of, and the great significance of it. But I eventually did. In fact, it ultimately led to a great deal of scientific research I conducted, applying the name to light, sound, and music. I have included some other profound aspects, and an attempt at giving you examples that may help certain of you understand it better. Understanding vibration and music can make it easier.


The cycle of YHVH creation continues as an Infinite spiral. It can best be understood intuitively, but maybe these illustrations will help a bit.



YOD

HE

VAU

HE/YOD.......octave

(Infinite HE

vibrational VAU

spiral) HE/YOD.......octave

HE

VAU

HE/YOD......octave

YHVH makes a spiral (similar to DNA double helix don’t you think?), each Yod in the same place on a circle of the spiral, but just above, or just below - on its own circle. These are “octaves” of vibration, and can represent a micro or macro-cosm world of existence.

To further help understand the way YHVH works, consider the vibrational realm of sound, and facts relating to music.

A common frequency of the musical note of “A” that is universally used to tune instruments, is 440 cycles per second (also called 440 hertz [hz]). But there are an infinite number of “octaves” of "A", above and below 440hz. For instance, the next octave of “A” above that is exactly double, exactly times 2 - i.e., 880 cycles per second, whereas the octave of “A” below that is 220 cycles per second, exactly half, exactly divided by 2. Note that the next higher note of "A" is exactly double, and the next higher one from that is exactly double, etc., and that vibrational doubling will go on infinitely, even after it goes beyond the realm of sound. Likewise, the next lower note of "A" is exactly half the frequency, etc., etc.,



"A" x 2 = "A" x 2 = "A" x 2 = "A" x 2 = "A" (etc., continuing infinitely)

55hz 110hz 220hz 440hz 880hz (etc., continuing infinitely)

octave octave octave octave octave



The "A" represents YOD; the multiplication by 2, represents the HE, and its intercourse (VAU) with the YOD; the next octave is the second HE, which is the offspring or creation of the YOD and HE's intercourse (VAU).

Below is another way of looking at it. In this example, the YOD and the first HE are of equal value (hz), and the combining or intercourse of the two (VAU) is represented by the equals sign (=). The numbers shown below the YHVH's are the cycles per second of octaves of "A".



YOD + HE = HE/YOD + HE = HE/YOD + HE = HE/YOD

110 + 110 = 220 + 220 = 440 + 440 = 880

(again, this continues infinitely up and infinitely down)


Don’t be frustrated if you don’t understand it easily or even for quite a while. I didn’t. Then one day it just hit me and all fell into place.

Yod-He-Vau-He represents many things in One. It is comprised of a numerological sequence that represents all things in the first four numbers. Einstein said we never need to count more than four to understand all things. He understood YHVH. Here are the One, Two, Three. Four. Such as: the Infinite ONE; TWO: the dichotomy, polarities positive and negative, Yin and Yang; THREE: the threefold nature of spiritual, mental, and physical; the Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; etc.. FOUR: the rebirth, the offspring, the cross, crucifixion and the transition to a new plane. Thus YHVH is both the formula of the “primary pattern” - and the formula for the procreation of the primary pattern.

YHVH’s most important representation is: the means of transition and manifestation of creation infinitely throughout ALL. As we have partially shown, this may be seen through studying the Law as it is reflected in music. In one octave of vibration is a Universe! Every octave is a duplicate of another except that it is of a higher or lower frequency. The note “A” is an “A” whether it is played in the highest octave of an instrument range, or the lowest. As the frequency of vibration increases, and goes beyond the range of hearing, it eventually comes within the range of sight. But the same law that dictates the repeating notes of various octaves holds true. Colors are like the notes in the octave of vision. Each color has a “note” - each color is a note, each note is a color. This principle allows you to find any note, in the “octave” of any vibrational frequency band. For instance, you can take the frequency of 440 for the note “A”, and keep doubling it to find the higher octaves. You can keep doubling it past the frequency band of sound, and on into the frequency band of light. You can then match your figures against the known frequencies for colors of light, and precisely determine the color of each note! Who could have imagined you could do such a scientific thing using the oldest name of God?

