Chi vs. Prana, Meridians vs. Nadis, Chakras vs. Dan Tiens

[sheng zhen]

Ive been wondering about this a long time and hope some of you experienced and knowledgable can clarify these things for me.

 

What is the difference between chi and prana?

Textbooks say they are the same, lifeforce. Im not shure I agree. Isnt there some energetic quality difference? To me prana seems to have a lighter and more insubstancial quality, as if qi is the more physical aspect of lifeforce, and prana a more spiritual aspect.

 

What is the difference between meridians and nadis?

Textbooks say they are the same, but the pictures show different routes through the body. Also, if chi and prana really is different, the I suppose chi goes through the meridians and prana through the nadis. Prana is more connected to chakras and chi to dan tiens.

 

And at last, whats the differnce between chakras and dan tiens?

We have three dan tiens, and 7(or a lot more) chakras. Hara chakra and the lower dan tien is most likly to correspond, but hara is associated with water and the lower dan tien is associated with fire. And its the other way around with the heart and the middle dan tien. BUT, if its true that we have thousands of smaller chakras, what then is the difference between chakras and acu points?? Maby chakras are collective representation of acu points groups? Still, we dont have acu points outside of the body, but a lot of chakras both above and below the body. That would probably proove the charkrasystem to be different than the acu point system.

 

Its more than enough explanations out there to make us confused. But if we get things clear, that these are different energysystems, things will be less confusing. And to me, I think that is the most likely explenation. Differnt energysystems is connected to different consciousness-expressions, just like different circulationsystems in the body is connected to different functions.

[doc benway]

They are all imperfect attempts at describing something that cannot ever be adequately described. Each arises from the cummulative conditioning of a distinct culture so each will necessarily approach the problem in a slightly different way. They are different paradigms yet they both are trying to do the same thing - understand and describe something that will forever defy understanding and description. They are just labels. Through practice you will experience the thing, then the labels don't matter as much. There is only one "energy system" or whatever you choose to call it - the systems are not different, just our attempts to capture it in words and thoughts. It's better to experience it than to study it.

Edited January 23, 2008 by xuesheng

[宁]

qi and prana are not the same thing, as prana is only one component of the life force within the human body-mind, there are other aspects of it, related with the other elements as understood in hindu culture.

qi is a concept that belongs to the daoist firstly, is their own interpretation of a force that they feel in the universe.

its like this: the more you feel about the details and structure of that force, if you give it a name, it will be the same, yet slightly or more different.

some of the nadis correspond with some of the meridians, yet we must admit that the chinese mapped out the energy body better than any culture. are they the same, well, yes and no, and now you know why.

dantiens and chackras are not the same, the daoist have different names for them. basically, the dantiens are like the supercenters, and the chackras are like the minicenters. the supercenters control the minicenters. also, the dantiens have to be created using special inner ingredients, meanwhile, the seed chackras are always there, you have to open them and make them more powerfull

[sheng zhen]

They are all imperfect attempts at describing something that cannot ever be adequately described. Each arises from the cummulative conditioning of a distinct culture so each will necessarily approach the problem in a slightly different way. They are different paradigms yet they both are trying to do the same thing - understand and describe something that will forever defy understanding and description. They are just labels. Through practice you will experience the thing, then the labels don't matter as much. There is only one "energy system" or whatever you choose to call it - the systems are not different, just our attempts to capture it in words and thoughts. It's better to experience it than to study it.

Yes, I totally agree that it is better to experience it than to study it from a book or anything.

 

So what is your experience? Do you say that the three dan tiens are the same as the chakras? Do they have the same function and the same energetic expression?

Or is the meridians paths the same as the nadis paths? Even though the charts show that they are different?

 

And I totally agree that what people observe all depends on the cultures paradigms. But does that nessecary mean that the differnt paradigms actually see the same thing, or do they just focus on different aspects of our energetic constitution? I believe the latter is more correct.

[宁]

also the labeling is not so random as one may undestand, its not something it will fall out of the sky and you should take it that way... the terminology is part of the transmission, and each school has its working concepts that play with regarding practice and understanding of the qi phenomena. basically, the terms can not and should not be mixed up, they are tools, like hammer, nails, axe, knife, whatnot. you cannot make a tool to do the work of another.

[Wayfarer64]

It seems there is a somewhat subjective element in these differences as noted here -cultural subtleties may actually create slight differentiations in discriptions of the same phenomina...But could it be that these subjective elements may create somewhat different responses in the subjective minds of practitioners? On some levels this seems unlikely, but stranger things have been perpitrated by the subjective selves of practitioners...

