Nei-ch’i Chin., lit. “inner breath” ; vital energy stored within the body, as opposed to wai-ch’i, the outer breath, which designates the air we inhale. In the Taoist view, a person’s nei-ch’i corresponds to the primordial breath (yuan-ch’i) of the cosmos, the primal energy from which Heaven (t’ien) and Earth arose at the beginning of the world. The primordial ch’i enters the human body at birth and in fact forms the mind (shen), the body itself, the saliva (yü-chiang) and spermatozoa (ching). A Taoist practitioner strives to conserve and strengthen his nei-ch’i and restore it to the pure state in which it was at the time of birth. If the inner breath is allowed to escape during exhalation this results in a shortening of that person’s life span.
Since the time of the T’ang Dynasty Taoist authors have consistently emphasized that the instructions on how to perform breathing exercises such as embryonic breathing (t’ai-hsi) refer to the inner rather than the outer breath (Ju-ch ‘i, hsing-ch’i, yen-ch’i). The nei-ch’i is stored in the ocean of energy (ch’i-hai) and circulates in harmony with the outer breath but separate from it. As the outer ch’i ascends during exhalation, the inner breath follows it; but they must not mix. In an untrained person the inner breath will leave the body together with the outer. Once the inner ch’i is exhausted, death ensues. The Taoist adept, however, swallows the inner ch’i before it can leave his body (yen-ch’i) and during inhalation channels it back to the ch’i-hai.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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