Do Buddhists believe in Chi as Taoists do?
And if so, is there a method of generating this energy in oneself through meditation, etc.?
I feel like I've been seeking protection through meditation, until I realized that I shouldn't be seeking protection, but maybe rather generating this power within myself.
What do you think, Paul?
Protection through meditation, I think, is definitely positive.
I find it protects me a lot.
It keeps me on an even queue.
It reduces the amount of suffering I go through.
I'm not sure if Buddhists believe in qi.
I don't think I personally believe in qi.
Some of the... Go ahead.
In some of the martial arts, you know, they have some people teach this chi as some kind of energy, and some of the doctors just look at it as blood flow.
I've seen that taught before where it's not a mystical energy, but it's the blood flowing in your body.
But, yeah, I don't... As for the energy part, I don't...
I think that would be more of a Buddhist view.
It's almost like you're saying a soul or a entity.
All of these questions that start, do Buddhists believe, should be answered as .
There's a wonderful video teaching that is, I think, quite famous out there, a talk that he gave in Malaysia, I think.
Singapore or Malaysia, I'm not sure.
where he's talking about, because he wrote a book called What Buddhists Believe.
And he said, I was interviewed once by someone about this book.
And he said, so you've written this book, What Buddhists Believe, so tell me, what do Buddhists believe?
And he said, absolutely nothing.
And the man said, then why did you write this book?
And I told him, that's exactly why I wrote this book.
to show you that there's nothing to believe.
You don't need to believe the Buddha taught to know, to understand.
But I think we shouldn't miss this point that Buddhists don't believe anything because literally it's very important.
This kind of question is kind of awkward for a Buddhist because we're like, well, how do you explain to this person that that's not what Buddhism is about?
It's not about
yes or no answers to questions of belief.
It's about seeing the truth of mundane reality.
It's about letting go rather than taking on some sort of belief in something external to the six senses.
Buddhism is in fact about reducing reality
to ultimate experience, to seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.
It's about getting rid of concepts like chi or even the breath, for example.
The reason why we focus on the breath is to get rid of the concept of the breath, to come to see it as just physical and mental experiences.
But the breath itself doesn't exist.
So things like the chakras, things like chi,
so on and so on and so on.
Do you believe in this?
Do you believe in God?
Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in... Buddhists don't believe in anything.
We make every effort to stop believing in absolutely everything.
I'm being facetious because, of course, the answer is yes, we believe in gods.
Yes, we believe in ghosts.
Yes, we believe in X, Y, and Z.
It's the same as the question of astrology.
I mean, what you're asking is like, wow, now I have to have an opinion on this?
Now I have to go out and study chi energy and give you an answer?
Because it's not Buddhism.
There's nothing Buddhist about me as to whether I believe in chi or not.
It has more to do with whether I've investigated it and have any reason, totally apart from Buddhism, to believe in it.
Because Buddha didn't teach this sort of thing.
The Buddha taught, as I said, to give up our beliefs, to give up our...
obsession with concepts and to come to see ultimate reality for what it is.
So the only reason I might believe in chi is because I had studied it, which wouldn't have come about in Buddhism.
So I guess what I'd like to impress is an understanding of exactly what the Buddha taught and what Buddhism focuses on, so that people will not have to ask these sorts of questions.
because it's understandable you think wow look at the Buddha's teaching is so big I wonder if anywhere in there he taught this or anywhere in there he taught that but take it from me well don't take it from me any basic understanding of the Buddha's teaching or what it should give you or what you should learn from Buddhism is that it just doesn't apply it has no place in the Buddha Dhamma
So could chi exist?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, the Buddha may have even, I've never come across it, but he may have even talked about it.
But it's not, I guess the point is that it's not really a question about Buddhism, is it?
Isn't that, is that it?
Whether chi energy exists and you can use it for this or that, it's like asking whether nuclear power exists and whether you can use it for this or that.
It's nothing to do with the path.
So I'm not trying to criticize the answer.
I can understand where these questions come from.
I'm not trying to criticize the question.
I'm just trying to help to get back on it.