Chapter Eight: "Concentrate Qi as Though Spirit-Like, and the Myriad Things Are Fully Present Within" -- The Supreme Realm of Concentrated Qi

I. What Does "Concentrate Qi" Mean$46

The character tuan (concentrate, knead together) has two principal meanings in pre-Qin texts:

First: "to gather, to condense." The Shuowen says: "Tuan means 'round.'" That is, to knead into a round shape, extended to mean gathering and condensing. "Concentrate qi" (tuan qi) means to gather and condense one's qi so that it does not disperse.

Second: "to focus, to make single-pointed." It is interchangeable with zhuan (to focus). Chapter 10 of the Laozi reads "focus the qi and attain suppleness" (zhuan qi zhi rou); the Mawangdui silk manuscript writes tuan qi zhi rou. "Concentrate qi" thus means to unify one's qi so that it is not scattered.

The two meanings are in fact interconnected: to gather and condense is to be single-pointed without scattering, and to be single-pointed without scattering is to gather and condense. "Concentrate qi" means to unify all the qi in one's body into a single whole, single-pointed and undispersed, reaching a state of utmost subtlety and refinement.

II. "As Though Spirit-Like" -- The Effect of Concentrated Qi

"As though spirit-like" (ru shen) means like a spirit or deity. In pre-Qin thought, shen (spirit) refers not merely to ghosts and gods but to a state of unfathomable, unpredictable transformation.

The Zhouyi, "Xici Shang": "What is unfathomable in the alternation of yin and yang is called spirit (shen)." And: "Spirit is the word for what works wonders in all things."

"As though spirit-like" means reaching a state that is unfathomable and wondrously responsive to all things. When qi is concentrated to this degree, one's cognitive capacity, responsive capacity, and capacity for action all reach a level beyond the ordinary -- not because one has acquired supernatural power, but because one has fully developed one's natural potential.

III. "The Myriad Things Are Fully Present Within" -- All Things Complete in Oneself

"The myriad things are fully present within" (wan wu bei cun) means that all things exist in their completeness within oneself. This is an extraordinarily bold proposition -- how could a single person contain all things$47

From the standpoint of pre-Qin qi-theory, it is intelligible. If all things are composed of qi, and the cultivator through concentrated practice raises his or her own qi to a state of utmost subtlety and refinement, then that qi communicates without obstruction with the qi of all things. The person does not physically contain all things but is connected to all things through qi.

The Zhuangzi, "Qi Wu Lun" (Discourse on Equalizing Things), says: "Heaven and Earth were born together with me, and the myriad things are one with me." This experience of oneness with all things is another way of expressing "the myriad things are fully present within."

Guanzi, "Xinshu Shang": "The Dao fills all under Heaven; it is universally present where the people dwell, yet the people cannot perceive it. With a single word of understanding, one surveys Heaven above and reaches Earth below and fills the Nine Regions." "The Dao fills all under Heaven" -- the Dao permeates the space between Heaven and Earth, present everywhere. When the cultivator becomes one with the Dao, he becomes one with Heaven, Earth, and all things -- hence "the myriad things are fully present within."

IV. "The Myriad Things Are Fully Present Within" from the Cosmology of High Antiquity

The cosmology of the ancient ancestors was one of "the unity of Heaven and humanity" -- the human being is a microcosm of Heaven and Earth, and Heaven and Earth are the human being writ large.

The Zhouyi, "Xici Xia" (Appended Statements, Part II): "In ancient times, when Lord Bao Xi ruled the world, he looked up and observed the patterns in the heavens, looked down and observed the models on the earth, noted the markings of birds and beasts and the suitabilities of the terrain, taking what was near from his own body and what was far from other things. Thus he first created the Eight Trigrams, to penetrate the virtue of the luminous spirits and to classify the natures of the myriad things."

"Taking what was near from his own body, and what was far from other things" -- the method by which Lord Bao Xi (Fu Xi) created the Eight Trigrams was precisely to establish correspondences between one's own body and all things. The premise of such correspondence is: the human body is a microcosm of all things, and within it resides the complete information needed to comprehend the myriad things.

Therefore, "the myriad things are fully present within" is not a physical proposition in the modern sense but an ontological proposition within pre-Qin cosmology: the human being, as the quintessence of Heaven and Earth and the most numinous of all creatures, inherently possesses the full potential to comprehend and resonate with all things. To concentrate qi as though spirit-like is simply to develop that potential fully.