Ideas about Chi Kung

It’s been about a year of Chi Kung for me, and I had some observations.

SUB-CONSCIOUS
First thing is it doesn’t seem to rely on insight, it’s basically trying to trigger higher/deeper states through the practices, a bit like pranayama or kundalini. And hopefully one day you pop into the higher states. And another angle is that it gives you ‘mastery’ of life energies which makes your passage more comfortable in life. But it doesn’t seek to ascend through analysis or self-insight, in the way some paths (like self-inquiry) do.
Even what is called “meditation” in Chi Kung isn’t the type of meditation they use in Buddhism. From what I have seen. It is again a sort of internal manipulation of energy, rather than analysis-insight-surrender-contact.

MATERIALISTIC
If you feel bad, in some systems (like Christianity) you are meant to feel it fully. The assumption is that life is not trying to hurt you, but that pain is a certain kind of message or food that will help us grow if we meet it fully.
So compared to that, with Chi Kung we are trying to expel our negativity through the practices without letting the full force of its pain reach us. It’s a very different approach. One might say that the entire approach is to distrust life, or think we are superior and we can operate on it. This might be considered arrogant and unintelligent, as we are so utterly dependent on countless processes to keep us alive every moment, why should we consider ourselves superior and start manipulating them ?
The other thing is if we talk about the mastery of life energies, is it that we take this life too seriously … we want to be healthy happy and live a long time, but isn’t that simply our identification with the material realm … we have lost the understanding that transcendence (moving to a higher plane) is the journey and we should not take this life too seriously.

NATURAL
I wonder if we just sat in a forest deeply every day and surrendered to it we might get better results.
The many practices … are what they are, can be effective and there are certainly inventive … but because we are using our ‘ingenuity’ and copying other practices can we really be said to be entering Nature, merging with Nature. Or actually is the approach to think ourselves above it and use clever tools to manipulate it ?

PRACTICAL
Well, I suppose these are ancient questions where man finds himself in a strange environment made by other men, with limited access to Nature; and he has ingenuity and isn’t sure what to do with it. Is using ingenuity a sin ? Does one become more or less, by using his ingenuity ? Does one move closer or further away from Nature, or from transcendence ?