The Huangdi Neijing, the ancient foundational text of Chinese medicine, states that the meridians govern life and death.

Why?

Most explanations focus on healing. Meridians move qi. Disease improves. The body regains balance. But if healing is the primary purpose of the meridians, why would the ancient sages place them in the category of life and death?

This question has fascinated me for many years.

My teacher, Master Xi-Hua Xu, possessed a rare ability. Through his direct perception of the meridian system, he was able to observe aspects of human life that extended beyond the limits of conventional medical understanding. While he rarely discussed these observations publicly, he occasionally shared insights with a small number of students.

Those discussions were not centered on disease. They explored life, consciousness, and the relationship among human beings, nature, and the universe.

What became clear is that our modern understanding of the meridians may be incomplete.

For thousands of years, the meridians have been studied through their relationship to health and healing. Through them, qi circulates, the organs communicate, and the body maintains balance. This understanding forms the foundation of Chinese medicine.

Yet the Neijing suggests there is more.

If the meridians govern life and death, there must be a function beyond healing.

Beyond Health & Healing

The ancient sages did not begin with disease. They began with life. Human beings do not exist independently. We exist within nature. We exist within the universe. We exist within a vast field of qi that continuously supports and sustains life.

From this perspective, the meridians are not merely pathways inside the body. They are the system through which a relationship is maintained between the individual and universal qi.

This is why life and death come first.

As long as universal qi continues to move through the meridian system, life remains possible. The ultimate relationship between life, death, and destiny belongs not to medicine, but to the relationship between the individual and the universe.

Only after establishing this relationship does the Neijing discuss health and disease.

If the relationship with universal qi is maintained, the body receives nourishment and qi flows. The organs communicate. Balance can be restored. Healing becomes possible.

Healing is important, but it is not the highest function of the meridians.

The sages understood there was another level.

Why Practice Qigong?

Why else would they devote themselves to cultivation?

Why practice qigong?

Why spend years refining the meridian system?

Because flow is only the beginning.

At the first level, the meridians transport qi. This allows the body to function, the organs to communicate, and healing to occur. But the ancient sages suggest there is another level. At this level, the meridians do not simply move qi. They maintain the relationship between individual qi and universal qi.

A tree does not think about when to grow leaves in the spring. Birds do not study migration patterns before traveling thousands of miles. Nature responds directly to the movement of qi.

Human beings possess the same potential relationship.

From Healing to Cultivation

As the meridians become more open and qi flows more freely, the relationship deepens. The visible becomes connected to the invisible. Yin and yang become part of a living relationship rather than an intellectual concept.

This may be the difference between healing and cultivation.

When qi moves through the meridians, the body can maintain balance and health.

But when the meridians become more fully developed through cultivation, they become capable of something more. They allow the individual to resonate with larger movements within nature and the universe.

Perhaps this is why the sages devoted themselves to qigong practice. The goal was not merely to improve health. The goal was to develop the deeper function of the meridian system.

A Communication System With the Universe

This is what I mean when I describe the meridians as a communication system between the human being and the universe.

Not communication through words.

Not communication through thought.

But the ability to maintain and strengthen a direct relationship with universal qi.

Perhaps this is what the ancient sages were truly describing when they placed the meridians in the category of life and death.