Although Liao devotes a lot of time talking about threats to our Chi, in the end he focuses on ways to build our Chi back up, arguing that
Learning to strengthen and protect your Chi will help you survive the ups and downs of life and regain balance and harmony. Remember that Chi is spelled C–H–I: Center, Harmony, and Infinity.
His warning that we need to focus on personal energy instead of thinking about world affairs seems strangely appropriate right now:
Start the journey back to your true self by subduing your thinking about world affairs. Instead, pay great attention to your feeling. When you find your mind wandering outside on problems of the day, or artificial notions, stop. Instead, refocus your awareness to the sensation of your own body and the feeling of life within it. Don’t just “think” about concepts you have about your body and life energy, really “feel” the actual sensation of it, here and now. By repeating this process many times, you will finally learn to separate what is artificial and what is the real feeling of you. This will help train you not only in telling the difference between the two, but help in strengthening your mind’s ability to detach from what’s artificial and choose what is real instead.
Liao also warns that conforming to others’ expectations weakens your Chi, echoing Thoreau and Watts’ views on the importance of Individualism and Non-Conformity:
When you consistently choose to live your life and make choices based on what others will think of you, that is slavery. When those choices override your gut feelings and what is best for your health and peace of mind, that is slavery.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of Chi in quite this way. I’ve always thought of it like a form of energy, not my essence.
Liao explains the importance of strengthening your Chi and ways that you can do that:
Strengthening your Chi has two components: one is to increase its quality, meaning the intensity of your Chi feeling, and the other is to increase the quantity, meaning the size or volume of your Chi (hence also the feeling of your Chi). The pure dedication of your mind can increase the intensity of your Chi and hence your ability to feel it.
Liao seems to suggest that meditation is necessary to increase the intensity of your Chi, that combining meditation, and Tai Chi makes it easier/possible to feel Chi. Some of the meditations I’ve tried that visualize energy flowing through your body do make it seem like there is Chi, or, at least, energy flowing through your body, through your hands.
Liao argues that by combining Tai Chi and meditation you can increase your Chi, and, ultimately, your well-being.
Under intense meditative Tao-gong work, Chi can be refined through “flow movement” to become very pure and strong. It can also be transformed into an even higher form of energy that can serve as the fuel for spiritual development.
Apparently “Tao-gong work” is a phrase used by Master Liao to promote his classes and books and doesn’t seem to be used elsewhere, which makes this claim a little suspect. However, there does seem to be some scientific evidence that practicing Taoist forms of meditation can have a positive effect. Chat GPT concludes:
While traditional Taoist concepts like Qi are not fully understood in Western science, many Taoist meditation practices align with proven physiological and neurological benefits. The breath control, mindfulness, and movement elements of Taoist meditation have been scientifically validated for their positive effects on mental and physical health.
Tai Chi is usually sold to Westerners as a way to gain better balance and core strength, and that’s been true to my experience after doing Tai Chi for seventeen years. However, once I learned the form and didn’t have to think too much about what I was doing, I found that my heart rate actually dropped below my normal level while I was just sitting around. When I took my blood pressure after Tai Chi and before starting to lift weights, it was almost invariably lower than it was while I was sitting on the couch at home watching television. Until my recent bout with Rheumatoid Arthritis, my HRV was higher than most fifty year olds.
I tend to ascribe my physical health mainly to the fact that I exercise a lot, at least for someone my age, but I think my meditation has done more to improve my mental health.