Suwen · Shifting the Essence, Changing the Qi

The text

The Yellow Emperor asked: I have heard that in antiquity, treating illness was only a matter of shifting the jing and changing the qi — the zhu-you rite alone could end it. In this age one treats the inside with strong medicines and the outside with needle and stone; some recover and some do not. Why is this? Qi Bo replied: The people of former antiquity lived among the birds and beasts. They moved to avoid the cold, and dwelt in the shade to avoid the heat. Within, they had no burden of clinging and longing; without, they had no shape of striving for office. This was an age of quiet and simplicity; the pathogenic could not enter deep. Therefore strong medicines were not needed to treat the inside, nor needle and stone to treat the outside; the jing could be shifted and the zhu-you rite alone could end it. This present age is not so. Worry and suffering wind around the inside; bitter labor injures the outside. People also lose the following of the four seasons, and go against what is fitting in cold and heat. Thief-winds come again and again; vacuous pathogens morning and evening. Within they reach the five zang and the bone marrow; without they injure the hollows, the orifices, the flesh and the skin. So a small illness must grow severe, and a great illness must end in death; therefore the zhu-you rite cannot end it. The Emperor said: Good. When I stand before a person who is ill, I wish to see life and death, to decide what is in doubt, and to know the essentials as clearly as the light of sun and moon. May I hear this? Qi Bo said: Color and pulse are what the highest emperors held precious, and what the first teachers handed down. In high antiquity they sent Jiu Daiji to set color and pulse in order and so communicate with spiritual brightness — joining them to metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, to the four seasons, the eight winds, and the six directions, never leaving what is constant. Change and shift were watched for their subtlety, and so the essentials were known. If you wish to know the essentials, they are color and pulse. Color answers to the sun; pulse answers to the moon. Seek always for the essentials, and those are the essentials. The changes of color answer to the pulses of the four seasons. This is what the highest emperors held precious, by which they joined with spiritual brightness, and so kept far from death and near to life. When the Dao of life is thereby lengthened, one is called a sage-king. In middle antiquity, illness was treated when it arrived. Decoctions for ten days were used to remove illnesses of the eight winds and the five impediments. If after ten days it had not ended, they treated with the branches of herbs and roots; root and tip assisted one another. When branch and root were both obtained, the pathogenic qi submitted. The treatment of the late age is not so. It does not take the four seasons as root, does not know sun and moon, and does not examine what is against and what is with. When the form of the illness is already complete, they wish to treat the outside with the fine needle and the inside with decoctions. The coarse worker is fierce, and thinks the thing can be attacked; so the old illness is not yet ended, and a new illness rises again. The Emperor said: I wish to hear the essential Dao. Qi Bo said: The utmost essential of treatment is not to lose color and pulse. Use them without confusion — that is the great rule of treatment. If against and with are inverted, if branch and root are not obtained, the spirit is lost and the state is lost. Leave the old and go toward the new, and you obtain the true person. The Emperor said: I have heard the essentials from you, Master. You say one must not leave color and pulse — this I already know. Qi Bo said: Treatment reaches its utmost in the one. The Emperor said: What is meant by the one? Qi Bo said: The one is obtained by following. The Emperor said: How is that done? Qi Bo said: Close the door and shut the window. Bind yourself to the one who is ill; ask again and again after the condition, so as to follow that person's intent. Those who obtain the spirit flourish; those who lose the spirit perish. The Emperor said: Good.

The line

The Yellow Emperor asked: I have heard that in antiquity, treating illness was only a matter of shifting the jing and changing the qi — the zhu-you rite alone could end it.

The note

The treatment of antiquity was sometimes only this: to move jing-qi off the place where it had stuck. Zhu-you is not another name for superstition. It is to move the spirit first, and the form after.