If one truly understands YHVH, one understands the Law governing all vibration, and all creation.

"Great question- the greatest of all questions- has been asked by humanity for countless ages, "Is there a God?" From the point of view of religion, it is accepted on faith that there is a God, a Divinity, Who is called the Father of Man and of the Universe. But human beings are not satisfied with believing on faith; they want to know, to have irrefutable proofs of the existence of Divinity. Therefore has it become the task of Science to investigate the matter and find an answer to this question, an answer which will satisfy the searching of the rational mind; and science has solved the problem nobly.Through scientific investigation, it discovered that there is a Universal Force which may be termed- Etenal energy, Primal energy- pevading the universe, filling infinite space. If primal energy fills infinite space for one moment, it must be one with eternal space for eternity, because there is no place where it can lose itself. Therefore the basic energy of the universe is found to be infinite, and at the same time eternal. Through further investigation, it was discovered that infinite energy expesses itself in most admirable laws, sublime laws: that it shows the profoundest intelligence and logic, a self conciossness expressed in the divinest terms, laws invariable, true to themselves, mathematically correct, and above all, harmonious and beutiful.

As a result of all this reasoning, was discovered, through its first universal manifestation as primal energy, that which has always exsisted, the eternal unmanifest called god, conciouss of it's own power, law emitting, law abiding. In other words there is a Unit, a One, existing eternally, expressing itself through its creation, the universe, conciously governing it, sustaining it in a condition of eternal harmony, and loving it, for love and harmony are one. Love Is attraction.Thus science has found divinity under another name. Therefore the word "god" which would have been used in "religion", will be substituted a word having deeper meaning, covering broader ground, the word principle."

" That is the great principle is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, The great principle has from eternity, out of itself created everything there is. It is it's own center and own circumference. The absolute is present everywhere, whether we are conciouss of it or not. That means that whenever we wish to come in contact with the great principle, we do not need to think of something far distant, unattainable. All we need to do is know the immutable fact that its first manifistation, universal energy, is always about us in full power. Therefore when anyone realises this presence conciously, there it is in its full power. We can agian make the comparisin to the ocean. We cannot say that in any one place in the ocean there is more power than in another. There is power everywhere. Whenever one wishes to contact the ocean, one has simply to dip the hand into the water and one will feel all that the ocean is, and if one puts tha hand in another part of the ocea, one will have the same results. Millions of people can do the same thing, at the same time, and they all will contact the same fullness of the ocean. So it is with the great principle. Whenever we conciously contact the absolute in its manifistation as Universal energy, there it is in all it's omnipotence, because it is all embracing. Therefore it is not correct, as we find in literature, to imagine that there is somewhere in the universe a center of powers and forces from which all forces radiate, acting most strongly on those things which are nearest and more feebly on those farthest away"

" Primal energy, as was explained in the first lesson, is the fundamental force of the universe. It underlies, pervades, and sustains everything, fills all space, endures throughout eternity, and is the source of all power. It is indeed the very life of the universe. As such, it is in perpetual motion, expressing itself through what are called vibrations

In the absolute there is only one kind of vibration, the spiritual. In The present state of human concioussness those spiritual vibrations appear as a three fold ray

1. Life or magnetic vibrations
2.mind vibrations
3.soul vibrations"


" And each kind of vibration is expessing itsef in a different way, which conforms to it's own particular laws"

" Life vibrations are also called magnetic vibrations, because they possess two primary qualites, motion and attraction. In the practical application, those qualities are continually used in oreder to obtain the desired results. Magnetic vibrations are essentailly importan because they not only permeate the whole universe and underlie everything, but because they constitute the very element out of which our bodies and the whole visible universe is made. The great practical value of those Life Vibrations is that we do not need concentration or strong mental effort to contact them. All we need to do is to become concious of their continual flow into us, and thus establish the so called contact. No matter what we do, be it physical, mental, or emotional activity, we should never use our own very limited supply of life enrgy. THis must be the cardinal point to be remebered."


