An Acupuncturist on Why You *Shouldn’t* Believe in Qi
“You do acupuncture? Oh cool. I totally believe in Qi.”
I hear this at least once a week from someone I meet who finds out I am an Acupuncturist. While I appreciate it — I mean, it’s certainly better than believing the underpinnings of my entire profession are nonsense — it also shows a general misunderstanding of the concept of Qi. The idea for this article came about because not only does this incorrect framework pop up in the general public, I see it perpetuated daily amongst acupuncturists, qigong teachers, martial artists and meditators.
False belief number 1: Qi is a “thing”
This particular misperception might be the single biggest obstacle to understanding acupuncture in the West — whether in research, theory or in practice. Coming from Western reductionist mindset, if a thing is to exist, it needs form. Thousands (or maybe millions?) of dollars have been thrown away hunting for the physical existence of acupuncture points and channels. In the West, the general conclusion is that these channels “have not been found”, or would be better described as the physical lines of fascia — the soft tissue matrix that runs through and wraps around organs and muscles alike, connecting the whole body along similar pathways. In the East there are multiple opinions, but there is a wider acceptance of acu-points in research on the basis of there being higher electrical conductivity in acupuncture points vs. other areas of the body. This particular finding is important, in that they are not finding a physical structure but instead a biomarker that indirectly indicates that these channels exist — we’ll explain why that’s important a little later.
The thing that keeps getting lost in translation is that in (ancient) East Asian philosophy, something does not need to have form to exist.
Or maybe better put, you can have a “non-thing” working in harmony with a “thing”. This is a complicated subject and I’d love anyone’s feedback on how to explain it better, but here’s an attempt:
In ancient Chinese philosophy, you have Yin and you have Yang. One cannot exist as a concept without the other — they need each other to function. You cannot have male (yang) without female (yin), and you cannot have light/day (yang) without dark/night (yin). If you work hard for a long time (yang), you will inevitably have to rest (yin) to balance yourself. Likewise, movement (yang) only exists in relation to stillness (yin). Everything, even the examples mentioned above, can be divided and subdivided into Yin and Yang, infinitely.
What do Yin and Yang have to do with Qi?
If you followed the above paragraph you can imagine, as my acupuncturist readers already know, that Qi can be subdivided into Yin and Yang as well. However, what is more relevant to this article is how Qi is categorized as a whole. Let’s use an example I think we all can agree exists — the blood circulating through your veins.
There is a saying in Chinese Medicine that roughly translates to “Qi is the commander of Blood, Blood is the mother of Qi.” This points to another Yin/Yang pairing — the Qi and the Eastern concept of Xue (translates to Blood, not quite 1-to-1 with the Western concept of blood but subtle differences beyond the scope of this article). So Qi, acting as the commander, moving the blood — this is Yang. Blood, on the other hand, is the “mother” of Qi, as it gives life to and nourishes it — this is Yin. A lesser known Yin/Yang understanding is that in regards to form, Yin represents form, while Yang…is more the ethereal component that animates the form. While we can all see the blood move, what makes it move? In the West we say the heart, but what makes the heart beat? Yes, there are electrical impulses — but what causes them? From an Chinese Medical perspective, Qi is the concept, representing the pattern of reactions that manifest in the movement (Yang) of something physical (Yin). Without this movement, there is no life. Without the Non-Thing of Qi, we do not have the material world that we can see and touch and measure.
This understanding brings us back to understanding why the best research on acupuncture channels and points has not found the structures, but rather, areas of higher conductivity. As practitioners, this “non-thing-ness” aligns completely with how we find classical acupuncture points — correct locations (forget what the textbook says) are almost always found in the spaces between structures. For example, Neiguan (PC6), a point useful for anxiety, nausea and at least a dozen other symptoms, is located between tendons on the forearm. We would never needle into the tendons there, that is both brutal and ineffective. The foot yangming (stomach) channel is most accurately located on the lateral edge of the tibialis anterior muscle — in the depression between those two muscles on the lower leg. The main channels carrying Qi (which is formless) usually move between muscle bellies (the epitome of form) — in this way.
This brings us back to the research on channels and acu-points: research does not find them as physical structures, because that is not how they function! Rather, they find areas that are more reactive — to electricity, sensation, etc. Does this make sense now?
Can we see that this “error” of not finding a physical structure was not a mistake at all by our Acu-Ancestors, but rather, precisely their point? That the Qi is, itself, the formless, dynamic counterpart to the solid reality all around us that would have no way of animating itself without its dualistic counterpart?
So we do not need to “believe” in Qi when we can see ourselves as living, animated organisms, more than we “believe” a bear lives in the woods by seeing only its tracks. It is a perceptual shift in understanding reality, not an argument or another “thing” to be perceived or blindly believed in.
Part II of this post will talk about how “believing” in Qi from the perspective of a Qigong or Meditation practice is not only harmful, but can actually cause health problems for a practitioner.
