Dao · the Way

The people of high antiquity who knew the Way took yin and yang as their pattern and lived in harmony with the computed arts.

In heaven it is the mysterious, in the human it is the Way, in earth it is transformation; transformation engenders the five flavours, the Way engenders wisdom.

The ultimate way lies in the minute. Its changes are inexhaustible — who knows its source? How straitened it leaves one.

The Yellow Emperor asks: I have heard the recipe gentlemen, and some of them take brain and marrow to be storing organs, some take stomach and intestines to be storing organs, and some call them palaces — yet when they are pressed with the opposite view, each one says he alone is right. I do not know the principle behind it. I wish to hear your account of it.

The Emperor says: I wish to hear the essential way.

Qibo says: the needle and the stone are only a method. If essence and spirit do not advance and purpose and intention are not governed, the illness cannot be cured. Now the essence is ruined and the spirit has departed, and the construction and defence can no longer be gathered back. Why? Because appetites are endless and cares never stop: the essence-qi slackens and decays, the construction stagnates and the defence is dispelled, and so the spirit leaves and the illness is not cured.

But to take heaven as law and earth as rule, to move in answer and response — what answers it is like an echo, what follows it is like a shadow. There are no ghosts or spirits in the way; it comes alone and goes alone.

When yang brightness flows counter to its course, it cannot keep to its way, and so the person cannot lie down.

The Emperor asks: what qi brings this about? I wish to hear its way.

Being like this, one is not benighted about the way and has taken its essentials and its measures to their utmost — this is what being clear means.

Qibo replies: illness has its floating and its sunken, and needling has its shallow and its deep. Each must arrive at its own level, and none may overstep its path.

The Yellow Emperor asks: I wish to hear the explanation of the nine needles, and the way of vacuity and repletion.

One who practises the needle does not take the pulse; he listens to what the patient says. Told that the trouble is in the head and that the head aches painfully, he sinks the needle deep — 藏 cáng, deep — and goes in as far as the bone; once the illness is over he stops. Above all he is to do no harm to the bone, flesh or skin, for the skin is the road, and every needle travels by it.

The Emperor asks: I have heard that the skin has the regions into which it is divided, that the vessels have their warp and rule, that the sinews have their knots and networks, and that the bones have their measure and capacity — and that the illnesses each gives rise to are not the same. I wish to hear how their regions are distinguished, what lies left and right, above and below, where yin and yang are, and how an illness runs from its beginning to its end.

Were he not a sage among sovereigns, who could exhaust the way of it?

One must carefully examine the nine probes, and the way of the needle is complete.

Now yin and yang, counter and accord, root and branch, as a way: from the small one reaches the great, naming one thing and knowing the harm in a hundred illnesses; from the few one reaches the many, from the shallow the broad, so that one may speak of one and know a hundred.

As for the working of change: in heaven it is the mysterious, in the human being it is the dao, in earth it is transformation. Transformation brings forth the five flavours, the dao brings forth wisdom, and the mysterious brings forth spirit.

Qi Bo said: the east generates wind, wind generates wood, wood generates sour, sour generates the liver, the liver generates the sinews, and the sinews generate the heart. In heaven it is the dark, in the human being it is the dao, in earth it is transformation; transformation generates the five flavours, the dao generates wisdom, the dark generates spirit, and transformation generates qi. Spirit is wind in heaven, wood in earth, sinew in the body, softness in qi, and the liver among the viscera. Its nature is warmth, its virtue harmony, its action movement, its colour blue-green, its transformation flowering, its creature the hairy, its governance dispersal, its command to spread and issue forth, its change to snap and pull, its calamity falling, its flavour sour, and its emotion anger. Anger harms the liver and sorrow overcomes anger; wind harms the liver and dryness overcomes wind; sour harms the sinews and acridity overcomes sour.

Huang Di asked: ah! how far-reaching it is — the way of heaven! It is like meeting a floating cloud, like looking into a deep abyss. The deep abyss can still be fathomed, but of the floating cloud that comes to meet one, no one knows its limit. You have said repeatedly, master, that one must attend reverently to the way of heaven; I have heard it and laid it away, yet in my heart I privately doubt, not knowing what it means. I wish you would let your mind overflow and speak of this matter in full, so that it may never be extinguished and never be cut off — may the way of heaven be told to me?