" The question may arise, why is it necessary to make contactwith the universal life energy? Are we not in direct and constant communication with it at all times? Yes, but we are not concious of it. On the contrary, we conciously beleive we are independant of it, that we have a life force of our own. We think we are seperate from all power. Therefore we need to reestblish on the mental plane that which was lost there, though we never lost that contact on the spiritual plane."

" There are different methods of contacting Primal energy. The easiest and the simplest way is through mental contact. In order to do it, we must relax completely as we can, physically, mentally, emotionally. And when we feel harmony within us then we must say to ourslves " I am one with the universal life energy it is flowing through me now, I feel it"


"In order to overcome that difficulty and enable everybody, even the most skeptical and timid, to make successful that conciouss contact with the universal life energy, there is another method of pure physical contact, based on pure physical laws. That second method has this advantage over the mental one, that it does not require any faith in it. It works for the reason that the physical laws are put into operation, and the physical contact with the universal energy is made, not because we think it or want it, but because we cannot help it."

" Yet if we do not think about it, it still will work, because of the aforesaid reasons. The second, the physical method, is based on a certain exercise called the star exercise"


" The heart situated on the left side of the body, is not only the central pumping station which takes in and sends out blood, but also is the apparatus which sucks in and pours out universal life energy"

"Another interesting meaning is given to the idea of the mudra. It reveals the secret imbibed in the five fingers. In such an interpretation, each of the fingers, starting with the thumb, is identified with one of the five elements, namely the sky, wind, fire, water, and the earth. Their contact with each other symbolizes the synthesis of these elements, significant because every form in this universe is said to be composed of a unique combination of these elements. "

"In the Benediction or blessing mudra the first two fingers and thumb are used--these represents the etheric, air and fire elements of which the formal ritual of the baptism of "fire" is facilitated and enacted."

Qigong is Part of Prehistoric Culture

What is qigong? A lot of qigong masters are trying to address this question, but what I have to say is completely different. A lot of qigong masters talk about it at one level, while I’m talking at a higher level about how to understand qigong, and it’s nothing like how they understand it. Some qigong masters say that qigong has a 2,000-year history in our country. And others say qigong has a 3,000-year history. Some say it has a 5,000-year history, which would be about the same as the history of our Chinese civilization. And there are people who say that if you go by historic artifacts it has a 7,000-year history, which goes way beyond the history of our Chinese civilization. But all the same, the date doesn’t go much beyond the history of this civilization. Now, according to Darwin’s theory of evolution, man first evolved from aquatic plants into aquatic animals, then he climbed onto land, and later up into trees, then he came back down and turned into an ape, and then finally he evolved into modern man, who has culture and thought, which puts human civilization at only about 10,000 years old, if you figure that way. Go back a little further and there wouldn’t have even been quipu record-keeping, and they would have worn leaves and eaten raw meat. Go even further back, and maybe they wouldn’t even know how to make fire, and they would have been those totally savage, primitive people.

But something just doesn’t add up. There are a lot of places around the world where traces of ancient cultures have been left, and they’re really a lot older than our civilization. These ancient remains are excellent in terms of their craftsmanship, and if you look at the artistry they’re superb. It’s almost like modern folks are imitating the arts of ancient people, and they have great aesthetic value. But they’re from more than 100,000 years ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago, millions of years ago, or even more than 100 million years ago. Then think about it, isn’t this making a joke of "history" as we know it? But this really isn’t just another amusing idea, since mankind is perfecting itself and rediscovering itself on an ongoing basis, and that’s just how a society develops, so chances are what it knows at the beginning isn’t totally correct.