 

What is also interesting to me just now - is how , so many here know quite well, what it is that is being discussed -while others will deny the very existence of such activities...Or even the existence of qi/prana!-

 

Even as noted elsewhere on this site!

 

The doing is everything. I just hope I can find my way to do more!

[doc benway]

So what is your experience? Do you say that the three dan tiens are the same as the chakras? Do they have the same function and the same energetic expression?

Or is the meridians paths the same as the nadis paths? Even though the charts show that they are different?

You're trying to get me to describe an indescribable experience in words again. I can't. Most people would disagree but I believe that the experience of qi, prana, meridians, nadis, whatever, is what you believe it to be. We create the feeling or at least interpret it in a way determined by our conditioning. In my view, the differences are irrelevant.

And I totally agree that what people observe all depends on the cultures paradigms. But does that nessecary mean that the differnt paradigms actually see the same thing, or do they just focus on different aspects of our energetic constitution? I believe the latter is more correct.

Again - there is the thing which is reality and unchanging and is completely independent of our labels. Then there are our feeble attempts to describe it with language. Each attempt at catching it with language is like catching water in a sieve. It's a partial description that captures some of the essence but is markedly incomplete. I agree with you that the flavor of each paradigm is the partial picture that is determined by the conditioning. Just my observations...

[freeform]

You're trying to get me to describe an indescribable experience in words again. I can't. Most people would disagree but I believe that the experience of qi, prana, meridians, nadis, whatever, is what you believe it to be. We create the feeling or at least interpret it in a way determined by our conditioning. In my view, the differences are irrelevant.

 

Again - there is the thing which is reality and unchanging and is completely independent of our labels. Then there are our feeble attempts to describe it with language. Each attempt at catching it with language is like catching water in a sieve. It's a partial description that captures some of the essence but is markedly incomplete. I agree with you that the flavor of each paradigm is the partial picture that is determined by the conditioning. Just my observations...

 

xuesheng has the right idea here... Having studied semantics and linguistics in depth, I completely agree.

 

We have a word for love, but when we speak the word or read it, we do not feel the feeling. We have millions of people trying to describe love in song, poetry, painting, endocrinology, metaphysics - but none of these can in any way replace the feeling of love.

 

The explanations of love are still useful, and pleasurable - but if you start to mistake an explanation of love (such as the explanation that focuses on your hormones and endocrine system) for the actual feeling of love, you will get entangled in the explanation, trying to make sense of it, trying to combine it with poetry or metaphysics - but all of that is just playing with words and illusions - there is no real substance in the explanation, the explanation is just a useful way of communicating ideas between people who experience or aim to experience the subject of the communication first hand.

 

"the map is not the territory" - the wise words of Alfred Korzybski, the father of modern General Semantics... the Tao Te Ching mentions this too...

[宁]

i respect your guys, but i cant agree with your views, what for us are relative terms, for each school was definite and precise, it cannot be the way you want it to be, it is just oversimplification that leads nowhere. the concepts are shaping the qi field, so there are different shapes with different functions. they dont mix up.

it is like saying the lungs and the ribcage are the same thing. or the small and large intestine are the same thing. or the kidney and the adrenals are the same thing. its all semantics. jeez.

[sheng zhen]

i respect your guys, but i cant agree with your views, what for us are relative terms, for each school was definite and precise, it cannot be the way you want it to be, it is just oversimplification that leads nowhere. the concepts are shaping the qi field, so there are different shapes with different functions. they dont mix up.

it is like saying the lungs and the ribcage are the same thing. or the small and large intestine are the same thing. or the kidney and the adrenals are the same thing. its all semantics. jeez.

Yes, the lungs and the ribcase isnt the same. Its that simple. The energetic physiology is pretty much like the physical physiology, and just as(or more) complex. It dosent matter what we "think" about it, its there anyway.

[doc benway]

i respect your guys, but i cant agree with your views, what for us are relative terms, for each school was definite and precise, it cannot be the way you want it to be, it is just oversimplification that leads nowhere. the concepts are shaping the qi field, so there are different shapes with different functions. they dont mix up.

it is like saying the lungs and the ribcage are the same thing. or the small and large intestine are the same thing. or the kidney and the adrenals are the same thing. its all semantics. jeez.

No problem - there's no need for us to agree.

However, I think you're missing my point. I'll try to clarify - not so much to convince anyone that I'm right but just to try and be clear.

