What is KI ?
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What is KI ? |
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List the necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing, water, air. Anything missing? Yes, Ki - something so basic to life that we often forget it. A man walks to the sea, bends down and cups some of the water in his hands. "This is my water," he insists. in a sense he is correct, of course. Temporarily it is his. Ultimately, however, the water belongs to the ocean. Whether he lets it slip through his hands there on the sand or it evaporates, condenses as part of a cloud and falls again as rain; it is to the ocean that "his" water will return. So it is with our lives. We surround a small portion of the Ki of the universe with our bodies and say, "This is me." The Ki that gives us life is part of the Ki of the universe in just as real a sense as the water held by our man on the beach belongs to the ocean. Unlike the novelty of the beachcomber bending down to scoop up the brine, however, reception of the life force is constant and spontaneous. Our personal Ki, inseparable from the Ki of the universe, continually interchanges with it. That is the essence of life: a reciprocal flowing back and forth between our Ki and the Ki of the universe. When the flow is strong and unhindered, we are healthy. When the flow stops temporarily, we become unconscious. When the flow stops completely and unalterably, we die. A close parallel can be drawn with a car battery. Just as the battery remains charged when the car is run often, so the Ki we consume during daily activity is basically replenished by the Ki of the universe. Letting a car sit idle for a long period of time leads to exactly the same result as not extending Ki vigorously-a dead battery. Periodically, of course. a battery must he recharged. So it is with our personal Ki. This complete renewal of Ki takes place during deep sleep, the only time most people are capable of truly relaxing. The brain receives Ki of the universe during periods of profound relaxation, when the pattern of electrical waves con-tinually given off by the brain become regular. This is the reason that even nine or ten hours of fitful sleep are of little use in helping us feel rested, while five or six hours can be sufficient if they are peaceful and undisturbed. Sleep is a basic necessity of life. A man of strong Ki can survive ten or twenty days without food, but five sleepless days are enough to kill him. In Japanese, the word for this is kishi, death from lack of Ki. Throughout history, an established way of breaking a prisoner has been to force him to stay awake for extended periods of time. Three days without sleep has classically been enough to wring a confession out of the most hardened criminal. In the last ten or fifteen years, sleeping pills have come into vogue. These pills have the effect of anesthetizing the brain. In this deathlike state, the Ki of the universe cannot replenish personal Ki and the familiar signs of the sleeping pill habit result: lack of vitality, depression and, finally, poor health. These problems are obviously not due to body fatigue - the drugged body is usually like a rag. No, these are grim signs of a shortage of fresh Ki. Returning to our battery analogy, new Ki flows into your body as you extend Ki. The better you are at extending Ki, the more efficient this "instant recharging" becomes, enabling you to restore physical and mental power with just a little sleep at night. If you want to live happily and vigorously, you must first learn how to extend Ki, the fourth of the Four Basic Principles to Unify Mind and Body. Koichi Tohei |
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