A good number of you have probably heard of the term prehistoric culture, which is also called prehistoric civilization. Let’s talk about prehistoric civilization. On the earth there is Asia, Europe, South America, North America, Oceania, Africa, and Antarctica, which geologists group together as continental plates. It’s been tens of millions of years since the continental plates formed, or you could say, a number of land masses rose from the ocean floor, and a lot of land masses sank to the bottom of the sea, and it’s been tens of millions of years since they stabilized as they are now. But at the bottom of a lot of oceans people have found tall and large ancient structures, the structures have elegant designs, and they aren’t cultural remains from today’s human race. So they must have been built before they sank to the sea bottom. Then who was it tens of millions of years ago that started those civilizations? Back then, our human race wouldn’t have even been monkeys, right—how could we have created such intelligent things? Today archaeologists have discovered that there was an organism called a trilobite, and that creature was active from 600 million years ago up until 260 million years ago. It hasn’t been around for 260 million years. Yet there’s an American scientist who discovered a trilobite fossil, and what was on it but a human footprint, the footprint of somebody wearing shoes, and the print was unmistakable. Isn’t that like playing a joke on historians? If you go by Darwin’s theory of evolution, tell me, could there be human beings 260 million years ago?

In the museum of the National University of Peru there’s a rock that has a human figure etched into it. A study determined that the figure was etched in the rock 30,000 years ago. But this figure is wearing clothes, he has a hat on, and he’s wearing shoes, in his hand he’s got a telescope and he’s observing the stars. Now how could people 30,000 years ago know how to weave cloth and put on clothes? What’s even more incredible is that he’s holding a telescope and observing the stars, he knew something about astronomy. We’ve always thought that the European, Galileo, invented the telescope, and that it was just a little over 300 years ago. So who would have invented the telescope 30,000 years ago? And there are lots and lots of other unsolved mysteries. For example, many caves in France, South Africa, and the Alps have murals on the slate there, and the murals were etched in a fully lifelike and vivid way. The figures there were etched with great quality, and they’re coated with a type of mineral pigment. But those figures are dressed like modern people, and their clothes look a little like Western-style clothes—they’re wearing breeches. Some of them are holding things like tobacco pipes, and some are holding canes and wearing hats. Do you mean to tell me those monkeys hundreds of thousands of years ago could have had this level of artistry?

Let’s go back a little further. In Africa there’s the Gabon Republic, which has uranium ore. It’s a country that’s pretty underdeveloped and they don’t have the capacity to extract the uranium themselves, so they export the ore to developed countries. In 1972 a plant in France imported that uranium ore, and after chemical analysis they found that the uranium ore had already been tapped and used. They thought it was strange, and so they sent over some scientists and technical personnel to make an on-site investigation. Scientists from a lot of countries went there to investigate. They eventually verified that the uranium ore mine was a large-scale nuclear reactor, and the layout was really technically sound. There’s no way even us modern folks could create something like that. So when was it built? Two billion years ago, and it operated for 500,000 years. These numbers are just astronomical. There’s no way to explain it with Darwin’s theory of evolution. And there are tons of things like this. The scientific and technological community has discovered enough new things to change our current textbooks. Once mankind gets its thinking stuck in an old, deep rut, it’s hard for people to accept new ideas. And even when the truth is revealed people don’t dare to accept it—they just reject it impulsively. Because of the influence of old ways of thinking nobody is organizing these things today in a systematic way, and so people’s thinking never keeps up with new developments. You bring up these things, and, even though they’ve been discovered, and just not yet publicized much, you have people who still blurt out "blind belief" and just can’t accept it.

There are a lot of brave scientists in other countries who have publicly acknowledged that these things come from prehistoric cultures, and that they’re from a civilization that came before this human civilization of ours, meaning, before this civilization of ours there were other periods of civilization, and not just one. You can tell by looking at archeological objects that they weren’t all from one period of civilization. So they think that after the many times civilization suffered a devastating blow, only a small number of people survived, they lived primitively, then gradually multiplied into a new human race, and began a new civilization. Then it would head for destruction again, and again they would multiply into a new human race. So that’s how it’s gone through all of these different cyclical changes, time after time. Physicists say that the motion of matter has patterns. Our entire universe’s changes also have patterns.

