Lingshu · The Five Retentions and the Distinctions of Fluids

The text

The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: Water and grain enter the mouth, are transported to the intestines and stomach, and their fluids are told apart as five. When heaven is cold and the clothes thin, they become urine and qi; when heaven is hot and the clothes thick, they become sweat; when grief and sorrow join qi, they become tears; when heat in the center slackens the stomach, they become saliva; when pathogen-qi reverses within, qi is closed and blocked by it and does not travel; not traveling, it becomes water-distention. I know that it is so; I do not know from what they are born. I wish to hear the Dao. Qi Bo said: Water and grain all enter the mouth; their flavors are five; each pours into its sea; the fluids each walk their own road. Thus the sanjiao issues qi, to warm the flesh, fill the skin — this is its jin; what flows and does not travel is ye. When heaven is hot and the clothes thick, the interstices open — hence sweat goes out; cold staying in the spaces of the divided flesh gathers as foam, and that is pain. When heaven is cold, the interstices close; qi and damp do not travel; water stays below in the bladder — then it becomes urine and qi. Of the five zang and six fu, the heart is the master, the ears the hearing, the eyes the watch, the lung the minister, the liver the general, the spleen the guard, the kidney the governor of the outer. Thus the fluids of the five zang and six fu all seep upward into the eyes. When the heart grieves and qi joins, the heart-tether grows tight; the heart-tether tight, the lung lifts; the lung lifting, the fluids overflow upward. The heart-tether and the lung cannot lift to the end; now up, now down — hence cough, and tears come out. Heat in the center melts grain in the stomach; grain melting, the worms work above and below; the intestines and stomach fill their walls — hence the stomach slackens; the stomach slackening, qi reverses — hence saliva comes out. The fluids of the five grains, joined and blended and becoming paste, seep within into the bone-hollows, fill and benefit brain and marrow, and flow downward into yin and yang. When yin and yang are not even, they make the fluids overflow and run down into yin; the marrow-fluids all lessen and go down; down beyond measure, there is vacuity; vacuity — hence lumbar and back pain and aching shins. When the qi-roads of yin and yang do not communicate, the four seas are blocked and closed, the sanjiao does not drain, the fluids do not transform; water and grain join in the intestines and stomach, are told apart at the winding intestine, stay in the lower burner, and cannot seep into the bladder — then the lower burner distends; water overflowing becomes water-distention. This is going against and going with in the five distinctions of the fluids.

The line

The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: Water and grain enter the mouth, are transported to the intestines and stomach, and their fluids are told apart as five. When heaven is cold and the clothes thin, they become urine and qi; when heaven is hot and the clothes thick, they become sweat; when grief and sorrow join qi, they become tears; when heat in the center slackens the stomach, they become saliva; when pathogen-qi reverses within, qi is closed and blocked by it and does not travel; not traveling, it becomes water-distention. I know that it is so; I do not know from what they are born. I wish to hear the Dao.

The note

Water and grain enter as one, and are told apart as five fluids. Heaven cold: urine and qi. Heaven hot: sweat. To tell apart is weather forking on a person's body.