Lingshu · The Five Colors

The text

Lei Gong asked the Yellow Emperor: Are the five colors decided at the Bright Hall alone? This lesser one does not yet know what is meant. The Yellow Emperor said: The Bright Hall is the nose. The Gate-towers are the space between the brows. The Courtyard is the forehead. The Fences are the sides of the cheeks. The Screens are the gates of the ears. The spaces between them should be square and ample. Step back ten paces, and all is still seen from without — such a one lives long, and will surely meet a hundred years. Lei Gong said: How does one tell the five offices apart? The Yellow Emperor said: The bone of the Bright Hall is high and risen, even and straight. The five zang take their places in the center; the six fu flank them on both sides. The head and face rise to the Gate-towers and the Courtyard; the royal palace sits at the lowest pole. When the five zang are at rest in the chest, the true color arrives, the color of illness is not seen, and the Bright Hall is moist, lustrous, and clear — how could the five offices be without distinction? Lei Gong said: And those that cannot be told apart — may I hear of them? The Yellow Emperor said: When the five colors appear, each comes out in its color-region. If the bone of that region is sunken, illness cannot be avoided. If the color-regions ride upon one another, even if the illness is severe, there is no death. Lei Gong said: How do the offices take the five colors? The Yellow Emperor said: Green and black are pain; yellow and red are heat; white is cold. These are called the five offices. Lei Gong said: Illness growing more severe, and illness just now declining — how is it? The Yellow Emperor said: Outer and inner are both in it. If you press the pulse-mouth and it is slippery, small, tight, and sunken, the illness grows more severe, and is in the center. If the qi at the man's-welcome is large, tight, and floating, the illness grows more severe, and is on the outer. If the pulse-mouth is floating and slippery, the illness advances day by day. If the man's-welcome is sunken and slippery, the illness lessens day by day. If the pulse-mouth is slippery and sunken, the illness advances day by day, and is inward. If the man's-welcome pulse is slippery, full, and floating, the illness advances day by day, and is on the outer. When floating and sunken of the pulse, and the man's-welcome and the inch-mouth, are equal in small and large, the illness is hard to end. Illness in the zang: sunken and large is easy to end; small is against. Illness in the fu: floating and large is easy to end. Man's-welcome full and hard: wounded by cold. Qi-mouth full and hard: wounded by food. Lei Gong said: To speak of the ease or severity of illness by color — how is it? The Yellow Emperor said: Color coarse and bright, or sunken and withered, is severe. Color that travels upward: the illness grows more severe. Color that travels downward, scattering as clouds break open: the illness is just now ending. Each of the five colors has a zang-region — an outer region and an inner. Color that walks from the outer region into the inner: the illness walks from outer to inner. Color that walks from inner to outer: the illness walks from inner to outer. Illness born within: first order the yin, then order the yang; do the reverse, and it grows more severe. Illness born in the yang: first order the outer, then order the inner; do the reverse, and it grows more severe. A pulse slippery, large, intermittent, and long: the illness came from without. The eyes have something they see; the will has something it hates — this is yang qi joining together; it can be turned, and then it ends. Lei Gong said: This lesser one has heard that wind is the beginning of the hundred illnesses, and that reversal is the rising of cold and damp. How does one tell them apart? The Yellow Emperor said: Always watch the space between the Gate-towers. Thin and lustrous is wind; rushing and turbid is impediment; in the chin it is reversal. This is the constant. Speak the illness by each color. Lei Gong said: A person not ill, who dies at once — how does one know it? The Yellow Emperor said: When great qi has entered the zang and fu, there is no illness, and yet death comes at once. Lei Gong said: Illness a little better, then death at once — how does one know it? The Yellow Emperor said: Red color coming out on both cheekbones, as large as a thumb: though the illness is a little better, death will surely come at once. Black color coming out in the Courtyard, as large as a thumb: surely not ill, and death at once. Lei Gong bowed twice and said: Good. Has the death a time? The Yellow Emperor said: Watch the color, and so speak its time. Lei Gong said: Good. I wish to hear it to the end. The Yellow Emperor said: The Courtyard is the head and face. Above the Gate-towers is the throat. In the Gate-towers is the lung. The lowest pole is the heart. Straight below is the liver. To the left of the liver is the gallbladder. Below is the spleen. The square above is the stomach. The center is the large intestine. Flanking the large intestine are the kidneys. Opposite the kidneys is the navel. Above the face-king is the small intestine. Below the face-king are the bladder and the child's-place. The cheekbones are the shoulders. Behind the cheekbones are the arms. Below the arms are the hands. Above the inner canthus are the breast and the nipple. Flanking the cords and rising is the back. Following the jaw-cart down is the thigh. The center is the knee. Below the knee is the shin. Opposite, below the shin, is the foot. The great divide is the inner thigh. The great bend is the kneecap. These are the regions of the five zang, the six fu, the limbs and the joints. Each has its region. Having a region, use yin to even yang, use yang to even yin. When the regions are clear, ten thousand acts, ten thousand times right. To be able to tell left from right — this is called the great Dao. Man and woman differ in place; therefore one says yin and yang. To examine luster and withering — this is called a good craftsman. Sunken and turbid is inner; floating and lustrous is outer. Yellow and red are wind; green and black are pain; white is cold. Yellow and greasy-moist is pus; red in the extreme is blood-pain; in the extreme it is spasm; cold in the extreme is skin that does not feel. Each of the five colors appears in its region. Watch floating and sunken to know shallow and deep. Watch luster and withering to see success and failure. Watch scatter and clump to know far and near. Look at color high and low to know the place of illness. Gather the spirit in the heart to know what has been and what is now. Therefore if you read qi only faintly, you do not know yes from no; set the mind and do not leave, and you know the new from the old. Color bright but not coarse — sunken and withered is severe. Neither bright nor lustrous — the illness is not severe. Color that scatters, colt-like, not yet gathered: the illness is scattered, and the pain is of qi; the gathering has not yet formed. When the kidney rides the heart, the heart is first ill, and the kidney answers — color is all like this. In a man, color at the face-king is pain in the lower abdomen; below, pain in the eggs; a circle standing straight is pain in the stem — high is the root, low is the head: of the kind of fox-hernia and hanging yin. In a woman, at the face-king it is illness of the bladder and the child's-place. Scattered is pain; clumped is gathering. Square or round, left or right — each is as the shape of its color. Following down to the sacrum is overflow; moist like grease is violent eating of the unclean. Left is left; right is right. If the color has the irregular, gathering and scattering and not upright — the face-color is what points. The colors are green, black, red, white, yellow — all upright and full, each with its other village. Another village that is red: the color red, as large as an elm-pod, at the face-king, will not last the days. Color sharp above: the head is empty and it points upward. Sharp below: it points downward. At left and right, follow the same rule. Name the zang by the five colors: green is liver, red is heart, white is lung, yellow is spleen, black is kidney. The liver pairs with the sinews, the heart with the vessels, the lung with the skin, the spleen with the flesh, the kidney with the bone.

The line

The Yellow Emperor said: The Bright Hall is the nose.

The note

The Bright Hall is the nose. The five colors are decided at the center. Color is the zang opening the weather of the inside onto the face. Look first at the Bright Hall, then at what stands around it.