The movement of our planet earth, when it’s in this vast universe, and when it’s in this turning Milky Way, there’s just no way it could have always had smooth sailing, and chances are it’s run into other planets, or had other problems, and these would have brought about huge catastrophes. If we look at it from the perspective of abilities, that’s just how it was arranged. One time I traced it back carefully and found out that there have been 81 times when mankind lay in total ruin, and only a few people survived, only a little of the prehistoric civilization was left, and then they entered the next period and lived primitively. When the people multiplied enough, civilization would finally appear again. So it’s gone through 81 of these cycles, and I didn’t trace it back to the end. The Chinese people talk about opportunities of time granted by Heaven, geographical advantages, and unity among the people. Different changes in celestial phenomena, or different times granted by Heaven, these can bring about different situations in the ordinary world. In physics they say that the motion of matter follows patterns. Well, the same goes for the motion of the universe.

The main reason I just talked about prehistoric culture was to make this point: qigong is not something that today’s human race came up with, it was handed down from ages ago, and it’s part of prehistoric culture. And we can find some passages about this in scriptures. Back in his day, Shakyamuni said that he completed his cultivation and became Enlightened many, many hundreds of millions of kalpa ago. So then how many years are in a kalpa? One kalpa is many, many hundreds of millions of years. You really can’t even imagine a number that huge. So if what he said is true, then doesn’t it match up with mankind’s history and the changes the whole earth has been through? And another thing Shakyamuni said was that before him there were six Buddhas of the primeval age, that he had masters, and so on, and that all of them had cultivated and become Enlightened many, many hundreds of millions of kalpa ago. So if these things are really true, then could some of those authentic, real practices and some of the legitimately passed down ones that are spread in the world today, could they include those types of cultivation ways? If you ask me, I’d say of course, sure. But you don’t see them much. Nowadays those fake qigong, phony qigong, and those people who are possessed go and recklessly concoct some stuff to con people, and they outnumber the true qigongs by umpteen times. It’s hard to make out which is real and which is fake. And it’s hard to tell if something is real qigong. It’s not that easy to find.

Actually, qigong isn’t the only thing left from ages ago. The Tai-ji symbol, the Hetu and Luoshu diagrams, the Book of Changes, and the Eight Trigrams, to name just a few, all of these have been passed down from prehistory. So today when we go and study it from an ordinary person’s standpoint, or try to understand it that way, it’s just not going to make sense no matter how we try. When you look at things from the level of an ordinary person, or from that standpoint, or that level of awareness, there’s no way you’re going to understand what is real.

Qigong is About Cultivation

Qigong has been around for ages, so just what exactly is it for? I’m going to tell you, what we have here is a Buddhist cultivation Great Law, so of course it’s for cultivating Buddhahood. And Daoists, of course, cultivate the Dao to attain the Dao. I can tell you that the idea of "Buddha" isn’t blind belief. "Buddha" is a term from Sanskrit, which is a language of ancient India. When it was brought to our China it had two words, pronounced "Fo Tuo." Some people also translated it as "Fu Tu." Then, as it was passed around by people, and as it was handed down over the generations, we Chinese people left out one of the words and just called it "Fo." So what does this term mean in Chinese? It means "Enlightened One"—a person who’s become Enlightened by cultivating. How’s that "blind belief"?

So let’s think about it. Cultivation can bring out a person’s supernatural abilities. Six types of abilities are recognized in the world today, but there are more than just those. I’d say there’s around 10,000 true abilities. Just suppose that while sitting in place, and without moving his hands or feet, somebody could do what other people can’t do even with their hands and feet, and he could see the true laws governing every dimension of the universe, and the reality of the universe—he could see things that ordinary people can’t. Isn’t that somebody who’s attained the Dao by cultivating? Isn’t he a Great Enlightened Being? Could you say he’s the same as an ordinary person? Isn’t he somebody who’s become Enlightened by cultivating? Isn’t it only right to call him "an Enlightened Being"? When you put it into the language of ancient India, that’s a "Buddha." And that is what it’s really about—that is what qigong is for.