 

Our language and ability to explain things are limited. Our ability to understand is limited. Our descriptions of universal energy/being/God/Dao whatever you want to call it, is necessarily incomplete and approximate. I don't care whether that description is the product of thousands of years of Daoist thought or Hindu thought or something my neighbor dreamed up yesterday. The school may have developed a "definite and precise" explanation and paradigm but that is still not the thing, it is just words and ideas. It's still limited. The method/system/description is not the thing no matter how credible the source. The thing transcends our ability to describe it (think of the first chapter of Laozi). Therefore, each system is making their best effort to describe more or less the same basic thing only the descriptions are different. Hopefully that's more clear - again, language is inadequate...

Just my view at this moment in time...

[freeform]

Yes, the lungs and the ribcase isnt the same.

 

again this is all to do with words - if you say 'chest' that may well include lungs, ribcage, heart, thymus etc. In Neuro Linguistics this is known as 'chunking' - it's to do with the level of how specific or general you are. Words have an effect of firstly stopping time (our body is a process not an object) - and also removing something specific from its context... so lungs are more specific than chest, bronchioles are more specific than lungs, cells are more specific than bronchioles, nucleus, atoms, electrons, quarks etc etc.

 

Language is used to communicate experience - so when you say 'definite and precise', it's again to do with the level of specificity, and always to do with pinpointing and communicating experience... would you trust someone who read all the books published on the physiology of lungs, but never seen an actual lung to operate on you?

 

Experience -> language -> experience - the language is used as a blunt tool to communicate experience.

[宁]

yes, that is the proverbial phrase, the tao that i speak about is not the true tao.

is that what you meant?

also, to understand what i wrote above, the hammer that we speak about is not a hammer at all. it is a piece of something we call wood, except it isnt wood at all, it is part of something we call the fibrous part of a large plant, which is only to us a plant, but we really dont know what it is...

if we think like this, we havent even passed the beginning stage, in the judaic mythology, labelling is the first task given by god to adam, to help him MANAGE in his world, control the elements, build a home, a farm, have a wife, kids and family.

it is good that fellows like you remind us that language is only relative, and does not precisely mean the thing it speaks about. but as i got from the question, it was asked from a technical viewpoint... and if i got that wrong, my bad, sorry

[doc benway]

but as i got from the question, it was asked from a technical viewpoint...

You're absolutely right about that. I sort of took it in a different direction based on my own bias and ideas.

Nevertheless it is a fascinating study in it's own right so hopefully we'll get some more specific responses to the original question.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Thanks for your indulgence...

[sheng zhen]

again this is all to do with words - if you say 'chest' that may well include lungs, ribcage, heart, thymus etc. In Neuro Linguistics this is known as 'chunking' - it's to do with the level of how specific or general you are.

Yes! exactly! That is why Im curious to know if anyone know the "specifics" of what makes these energysystems different. It is a technical question, as Little1 pointed out.

 

But the problem is that we put our individual meanings into these words, based of our own experience of them, and people have been doing that for centuries. Especially in the west where we dont really have as many words for different states of mind and energy as some laguages in the east has. Like saying that qi and prana is one and the same thing, or that nadis is the same as meridians, etc. It is just as true as saying that nerves and blood is the same thing, and things like that.

 

Ive talked to many people about this, and mot of them seem to be extremely hung up on this. The fun thing is that they have no clue what they are talking about, they only repeat what they learned from their teacher and have no personla experince with actually seeing these things. There are thousands of acupuncturists who dont see the meridiands or acupoints, they only do what they have learned. It dosent effect the value of their treatment though, it only effects the value of their statments about what a meridian or qi really is.

 

When we get more specific we see that qi is not just qi. There are several different qualities of qi. Ive heard there are 6 different types of qi. So we can get very very specific the more we study these things. But we need to lable things to be able to share our knowledge. And we need to be able to agree on the meanings of the words to have meaningful a conversation.

[Taomeow]

Not the same, people. Not just terminologically not the same -- experientially not the same. I am talking from pranayama experience vs. qigong/alchemy experience. Not the same. To refer to Freeform's example of love, it's like the difference between love of chocolate and love of justice. Different experiences.

 

As for conceptual difference... not the same either. Prana, an Indo-European concept that, like all of them, comes complete with the idea of creator vs. "createe," is set up to "vitalize" something otherwise intert. Where there's prana, there's duality (all advaita declarations notwithstanding). Where there's prana, there's separation into a transforming force and a "subject" of transformation. Qi, on the other hand, is something present before, during, and after duality. Qi is the transformation, the ability to transform, the potential for transformation, and the outcome of such transformation all in one. In the case of qi the map IS the territory.

