Suwen · Treasuring Life, Completing the Form

The text

The Yellow Emperor asked: Heaven covers, earth carries; the ten thousand things are all prepared. Nothing is more precious than the person. The person is born of the qi of heaven and earth, and completed by the law of the four seasons. Lords, kings, and the many common people all wish to complete the form. When the form has illness, no one knows its condition; it lingers and soaks, day by day deeper, and lodges in the bone marrow. My heart is privately troubled by this. I wish to remove the illness with the needle. How is this done? Qi Bo replied: Salt, whose flavor is salty — its qi makes the vessel leak fluid. When a string snaps, its tone is hoarse and ruined. When a tree is spread past itself, its leaves fall. When an illness is deep, the voice is a hiccup. When a person has these three, it is called a ruined fu. Strong medicines have nothing to treat; the short needle has nothing to take. These have all cut the skin and injured the flesh; qi and blood contend, and there is blackness. The Emperor said: I think of their pain; my heart is disordered and confused by it, and the illness is made still more severe. It cannot be taken on in their place. The hundred surnames, hearing of this, take it for cruelty and harm. What is to be done? Qi Bo said: The person is born of earth and hangs a life from heaven. When heaven and earth join their qi, it is named a person. Those who can answer the four seasons — heaven and earth are father and mother to them. Those who know the ten thousand things are called sons of heaven. Heaven has yin and yang; the person has twelve joints. Heaven has cold and heat; the person has vacuity and repletion. Those who can pass through the transformations of the yin and yang of heaven and earth do not lose the four seasons. Those who know the pattern of the twelve joints cannot be deceived, even by sage wisdom. Those who can hold the changes of the eight movements, the five overcomings taking turns in standing; those who can reach the numbers of vacuity and repletion — they go out alone and come in alone. The opening of the mouth, the slightest groan: the autumn hair is in the eye. The Emperor said: The person is born with a form and does not leave yin and yang. Heaven and earth join their qi; they are distinguished as the nine wilds, divided as the four seasons. The moon has its small and large; the day has its short and long. The ten thousand things arrive together, more than can be measured. Vacuity and repletion, the opening of the mouth and the groan — I dare to ask the method. Qi Bo said: Wood meets metal and is felled. Fire meets water and is extinguished. Earth meets wood and is opened. Metal meets fire and is notched. Water meets earth and is cut off. The ten thousand things are all thus; they cannot be exhausted. Therefore there are five things of the needle hung forth and spread under heaven. The black-haired people share leftover grain, and none of them know this. The first is called governing the spirit. The second is knowing how to nourish the body. The third is knowing strong medicines for the true. The fourth is regulating the small and large of the bian-stone. The fifth is knowing the examination of the fu and zang, of blood and qi. When the five methods are all established, each has what comes first. The needling of this late age fills the vacuous and drains the full — this is what the common workers all know. As for taking heaven as law and earth as pattern, moving as the answering comes: those who harmonize with it are like an echo; those who follow it are like a shadow. The Dao has no ghosts and spirits; it comes alone and goes alone. The Emperor said: I wish to hear its Dao. Qi Bo said: In all that is true of needling, one must first govern the spirit. When the five zang are already settled and the nine assessments are already prepared, only then does one keep the needle. The many pulses are not seen; the many omens are not heard. Outside and inside obtain one another; do not put the form first. One may play with the coming and going, and only then apply it to a person. Persons have vacuity and repletion. Do not draw near the five vacuities; do not stay far from the five repletions. When it is time to issue, there is not room for a hair. The hand moves as if it had one task; the needle shines and is even. Still the intent and look at the meaning; watch the change of what is fitting. This is called the dark of the dark — no one knows its form. One sees it as crows, sees it as millet-heads; one follows and sees it fly, and does not know who it is. It crouches like a crossbow laid sideways; it rises like a trigger loosed. The Emperor said: How is it vacuous, and how is it replete? Qi Bo said: In needling the vacuous one must await its repletion; in needling the replete one must await its vacuity. When the channel-qi has already arrived, guard it with care and do not lose it. Deep and shallow lie in the will; far and near are as one. As if at the edge of a deep abyss; the hand as if holding a tiger. The spirit must not camp among the many things.

The line

The Yellow Emperor asked: Heaven covers, earth carries; the ten thousand things are all prepared. Nothing is more precious than the person. The person is born of the qi of heaven and earth, and completed by the law of the four seasons. Lords, kings, and the many common people all wish to complete the form. When the form has illness, no one knows its condition; it lingers and soaks, day by day deeper, and lodges in the bone marrow. My heart is privately troubled by this.

The note

Nothing is more precious than the person. To treasure a life is not to lengthen a curve. It is to let form and spirit still be together. The essential of the needle is first in the spirit, not in the hand.