The moment qigong comes up there’s always somebody who says, "Why would you want to practice qigong if you don’t have health problems?" He’s implying that qigong is just for healing, and that’s a really, really shallow understanding of it. But you can’t blame him, because a lot of qigong masters are just healing people and helping them stay fit, that stuff, they just talk about healing and fitness, and nobody is teaching higher things. I’m not trying to say their practices aren’t good. It’s actually their mission to teach things at the level of healing and fitness, and popularize qigong. But there are a lot of folks who want to cultivate to high levels. They think about this, and they have the heart for it, but they don’t know how to cultivate themselves, and this has brought them a lot of hardship, and they’ve run into a lot of problems. Now of course, really transmitting a practice at high levels is going to involve higher things. So we’ve made a point of being responsible to society, and to all people, and the overall results of transmitting this practice have been good. Some of the things are high-level, and maybe it sounds like we’re talking about blind beliefs, but we’ll try our best to use modern science when we explain them.

When we mention certain things some people blurt right out, "blind belief." Why do they do that? Their criteria for something being "blind belief" or "quackery" is that it’s whatever science hasn’t grasped, or whatever they haven’t experienced first-hand, or whatever they think can’t possibly exist. That’s their way of thinking. So is that way of thinking correct? Can you just dismiss something as blind belief or quackery just because science hasn’t grasped it yet, or just because science isn’t far enough along to explain it yet? Aren’t these people themselves full of blind belief? And aren’t they caught up in quackery? If everybody thought that way, could science develop? Could it move forward? Society wouldn’t be able to make progress. The things that our scientific and technological community has invented are all things that people didn’t have at one time. If those things were all thought of as blind belief, then there’d be no point in talking about progress, right? Qigong isn’t quackery. But there are always a lot of people who think it is, since they don’t understand it. But with the use of scientific instruments people have now detected on the bodies of qigong masters things like infrasonic waves, ultrasonic waves, electromagnetic waves, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma rays, neutrons, atoms, and trace metal elements. Aren’t those all concrete things? They’re matter. Aren’t all things made of matter? Aren’t other space-times made of matter? Could you call them blind belief? Qigong is for cultivating Buddhahood, so of course there are going to be a lot of profound things involved. And we’re going to explain all of them.

So if that’s what qigong is for, why do people call it qigong? It’s not really called qigong. What’s it called? It’s called cultivation—it is cultivation. Of course, it has other specific names, but as a whole it’s called cultivation. So why do people call it qigong, then? You know, qigong has been popular for over 20 years. It started as early as the middle of the Cultural Revolution, and at the end of the Cultural Revolution it began to peak. Now think about it. Back then the ultra-leftist, Maoist thought was going strong. Let’s not get into what names qigong had in prehistoric cultures. But as this civilization of ours was developing, it went through a feudal period, so it had names that sounded pretty medieval. And the ones related to religions often had names that sounded pretty religious, like, "Dafa of Cultivating Dao," "Vajra Meditation," "Way of Arhat," "Dafa of Cultivating Buddha," "Nine-Fold Immortality Elixir Method." They were names like those. If you used those names during the Cultural Revolution, wouldn’t you have been publicly denounced? That wish that qigong masters had to popularize qigong was good, and they did it to heal the masses and keep them fit, it was to improve people’s physical conditions—that was great, wasn’t it?—but it still wouldn’t have gone over well, so they didn’t dare use those names. So to popularize qigong, a lot of qigong masters plucked two words from The Book of Elixir and the Daoist Canon and then called it "qi gong." Some people even dig into the term qigong and research it, but there’s nothing there to study. It just used to be called cultivation. Qigong is just a new term that came along in order to suit modern people’s thinking. That’s all.

I said before that Dafa was taught in the human world back in the past. A lot of students then asked me when it was taught. It was taught on the previous Earth. Why? The previous Earth was an experiment conducted for this Earth. The old forces experimented with the last Earth so as to make sure there wouldn't be problems at the end with their arrangements for the renewal. It was to make sure that no problems would come up, and to prevent it from going awry. So why did they need to do such a long-term experiment? Because there had never before been any beings like man here at this Earth's location. Why do I always talk about alien beings? It's because no matter how many Earths were renewed in the past,