The Chinese concept of “Chi” gets a fair amount of use in the Western mainstream. Most people understand Chi to be a sort of internal energy that is associated with healing, martial arts, and so on. But Chi has a literal meaning as well: breath. I have found this meaning to be very profound. Just as our outer selves – our bodies – must inhale and exhale, so must our internal selves – our spirits, souls, or whatever term you prefer – absorb and then expel energy. This dovetails with the Yin-Yang symbol. When we are empty, and need to recharge our chi, we are in a Yin state. When we bubble over with ideas and energy, we are Yang – full of Chi, in need of release.
This has several ramifications. First, we know that our bodies will deteriorate quickly if we are deficient in either inhalation or exhalation. The same is true of Chi. I suspect that much of the anxiety and depression that many of us experience is related to our internal cycles of respiration being supressed by our environment, ourselves, or our choices.
Secondly, what we breathe in is either good or bad for us. There is no “neutral” level of toxicity. Pure air nourishes us, and impure air poisons us. The same is true internally. What we absorb through our senses either nourishes our Chi or poisons it. By becoming aware of this, we gain another motivation to avoid toxic choices in our lives.
Thirdly, there are Western analogues to this concept. The first line of Ecclesiastes is usually translated, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” But the Hebrew word “havel” – vanity – also means “breath.” Looking at the phrase that way, we are told that “Breath of breaths, all is breath.” Indeed, everything breathes, so why not God? Whether or not you find it appealing to think of a Universe that exists by the breath of God, it stands to reason that our world – the civilizations that surround us on a microcosmic (family, workplace) and macrocosmic (country, culture) level exist by our breath. Like a caterpillar forming a coccoon, what we expel – what we create – adds up to the surroundings in which we live.
As another famous Hebrew stated, “What goes into a man does not defile him, but what comes out of a man defiles him.” What we consume determines – on a psychic level – how healthy we are, and what we produce determines – on a material level – how healthy our world is. Clearly, there is a correlation between both processes. As Tom Lehrer once commented, “Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” If you inhale poison, you will exhale poison. To clean up our sewers, our lives and our souls, we need to become more conscious of avoiding psychic and spiritual poison, and seeking out the experiences and environments that will nourish our Chi, allowing us, in turn, to become healers instead of poisoners.
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