[Taomeow]

When we get more specific we see that qi is not just qi. There are several different qualities of qi. Ive heard there are 6 different types of qi. So we can get very very specific the more we study these things. But we need to lable things to be able to share our knowledge. And we need to be able to agree on the meanings of the words to have meaningful a conversation.

 

Not six, quite a bit more... lemme whip out those "labels":

 

Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal; North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, Northwest, West;

these are the 13 basic ones (that's the ones taiji classics talk about), but then you have their combinations (Metal of the West, e.g.) and then you have their yin-yang versions (yin Metal of the West, yang Metal of the West, e.g.) -- so... who's good at arithmetics, how many is that? But the important thing is not to count or name them -- the thing is to understand and discern them and practice perceiving them. They are everywhere -- practice noticing! Water qi descends, Wood qi expands, Fire ascends, Earth rotates, Metal contracts. Yin Water qi descends from a kitchen tap, from a mountain stream, from a brook... yang Water descends from the Niagara Falls, from hurricane Catherine, from a fountain in the city square. Qi is not only "mystical," it's also mundane. "The Way of Heaven is easy, and the Way of Earth is simple. By combining the easy and the simple, tao accomplishes everything." Qi is such "easy and simple" building blocks of everything, and learning to see how things are assembled, simple to complex, out of these is the foundation of all taoist arts. How does a good TCM practitioner know that the qi of parsley enters the Kidney and Bladder meridians? He or she doesn't have X-ray vision to "see" it -- but it is clearly seen by other means, it's in full view for those with the habit of studying the behavior of qi in the universe, parsley to Pole Star.

Edited January 24, 2008 by Taomeow

[宁]

also you didnt specify clearly what is the real purpose of the question

also what answer would you expect on it

also the trademark of "pop daoism" (god i love this expression ) is the un-necesarry over-simplification

also saying all ways lead to the same peak is the same trademark. every path has a different goal... sounds strange? it wouldnt if you considere there is NO PEAK.

each path carries you as long as it can on this infinite road....

once the PEAK idea becomes clear, there shouldnt be any worry as in what your neighbour practicioners are doing...

[Taomeow]

also saying all ways lead to the same peak is the same trademark. every path has a different goal... sounds strange? it wouldnt if you considere there is NO PEAK.

each path carries you as long as it can on this infinite road....

once the PEAK idea becomes clear, there shouldnt be any worry as in what your neighbour practicioners are doing...

 

 

You are a Zhuangzi incarnation, right? 'cause that's what he reportedly told Confucius to his question about why tao is impossible to teach: "you can get the tao transmitted but as there is no center, it won't stay."

[宁]

i didnt knew that, interesting to read... anyhow, you must understand, i used to be arrogant, but now im perfect

[freeform]

When we get more specific we see that qi is not just qi. There are several different qualities of qi. Ive heard there are 6 different types of qi. So we can get very very specific the more we study these things. But we need to lable things to be able to share our knowledge. And we need to be able to agree on the meanings of the words to have meaningful a conversation.

 

I'm sure you've heard that the Eskimo people have dozens of words for snow... the word snow is not enough for them because their experience is that snow has many distinctions. The reason they have so many words for snow is so that they can communicate easily with each other...

 

So let's say you or I decide to collect many books from all the different Eskimo cultures, reading about all the different names and types of snow - really studying it... Then we decide to turn up to Siberia - do you really expect to immediately differentiate all the different types of snow, when all you see is bright white? Well, we may be better off with the knowledge we've gained than someone turning up with us who hasn't learned anything about snow, but we'd all still be far more clueless than even the 4 year olds from that culture...

 

The distinctions are made from experience, and then words are used to point to aspects of the experience for ease of communication... you're trying to reverse the process - learn the words so that you somehow get to the experience... this may work, but it's far from being the most efficient way of going about it.

 

To be more efficient, you must stop asking 'what is chi, what is prana, what is a chakra' etc. because the answers to all these questions will be words in a language you have no experience in. It would be far more useful for you to ask - how can I experience wood chi, how can I feel the nadis, how can I experience a chakra... the answer you will get will be a process - something you can do - to become sufficiently experienced to start to speak the language - then when you say chi or chakra, you will be speaking form experience, not just parroting words you've heard or read about..

 

as always - this is just my opinion...

[mota]

Better to speak from the heart than just from the head.

We have all learned this nice communication game, but in such a huge variety of ways. Even though English is thought to be a universal language, it is not really so, as it is flavored by each persons paradigm to the point where you need people to define the words they are using at times.

The bottom line is snow is H2O, frozen. It comes in a wide variety of forms.

Chi/Qi is energy which also comes in a wide variety of forms/manifestations.

Define electricity.

