Suwen · Setting Down the Highest Teaching

The text

The Yellow Emperor sat in the Bright Hall, summoned Lei Gong, and asked: Do you know the Dao of medicine? Lei Gong answered: I can recite and somewhat understand; I understand but cannot yet distinguish; I distinguish but cannot yet see clearly; I see clearly but cannot yet make it shine. It is enough to put in order the many officers; it is not enough to reach lords and kings. I wish to receive the measure by which Heaven is set up, joined to the yin and yang of the four seasons, distinguishing the stars and the light of sun and moon, so as to make the arts of the classic shine, that later ages may grow clearer, communicating above with Shennong, setting down the highest teaching, standing near the two emperors. The Emperor said: Good. Do not lose this. These are all yin and yang, surface and interior, above and below, female and male, answering one another by transport. The Dao: know astronomy above, the pattern of earth below, and the affairs of persons in the middle — then it can last long. Teach it to the many, and there is no doubt or peril. The discourses of the Dao of medicine can be transmitted to later ages; they can be taken as a treasure. Lei Gong said: I ask to receive the Dao, to recite it and use it to understand. The Emperor said: Have you not heard the Transmission of Yin and Yang? Lei Gong said: I do not know it. The Emperor said: The three yang take Heaven as their work. Above and below have no constant; they join, and illness arrives; they harm yin and yang on one side. Lei Gong said: The three yang none can withstand. I ask to hear the explanation. The Emperor said: When the three yang arrive alone, it is that the three yang arrive together. Arriving together they are like wind and rain: above, illness at the crown; below, leaking illness. Without, there is no term; within, there is no uprightness. They do not hit the warp and the record; the examination has no above and below by which to write a distinction. Lei Gong said: I put them in order and they all recover — I have only spoken the meaning. The Emperor said: The three yang are utmost yang. Accumulated and joined, they become startle. Illness rises like a swift wind; it arrives like a thunderbolt. The nine orifices are all blocked; yang qi overflows as a flood; the dry throat is blocked. Joined with yin, above and below have no constant; they press and become intestinal flux. This is called the three yang going straight to the heart: sitting, one cannot rise; those who lie down find the whole body easy. This is illness of the three yang. And if one would know the realm — how does one distinguish yin and yang, answer the four seasons, join them to the five phases? Lei Gong said: Spoken as yang, I cannot distinguish; spoken as yin, I cannot order it. I ask to rise and receive the explanation, and take it as the utmost Dao. The Emperor said: If you receive the transmission and do not know how to join it to the utmost Dao, you confuse the teacher's teaching. Let me tell you the essential of the utmost Dao. Illness injures the five zang; sinew and bone are thereby melted. You say you do not see clearly and cannot distinguish — then the learning of the lords of the age is spent. The kidney is about to be cut off: a restless grief; at dusk one is at ease and will not go out; the affairs of persons are not many.

The line

The Yellow Emperor sat in the Bright Hall, summoned Lei Gong, and asked: Do you know the Dao of medicine?

The note

To recite is not yet to distinguish; to distinguish is not yet to see clearly. Setting down the highest teaching is to move the principle from the mouth to the place where it can tell things apart. To know is not to recite.