qiWade-Giles romanization ch’i Pinyin qi (Chinese: “breath,” or “force”“vital energies”)in Chinese philosophy, the ethereal substance psychophysical energies of which everything is composed. Early Taoist Daoist philosophers and alchemists regarded ch’i qi as a vital force inhering in the breath and bodily fluids and developed techniques to alter and control the movement of ch’i qi within the body; their aim was to achieve physical longevity and spiritual power.

Neo-Confucian philosophers of the Sung Song dynasty (AD 960–1279 CE) regarded ch’i qi as emanating from the Great Ultimate (T’ai Chitaiji; q.v.) by way of li, the prime dynamic ordering principle pattern of the universeworld. This schooltradition, whose ideas predominate in traditional Chinese thought, held that ch’i was transformed through the qi is manifest through yang (active) and yin (passive) modes into as the Five Elements Phases (Wu hsingwuxing; wood, metal, earth, water, and fire), which in turn formed are the basic constituents of the physical universeprocesses defining the cosmos.