People in the West have a cultural predilection to define terms in a static way, which is to say that we seem to have a need for a single word to represent a concrete, bordered idea. It is our inclination to take the word “qi” and say that it means “energy” because “energy” is something that we already understand, and the boundaries of that concept are clear to us. However, the word “qi” comes to us from a different culture, one that has a different language and which language has as one of its remarkable characteristics that a single sound, intoned differently or even intoned the same, can have several meanings. The users of that language understand the meaning of the sound, the word, in its context, not because of what the word means, alone, but also because of what the word means in relation to the words which accompany it. So it is with “qi,” which means different things in different contexts. It would be a grave mistake to think of qi merely as “energy,” and doing so does disservice to the word, to the meaning behind the word and to us as users of the word and as humans who wish to have a relationship with it.

Qi has many meanings in the Chinese language, “invisible” or “that which is unknown” and according to Taoism it is defined as “vital energy” or “breath.” That of which all things are made.

Qi does mean “energy” in the sense that it is the motive force which causes things to move and to perform their assigned functions. “Spleen Qi” does not mean the qi that resides in the Spleen so much as it means the ability of the body, attributed to Spleen, to transform food and fluids, to generate Blood and to nourish the muscles and power the intellect. Qi also has the nuance of referring to structure. Bones have qi. A table has qi. A mountain has qi. And, beyond this, qi has an ethereal quality that is even more unpalpable than one might imagine energy to be. We would not say that an idea is energy. An idea is an abstraction that is the product of the mind, which, as an abstraction, has no energy of its own. An idea is not an actual thing; it’s a virtual thing. Yet, even an idea has qi.

Qi is in everything and everything exists within qi. It is not possible to be outside of qi and be a part of our world and our consciousness. It is not the mountain; it is the substance within the mountain which makes it massive and unmovable. It is not the idea; it is the thing which gives the idea its power. It is not the body; it is the fundament on which the body is constructed and it is the driving impetus of every phenomenon which occurs within us.

Qi is everything.