Qi Bo said: let me then speak of it in full. The Upper Canon says: the way — to know the patterns of heaven above, the patterns of earth below, and the affairs of human beings between — by this one may last long. This is what it means.

Qi Bo answered: among the people of high antiquity, those who knew the way took yin and yang as their law and kept themselves in accord with the computed arts; they ate and drank with measure and rose and rested with regularity; they did not labour recklessly. So they were able to keep form and spirit together and come to the end of the years allotted them, passing their hundred before they went.

As for the way: the sage walks in it, the foolish merely wear it. Follow yin and yang and you live; go against them and you die. Follow them and there is order; go against them and there is disorder. To turn compliance into its opposite and call it opposition — this is called being barred within.

To one who is not the right person, teach nothing; what is not the true thing, impart nothing. This is called attaining the Way.

So when one is careful to harmonise the five flavours, the bones are upright and the sinews supple, the qi and blood flow freely, and the crevices are closed; then the qi of the bones is at its finest. Guard the dao and follow the rule, and the mandate of heaven will long be yours.

The Emperor starts up in alarm, bows twice and touches his head to the ground: “Good. I have the great essentials of the pulse — the ultimate numbers under heaven, the changes of the five colours and the pulse, assessment and the anomalous-constant. The way lies in the one. The spirit turns and does not turn back; if it turns back it no longer turns, and the pivot is lost. The essential of the ultimate numbers is immediate and minute: write it on a jade tablet, store it in the storehouse of the viscera, read it every morning, and call it the Jade Mechanism.”

Huang Di said: good. Within one province the qi, the transformation and the long life or early death are not alike — what is the reason? Qi Bo said: it is the pattern of high and low; the lie of the land makes it so. Where it is high and towering the yin qi governs it; where it is low and wet the yang qi governs it. Where yang prevails it comes before its season; where yin prevails it comes after. This is the constant of the land and the way of engendering and transforming.

The final qi: yang qi spreads, the season turns warm instead, the hibernating creatures come out, running water does not freeze, and the people are healthy and level; their illness is warm disease. Therefore eat the grain of the year to settle their qi, and eat the intercalary grain to drive off their evil. In such a year use salty, bitter and pungent, and sweat them, clear them, scatter them, settling their circuit qi and not letting it take on evil. Break their pent qi and aid the source of their transformation. By the lightness or heaviness of cold and heat, hold them in check by more or less. Where it is the same as heat, use much of the heavenly transformation; where the same as coolness, use much of the earthly transformation. In using cool keep far from cool, in using heat keep far from heat, in using cold keep far from cold, in using warm keep far from warm. Food follows the same rule; where there is a pretext, one goes contrary. This is the way of it; to go contrary to it is to disorder the warp of heaven and earth and trouble the order of yin and yang.

Hence the Great Essentials says: the coarse workman giggles and thinks he knows; before he has done speaking of heat the cold illness begins again — the same qi in different forms, a puzzled diagnosis and a confused canon; this is what is meant. As for the way of tip and root, it is essential yet broad, small yet great: one may speak of one and know the harm of the hundred illnesses. To speak of tip and root is easy and does no harm. To examine root and tip, the qi can be made harmonious, and to know prevalence and revenge clearly is a model for all the people; the way of heaven is complete.

Huang Di said: good, do not lose it. All of this is yin and yang, outside and inside, above and below, female and male, giving back to one another in turn. And the way knows the patterns of heaven above, the order of the earth below, and human affairs in the middle, and so it can last long. Teach it to the multitude and there is no doubt or danger in it either. A discourse on the way of medicine can be handed down to later ages and kept as a treasure.

One who is skilled at the pulse must know it through the matching of kinds and the extraordinary and the constant, through the Congrong; to be a craftsman and not know the way — such diagnosis is not worth prizing, and this is the third error of treatment.

