Qi (气)

The central term of the tradition — vitality, breath, and the circulating influence the practice is concerned with. Qi is the term the whole practice is organised around. In the feng shui vocabulary it refers to the circulating influence of a place: whether it moves, whether it gathers, and whether it is blocked. Nearly every other term in the system is a way of describing a state of qi.

It belongs to the classical vocabulary of the tradition. The central term of the tradition — vitality, breath, and the circulating influence the practice is concerned with. The word is the most over-used in the whole vocabulary — it appears in medicine, calligraphy and martial practice with different meanings — which is why the feng shui sources usually qualify it rather than using it alone.

The classical sources distinguish sheng qi (生氣, living qi) from sha (煞, hostile qi), and the entire practice is described as the management of the first against the second. The texts are explicit that qi is not a substance but a description of how a place behaves. It is grouped under Wood (木) in the five-element system.