Suwen · Further Discourse on Yin and Yang

The text

The Yellow Emperor asked: The person has four channels and twelve followers. What does this mean? Qi Bo answered: The four channels answer the four seasons; the twelve followers answer the twelve months; the twelve months answer the twelve vessels. The vessels have yin and yang. Those who know yang know yin; those who know yin know yang. Yang in all has five; five times five is twenty-five yang. What is called yin is the true zang. When it appears, there is defeat; defeat, and death is certain. What is called yang is the yang of the stomach duct. Distinguish it from yang, and you know the place of illness. Distinguish it from yin, and you know the time of death or life. The three yang are at the head; the three yin are at the hand — this is what is called the one. Distinguish it from yang, and you know the times illness must avoid. Distinguish it from yin, and you know the time of death or life. Be careful and fluent in yin and yang; do not take counsel with the crowd. What is called yin and yang: what leaves is yin, what arrives is yang; what is still is yin, what moves is yang; what is slow is yin, what is rapid is yang. Whoever holds the zang-vessel of the true pulse: if the liver arrives hanging, cut off, and urgent, death on the eighteenth day; if the heart arrives hanging and cut off, death on the ninth day; if the lung arrives hanging and cut off, death on the twelfth day; if the kidney arrives hanging and cut off, death on the seventh day; if the spleen arrives hanging and cut off, death on the fourth day. It is said: illness of the two yang arises in the heart and spleen; there is inability to keep what is hidden and bent, and in a woman the monthly affair does not come. If it is passed on as wind-wasting, if it is passed on as panting rush — death, not treated. It is said: when the three yang are ill, cold and heat arise; below there are abscess and swelling, and also wilting, reversal, and ache of the calf. If it is passed on as withered luster, if it is passed on as collapsing shan. It is said: when one yang gives rise to illness, there is little qi, a tendency to cough, a tendency to discharge. If it is passed on as heart-tugging, if it is passed on as blockage. When two yang and one yin give rise to illness, the chief signs are startle, pain in the back, a tendency to belch and to yawn — this is named wind-reversal. When two yin and one yang give rise to illness, there is a tendency to distention, fullness of the heart, a tendency of qi. When three yang and three yin give rise to illness, there is withering of one side and easy wilting; the four limbs will not lift. A beat that is one yang is called hook; a beat that is one yin is called hair; a beat of yang that overcomes and is urgent is called string; a beat of yang that arrives and then cuts off is called stone; yin and yang passing through one another is called flowing. Yin contends within, yang stirs without; the po-sweat is not stored; the four reversals rise; rising, they smoke the lung and make a person pant and wheeze. What yin generates, when it is in accord with the root, is called harmony. Therefore hard against hard: yang qi is broken and scattered, yin qi then perishes. If it is too wet, hard and soft are not in harmony, channel-qi is then cut off. What belongs to dead yin does not pass three days before death; what belongs to living yang does not pass four days before death. What is called living yang and dead yin: from liver to heart is called living yang. From heart to lung is called dead yin. From lung to kidney is called doubled yin. From kidney to spleen is called opened yin — death, not treated. Knotted yang: swelling of the four limbs. Knotted yin: a sheng of blood in the stool; knotted again, two sheng; knotted a third time, three sheng. Yin and yang knotted aslant, much yin and little yang, is called stone-water; the lower belly swells. Two yang knotted is called wasting-thirst; three yang knotted is called blockage; three yin knotted is called water; one yin and one yang knotted is called throat impediment. Yin beating and yang distinct is called having a child. Yin and yang vacant, intestinal flux, death. Yang added upon yin is called sweat. Yin vacant and yang beating is called collapse-flood. When the three yin all beat, death at midnight on the twentieth day. When the two yin all beat, death at evening on the thirteenth day. When the one yin all beats, death on the tenth day. When the three yang all beat and also drum, death on the third day. When the three yin and three yang all beat, the heart and belly are full. When it has issued completely and one cannot keep what is hidden and bent, death on the fifth day. When the two yang all beat, the illness is warm — death, not treated; it does not pass ten days before death.

The line

What is called yin and yang: what leaves is yin, what arrives is yang; what is still is yin, what moves is yang; what is slow is yin, what is rapid is yang.

The note

What leaves is yin; what arrives is yang. To distinguish is to see the direction of flow, not to cut the person apart. Channels and followers — first ask where this one breath is going.