Qi Bo answered: Let me set it out in order, so that it has a framework, beginning with one and ending with nine. Let me speak of its way. The essentials of the small needle are easy to state but hard to enter. The coarse practitioner holds to form; the superior one holds to spirit. Spirit! Spirit and guest are at the same gate; if one has not seen the disease, how can one know its source? The subtlety of needling lies in speed and slowness. The coarse one holds to the joints; the superior one holds to the mechanism. The movement of the mechanism never leaves its hollow. The mechanism within the hollow is clear, quiet and subtle; when it comes it cannot be met, when it goes it cannot be pursued. One who knows the way of the mechanism must not diverge by a hair. One who does not know it may strike and get no release; but knowing its coming and going, one can keep to its time. How dark is the coarse one! How subtle — the skilled worker alone has it. What goes is contrary, what comes is accordant; knowing contrary and accordant, one walks straight and asks nothing more. Seize it against the current — how can there be no emptiness? Follow and succour it — how can there be no fullness? Meet it and follow it, harmonise it with the intention, and the way of the needle is complete.

Huang Di asked Qi Bo: In the way of needling one must penetrate where the twelve channels and network vessels begin and end, where the network vessels branch off, where the five transporting points retain their qi, how the six fu are paired, the exits and entries of the four seasons, where the qi of the five zang flows and stays, the measure of breadth and spacing, the shape of the shallow and the deep, and how far high and low each reaches. I wish to hear the explanation.

Huang Di said: What of evil striking a person’s zang? Qi Bo said: Sorrow, worry, fear and dread injure the heart; cold of body and cold drink injure the lung. Because the two colds affect one another, within and without are both injured, and so the qi pathway moves upward. Falling or dropping down leaves bad blood within; or great anger makes the qi rise and not descend, gathering below the flanks, and so injures the liver. Being struck and thrown down, or entering the chamber drunk, with sweat issuing and facing the wind, injures the spleen. Exerting force to lift a weight, or entering the chamber to excess, with sweat issuing and bathing in water, injures the kidney.

Qi Bo said: Heaven and earth affect one another, cold and warmth shift into one another. In the way of yin and yang, which is few and which is many? The yin way is even, the yang way is odd. When it issues in spring and summer, yin qi is few and yang qi is many; yin and yang are not regulated — what is supplemented and what is reduced? When it issues in autumn and winter, yang qi is few and yin qi is many; yin qi is abundant and yang qi declines, and so stems and leaves wither and dry, and wet rain descends and returns. Yin and yang shift into one another — what is reduced and what is supplemented? Strange evil departs from the channels beyond all counting; and if one does not know root and knot, the five zang and six fu will snap their passes and ruin their pivots, open and close and run away, and yin and yang will be greatly lost and cannot be taken again. The mystery of the nine needles lies in beginning and end: therefore one who knows beginning and end finishes in a single word, and one who does not, has the way of the needle entirely cut off.

Needling has nine methods, answering to the nine changes. The first is shu needling: it needles the ying and shu of the several channels and the shu of the zang and fu. The second is distant needling: the disease is above and one takes below, needling the shu of the fu. The third is channel needling: it needles the knotted luo and the channel divisions of the great channels. The fourth is luo needling: it needles the blood vessels of the small luo. The fifth is partition needling: it needles between the partition flesh. The sixth is great-drain needling: it needles great pus with the pi needle. The seventh is hair needling: it needles floating bi in the skin. The eighth is ju needling: for the left take the right, for the right take the left. The ninth is scorch needling: it needles with a heated needle and so takes bi.

The way of needling is complete in beginning and end. When beginning and end are clearly known, and the five zang are taken as the rule, yin and yang are settled. Yin governs the zang, yang governs the fu. Yang receives its qi from the four extremities, yin receives its qi from the five zang. Therefore the reducing method meets it, the supplementing method follows it. Knowing how to meet and how to follow, one can bring the qi into harmony. The way to harmonise qi must pass through yin and yang: the five zang are yin, the six fu are yang. Hand this down to later generations, sealing it with blood. Those who revere it flourish; those who slight it perish. To practise privately without the Way is to invite Heaven’s calamity.

Lei Gong asked Huang Di: the words of the Jin Fu say that in all principles of needling the channels are the beginning, that one should trace what they carry, fix their measures, join them within in order to the five zang and separate them without in order to the six fu. I wish to hear the whole of this doctrine.