It is all head knowledge until you speak from visceral understanding which is of far more value as it is practical. All the rest is an intellectual pissing contest.

[Taomeow]

To be more efficient, you must stop asking 'what is chi, what is prana, what is a chakra' etc. because the answers to all these questions will be words in a language you have no experience in. It would be far more useful for you to ask - how can I experience wood chi, how can I feel the nadis, how can I experience a chakra... the answer you will get will be a process - something you can do - to become sufficiently experienced to start to speak the language - then when you say chi or chakra, you will be speaking form experience, not just parroting words you've heard or read about..

 

Yeah but how do you get people to ask "how can I experience qi" if they start out with the premise that "qi doesn't exist" or "qi is the same as prana" or " Eskimos are primitive people" --- i.e. with a cultural or personal (seldom personal in the sense experiential, usually conditioned, taken on faith) bias that stands in the way of the experience? To grasp that a language that has a hundred words for snow is the language of a highly advanced people (no, not technologically advanced -- humanly advanced) would be a prerequisite for understanding this language -- ever, regardless of the amount of experience -- if experience is filtered through a faulty premise, it can't teach a thing. To experience Wood qi, one needs to somehow be open to the idea that a cucumber is a sentient being -- I kid you not, that's how I learned, a cucumber taught me. I planted some cucumbers in the backyard, and then watched their behavior all summer long. Just a few minutes a day -- every day -- and you find out, for starters, that they have senses and are capable of decision-making. A plant would start moving a spiraling tendril towards the fence, creeping closer each day, then one day it will throw the tendril over the fence like a lasso, then wrap itself around it several times, then pull a little young cucumber up, then cover it up with a leaf to camouflage it... Again, I write and realize that it will be meaningless to anyone who "doesn't believe it means anything," so I won't even get into "Rainbows of Thoughts and Feelings" I saw just because I was looking from beyond conditioning... A fern, too. I saw a broken leaf on a fern being supported, tenderly, by another leaf, from a neighboring fern, as though the latter was lending a helping hand, in a gesture entirely, visibly compassionate. I separated them and in a few hours looked again -- the "helping hand" was there again, holding the damaged friend's weight. Now if I were to tell a member of my culture that Wood qi is "expanding benevolence," "live feelings," "structural flexibility," "a force of dispersion in opposition to entropy, i.e. expanding organization rather than randomness," and so on -- would I be laughed at? I would. "If he doesn't laugh, it isn't the tao."

 

I don't think there's a good recipe for un-conditioning a whole culture that is comfortable with the idea that the only live, real, meaningful, evolved, sentient, admirable thing in the world is "me, because I can watch TV." People don't perceive reality for a damn good reason... I mean, a damn bad one. Not through words, not through experiences... nada. We are qi-depleted globally, that's the source of difficulty in perceiving qi... not a terminological vs. experiential defect but a flaw in our reality.

[rain]

................

Edited April 17, 2008 by rain

[doc benway]

We are qi-depleted globally, that's the source of difficulty in perceiving qi... not a terminological vs. experiential defect but a flaw in our reality.

So true!

Why is it that humans have become so distant from their nature, from their awareness of qi (feel free to substitute any other terminology - god, brahma, the self, that which is... that expresses a similar isolation, if you prefer)?

 

an aside - In my experience of cultivation I feel less like I am "increasing" or "storing" qi and more like I am becoming more sensitive to it like I am developing the organ responsible for perceiving it and working with it. My terminology would be more "qi-insensitive" than "qi-depleted" but I agree with the consequence entirely. Just semantics, for the purposes of this discussion at least.

 

So is it somehow that our thought process and language skills interfere with or block the qi awareness (I use qi awareness in a very general sense, if you want to substitue another expression for communing with our true nature, that's fine)? What else is there about humans that would have this effect? Our tendency to create images through thought? This is also primarily a consequence of language.

 

It seems to me that our ability to problem solve, survive, thrive has been so dramatically developed through our capacity for thought and language (again using thought a bit carelessly perhaps, I don't mean to imply that other creatures do not think, but our method seems unique probably due to language) that we were able to discard the organ responsible for connecting us to 'what is' at a deeper level. It seems that the fragmentation of thought, which leads to a thought that considers itself "me" and watches over the other thoughts could be responsible along with our technological advancements which allow us to have no interaction with nature in our daily lives. It seems that the thought process has so monopolized our consciousness (and that's reasonable given it's effectiveness as a survival tool), that we have become dull to everything else. This is why meditation is important - to allow us to become aware of the world beyond thought. That's where the beginning of salvation is, I think, but how does an entire culture awaken to this?