By Si-Chen Li and Yang-Chuan Chang

There are more than a hundred different ways for practicing Qi gong, which can be roughly divided into two categories: the first one is either Taoist and the Buddhist Mi-Tzong (Secret Religion) way of practicing Qi, for example building up Qi in the Dan Tian, circulating Qi in the "Da Zhou Tian" (the so-called small and large circulation). These methods concentrate in the effort on opening up the channel system of the human body. The second one is the Buddhist Zen's way of "quiet sitting with an empty mind" or Taoist "Tai Xi". These methods belong to the basic training of the "Ru Ding", that is, they use the methods of accounting the breath, thinking as a special object to gradually eliminate the unconscious random thoughts and reach the state of an empty mind.

In this paper, these two categories of Qi gong were studied by measuring the variation of the power spectra of the brain alpha wave of the Qi gong masters during their practice of Qi. Two different Qi gong States, i.e. "Gong Zheng-State" and "Ru Ding" state, where it thus discovered

To do the experiments, we invited 11 Taoist Qi gong-Masters; seven students were trained by the same Zen master and 21 ordinary people never practicing any Qi. During the experiments, the peak power sector of the brain are far wave of each person were recorded and the date, in the period of zero to two minutes after closing their eyes were averaged and taken as a reverence value. Then the data in a period of zero to two minutes and two to four minutes after starting the practice of Qi gong where averaged and compared to the reference value. The percentage changes were then calculated. Finally the statistical Mann-Whithney test was applied to check whether the change of the brain alpha wave for those Qi gong masters were significant, compared to ordinary people. It was discovered, that for those high level Taoist Masters and people practicing Zen, the peak power of the brain alpha wave was significantly reduced during Qi gong practice. We define this state to be a "Ru-Ding" suppression state.

As for the and Taoist Masters practicing "building up Qi in Dan Tian and "circulating Qi in Zhou Tian", the peak power of the brain waves were substantially enhanced when practicing Qi gong. By using internal fast thinking and external flashlight stimulation aiming at the frequency of alpha waves, we discovered that once the amplitude of the brain alpha wave was greatly enhanced by stimulation, the feeling of Qi will be induced in Dan Tian or Tan Zhong acupuncture points within a few minutes. This represents a circulating resonant phenomenon between the oscillating current in the brain and the body tissue near the points and is defined to be there "Gong Zheng" resonant state.

It is also clear that while training Qi-gong in Taoist way for example "building up Qi in the Dan Tian" or "circulating Qi in the Da Zhou Tian (Grand Circulation), the body is in Gong Zheng state. However, the body turns to "Ru Ding" State for those high level Taoist Qi-gong Masters which seemed finally to be in the same state as people practicing Zen and trying to reach this state from the beginning. This suggests that the "Ru Ding" state seems to the be the ultimate goal, which people who practice Chinese Qi gong are trying to achieve. What is the reason that the Taoist and the Buddhist Mi-Zong start the practice of Qi gong from "Gong Zheng" state? Does this imply that the final of Ru Ding state can be achieved easier? These Questions need further studies.

By Si-Chen Li

Based on the known properties of external and internal Qi we postulate that the biological basis for generating Qi is to enhance the brain wave with alpha rhythm. Therefore we designed several stimulation methods including external (such as flashlight), and internal (such as fast thinking) ones to induce Qi. It was found that if the process of practicing Qi was a successful one, both stimulation methods could double the power of the main peak of the alpha wave instanteneously, and generate the feeling of Qi within five minutes. When this feeling appeared, the amplitude of the minor peak of the alpha wave suddenly increased. The statistical base, shows that the most efficient way of generating Qi is through fast thinking, 50 percent of those tested can concentrate the Qi near the "Qi hai-point within 30 minutes.

• When a master of Qi is guiding his Qi through the body, a pressure wave with frequency from eight to 11 Hertz appears both in theacupunctere points of his body and the external Qi generated by him. Also the brain wave synchronized with alpha our rhythm becomes very strong in the frontal and parietal lobes.
• The frequency of alpha brain wave is centered a around 8 to 11 Hertz. We propose that the stimulation source for Qi is a resonant alpha brain wave, but in order for the Qi to form and propagate the long distance, the blood vessels, muscles, cells in the body must be adequately adjusted (relaxed). The local oscillation of the sense organs stimulated by alpha are wave with large amplitude gradually became becomes synchronized and forms a macroscopic vibration mode. The path it propagates is called Meridian.

If this is correct, we should be able to generate and enhance Qi by stimulating the alpha brain wave with 8-11 Hertz external signals through the body's sense organs such as vision, sense of hearing and touch, or even applying fast thinking with 8-11 Hertz rhythm. The experimental results basically confirm our prediction. It is found that people already practicing Qi for sometime, the above four periods can generate a strong feeling of Qi with in a very short period of time (three minutes). For those never practicing Qi before, the last method of fast thinking, turns out to be the most efficient way of generating Qi . Finfty percent of those tested can concentrate and feel the Qi near the acupuncture point Qi Hai within 30 minutes.

By Chin-Hsiang Chien, Julia Tsuei, Si-Chen Lee et al.

The temperature rise or drop of simply reflects the fact that the blood flow to the palm was increased or decreased by delating or constructing the blood vessels through parasympathic or sympathic nerves. The biochemical effects of emitted Qi from the same Qi gong master on the human fibroblast FS-4 where investigated. The facilitating Qi caused 1. 8 percent increase of cell growth in 24 hours, 10-15 percent increase of DNA synthesis and 3 to 5 percent increase of proteins synthesis of the FS-4 cells in a two hour period. Inhibiting Qi caused 6 percent decrease of cell growth in a 24 hour period, 20-23% decrease of DNA synthesis and 35-48 percent of proteins synthesis in a two hour period.

In addition we found that the respiration rate of boar sperm increased 12.5-13 percent after receiving five minutes exposure from "facilitating Qi", and a decrease down to 45-48 percent by exposure to 2 minutes of "inhibiting Qi". The results could be attributed to the effects of emitted Qi or energy containing infrared light waves and possibly some other types of energy.