Huang Di asked Qi Bo: I have heard that man corresponds to the Way of Heaven. Within he has the five zang, which answer to the five tones, the five colours, the five seasons, the five flavours and the five directions; without he has the six fu, which answer to the six pitch-pipes. The six pitch-pipes establish the yin and yang channels and join them to the twelve months, the twelve double-hours, the twelve joints, the twelve water-courses, the twelve hours and the twelve channels. This is how the five zang and six fu answer to the Way of Heaven. As for the twelve channels, they are that by which man lives and by which disease is formed, that by which man is cured and by which disease arises; they are where study begins and where the skilled physician stops. The coarse find them easy; the highest find them hard. I beg to ask how they separate, join, go out and come in.

Huang Di said: hearing this delights my ear but does not untie my heart. I beg you to finish it. Qi Bo replied: this is how man takes his place beside Heaven and Earth and answers to yin and yang; it must be examined. Foot taiyang corresponds outwardly to the clear water and inwardly belongs to the bladder, and it opens the water passage. Foot shaoyang corresponds to the Wei; foot yangming to the sea water; foot taiyin to the lake water; foot shaoyin to the Ru; foot jueyin to the Mian, each belonging inwardly to its zang — gallbladder, stomach, spleen, kidney and liver. Hand taiyang corresponds to the Huai and belongs to the small intestine, and the water passage comes out from it; hand shaoyang to the Luo and belongs to the triple burner; hand yangming to the Jiang and belongs to the large intestine; hand taiyin to the He and belongs to the lung; hand shaoyin to the Ji and belongs to the heart; hand xinzhu to the Zhang and belongs to the pericardium.

Huang Di said: In the course of the camp qi, the essence of grain and water is the treasure. Grain enters the stomach and is transmitted to the lungs; it overflows within and spreads without. Its purest part moves through the channel tunnels, circulating without cease, ending and beginning again — this is called the order of Heaven and Earth.

Qi Bo replied: In the strong, the blood and qi are abundant, the flesh is smooth, the qi passages are open, and the camp and guard do not lose their norm; hence they are spirited by day and sleep by night. In the old, the blood and qi are diminished, the flesh is withered, the qi passages are rough, the qi of the five viscera strikes against itself, the camp qi is scanty and the guard qi invades inward; hence they are not spirited by day and do not sleep by night.

Huang Di asked Qi Bo: The qi of the four seasons has different forms, and the rise of every disease has its source; in the way of moxa and needling, what is the standard?

The Yellow Emperor asked Qibo: when circulating bi is in the body, it moves up and down with the vessels, and what is above and below, left and right, answers to itself with no gap between. I should like to know whether this pain is in the blood vessels or in the interstices. How does it come about? The pain moves so fast that there is no time to put down the needle, and when the pulling pain comes there is no time to settle the treatment before the pain has already stopped. What way makes it so? I should like to hear the reason.

The Emperor said: For the five disorders, is there a method in needling?

Qi Bo said: The chest and belly are the outer wall of the zang and fu; the chest is the palace city of the heart master; the stomach is the great granary; the throat and small intestine are the transport. The five openings of the stomach are its gates and doors; Lianquan and Yuying are the ways of the fluids.

The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: Water and grain enter the mouth and are conveyed to the stomach and intestines; their liquid divides into five. When the weather is cold and the clothes thin, it becomes urine and qi; when the weather is hot and the clothes thick, it becomes sweat; when sorrow gathers the qi, it becomes tears; when there is inner heat and the stomach is slack, it becomes spittle. When evil qi rebels within, the qi is blocked and does not move, and what does not move becomes water distension. I know this is so, but not whence it arises; I should like to hear the way of it.

The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: I have heard the way of needling from you, Master, and its many parts are all exhausted. Your way, when applied, seems to leave nothing to hold to, and yet what it rests on has nothing rigid about it. Is your learning ripe from study, or do you examine things and let it arise in the heart?

Qi Bo said: How urgent is the question of the Way! Bright it is, like waking in the day; dim it is, like closing the eyes at night. If one can receive it and put it on, the spirit completes itself with it. If one puts it on wholly, the spirit obtains it of itself. The principle by which spirit is generated can be written on bamboo and silk, but it cannot be transmitted to sons and grandsons.

