The Chinese term jing is usually translated as ‘essence’, or ‘vital essence’. Essence is an especially rich and valuable form of energy/substance that comes from two sources.
The first is our genetic inheritance (prenatal essence) - passed on to us by our ancestors, principally our parents and grandparents. Strong inherited essence means a healthy body, emotional resilience, resistance to disease and long life.
The second source when we transform the nourishment we receive from food, drink and other inputs from our external environment into what is called postnatal essence. This requires good quality inputs such as clean water and air and nourishing food, healthy organs (especially our lungs and digestive system) and a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
One way of thinking about postnatal essence is comparing it to our finances. Every day we receive the nourishment (income) that we need to live our lives. But if we don’t spend all our daily earnings, we can bank some in the form of essence. This comes from keeping a healthy balance between work and rest, getting sufficient sleep, achieving a degree of emotional stability, and enjoying meaningful work, intimacy, friendship, connection with nature and creativity. If we live like this we can build up our store of postnatal essence and thus will help compensate for weak inherited essence.
The transformation of daily inputs into post-natal essence is maximised when we sleep and when we are in calm, nourishing, stress-free parasympathetic states of the kind we cultivate when we practise qigong.
So the moral of the story when it comes to essence is… lead a healthy lifestyle, don’t exhaust ourselves or dissipate all our energy in chaotic living, and take up a daily life-enhancing practice. This gives is the best opportunity of living to a healthy and enjoyable old age.
Let’s leave the final word to the wonderful 4th century BCE Daoist text, the Nei Ye (Inward Training):
“For those who preserve and naturally generate vital essence, on the outside a calmness will flourish. Stored inside, we take it to be the well spring. Floodlike, it harmonises and equalises and we take it to be the fount of the vital energy. When the fount is not dried up, the four limbs are firm. When the well spring is not drained, vital energy freely circulates through the nine apertures."
If you would like to follow the teaching of Peter Deadman and learn Qigong, explore all of Peter's Online Video Courses available on Vimeo. 
