Chi
Kung Culture Society of TAIPEI
When we focus our mind to do something (especially create sculpture, statues, paintings, or any other kind of handicraft), we create an interaction between ourselves and the object we handle, sending a lot of our forces and signal/frequency to the object in the process. Since each living person has his unique chi power level, he is able to send his chi to any object and put some forces in it without a problem. The problem is although the statue is beautifully carved, the quality of the forces that are established is related largely to the physical, mental, and spiritual condition of the person who put the forces in the object. In other words, if the person who puts the forces in the object is in poor shape physically, the forces he puts in the object will be unstable and negative forces instead of peaceful and positive forces. For this reason, the traditional way of making religious statues requires an artist to purify both his body and mind first before beginning the creation of the statue. Therefore, the artist who produces the statue is the major source affecting the quality of both the chi and forces related to the statue. This is why temples who wish to commission a statue will first check whether an artist is physcially and mentally fit; some of the big temples may also require an artist be spiritually strong before giving the commission. We can understand why a good chikung practitioner who is also an artist would be the ideal person to produce a good quality statue. If such a person is not available, the next acceptible way of purifying the statue would be to ask a good chikung master or Taoist or Buddhist monk to hold some kind of purification ceremony for the statue. Some people think that the way of producing good statues just involves using the purifying sutra as a help to clean up and strengthen the chi of the statue: this does not work in the way they think unless the master or monk is strong, clean, and balanced in their own chi system.
When a person makes Buddha statues as part of his purification process, he chants over the statue or reads a sutra over it. This helps the artist to concentrate more, so it can be carved in better detail, but it doesn𩾷 mean that the chi of the artist and the statue will be purfied, too. This only happens when the artist has a high level and high quality of chi. Therefore, it is𠏋 like something Lao-tse says: You are able to perform in the best way when you are not trying to act in the best way. In other words, when you are coming to a high level, you don't𩾷 intentionally have to aim at putting good chi to the statue. If you just concentrate on making the statue, then the statue will naturally have a good quality of chi and the forces of purification .
This is similar in concept to the Christian practice of selling indulgences in the Middle Ages. It was believed that if you paid money to the church, your sins would be forgiven. This is a psychological practice to let you feel better: a sin is something like a channel or frequency that becomes stagnant in our chi channel and which is difficult to remove unless you do something related to your real inner practice like chikung to purify yourself physically, mentally and spiritually, gradually, step by step.