The Yellow Emperor said: I have heard the nine needles in nine chapters, and have myself received their regulation, so that I have got a fair part of their meaning. The nine needles begin at one and end at nine, yet I have not got their essential Way.

These are the regions of the five viscera, six fu, limbs and joints. Each has its part; having its part, use yin to harmonise yang and yang to harmonise yin. When the parts are clearly understood, ten thousand movements are ten thousand correct. To distinguish left and right is called the great way. Man and woman have different positions, hence yin and yang. To examine moisture and withering is what makes a good craftsman.

The Emperor said: When the qi passes the inch opening, how much of it rises and rests above, and how much sinks and hides below? By what road does it return? I do not know its limit.

Shao Yu answered: When sour enters the stomach, its qi is astringent and gathering, and rises to the two burners without being able to pass out. Not passing out, it stays in the stomach; the stomach being warm and harmonious, it flows down into the bladder. The bladder’s pouch is thin and soft, and meeting sour it shrinks and curls, so that it is bound and does not open, the waterway does not run, and therefore the urine stops.

The Emperor said: I truly cannot count them; that is why I ask the former master. I wish to hear the way of it to the end.

The Yellow Emperor asked Shao Shi: When a person is suddenly overcome by sorrow and anger and loses his voice, what road is blocked, what qi goes out, so that the sound does not come through? I should like to hear the reason.

Qi Bo said: Draw from its root and lead out its branches, and you may make it decline and cut off the cold and heat. Carefully press along its course and give treatment there, going slowly and coming slowly to remove it. If it is as small as a grain of wheat, one insertion brings awareness and three insertions finish it.

Bo Gao said: Tonify what is insufficient, drain what is excessive, adjust the empty and the full, open its course and remove the evil. Give one dose of pinellia decoction; once yin and yang are open, sleep arrives at once.

The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: I have heard the nine needles from you, Master, in great number — more than can be counted. I have pushed and reasoned on them and made them into one record; I recite it, and you listen to its principle. Where it is wrong, tell me; pray set it on the right way, so that it may be handed down long and later ages suffer no harm. Only to the right man may it be transmitted; to the wrong man do not speak of it.

Qi Bo said: The lower back and spine are the great joints of the body; the limbs and shins are man’s tubes, by which he runs and flies; the penis and testes are the mechanism within the body, the sign of yin essence, the road of fluids. Hence when food and drink are without measure and joy and anger untimely, the fluids overflow within and stay below at the testes; the blood road is blocked, the swelling grows daily without cease, bending and lifting are inconvenient, running and flying impossible. This illness is watery swelling, neither rising nor descending; the stone needle takes it. Its form cannot be hidden and cannot always be covered — hence it is called removing the claw. The Emperor said: Good.

What is called a change is when on the days the Great One dwells in the five palaces a violent wind breaks trees and raises sand and stones; each according to what it governs, one reads the omen for high and low, and looks at the direction from which the wind comes. Wind coming from the quarter where he dwells is solid wind, which governs life and nurtures the ten thousand things; wind coming from the opposite quarter is empty wind, which injures man and governs killing and harm. Carefully wait for the empty wind and avoid it. Hence the sage daily avoids the way of empty evil as he would avoid arrows and stones, and evil cannot harm him — this is what it means.

When the evil strikes the five viscera within and runs across to the membrane source, its road is far, its qi deep, its movement slow, and it cannot break out daily; hence it gathers and breaks out the next day.

The middle burner issues qi like dew; it pours up into the valleys and seeps into the grandson vessels; fluids are harmonised and transformed, turning red to become blood. When the blood is harmonious the grandson vessels first fill and overflow, then pour into the network vessels; when all are full they pour into the channels. Yin and yang being thus stretched, it moves with the breath, its movement has order, its circuit has a way, joining with heaven and unable to rest. Cut and tune it: from emptiness remove solidity; draining makes insufficiency; haste diminishes qi; retaining makes before and after; afterwards, from emptiness remove emptiness, and tonifying leaves excess. When blood and qi are tuned, form and qi hold.