Suwen · Citing the Four Losses

The text

The Yellow Emperor was in the Bright Hall; Lei Gong sat in attendance. The Yellow Emperor said: The books you have passed through and the work you have received are already many. Try to speak the meaning of gain and loss — that by which one obtains, that by which one loses. Lei Gong answered: Those who follow the classic and receive the work all speak of completeness in ten. At times there are faults. I ask to hear the explanation of this. The Emperor said: Are you young, and has your wisdom not yet reached? Or will you speak by mixing and joining? The twelve channel vessels, the three hundred and sixty-five networks — these all a person knows clearly; they are what the worker follows and uses. That one is not complete in ten: jing and spirit are not gathered; will and intention are not ordered; outer and inner lose each other. Therefore at times there is doubt and peril. To examine and not know the pattern of yin and yang going against and going with — this is the first loss in putting in order. To receive the teacher and not finish; to raise mixed arts in vain; to take false speech as the Dao; to change the name and claim the work as one's own; to use stone in vain, and afterward leave blame upon the body — this is the second loss in putting in order. Not to fit the dwelling of poor and rich, honored and low; the thinness or thickness of the seat; the cold or warmth of the form; not to fit what drink and food find fitting; not to distinguish a person's courage and fear; not to know comparing of kinds — this is enough to confuse oneself, not enough to make oneself clear. This is the third loss in putting in order. To examine illness and not ask its beginning; the loss of measure in worry, in drink and food; the going past of rising and rest; or injury by toxin — not to speak of these first, and of a sudden to hold the cun-opening: what illness can one hit? To speak in vain and make a name — this is to be exhausted by coarseness. This is the fourth loss in putting in order. Therefore those who speak in the age run a thousand li beyond, and are not clear on the discourse of chi and cun. The examination has no affairs of persons. The Dao of the numbers of putting in order: ease and measure is the treasure. Sitting and holding the cun-opening, the examination does not hit the five pulses, the arising of the hundred illnesses. At first one resents oneself, and leaves the blame with the teacher. Therefore putting in order cannot follow the pattern; the arts are abandoned in the market. Putting in order in vain, at times there is recovery; a dull heart takes it as its own obtaining. Alas — how deep, how dim. Who knows its Dao? The greatness of the Dao is imaged on Heaven and Earth, paired with the four seas. If you do not know the teaching of the Dao, what you receive as brightness becomes dusk.

The line

To examine and not know the pattern of yin and yang going against and going with — this is the first loss in putting in order.

The note

The four losses are all a wrong way of knowing: not knowing how yin and yang go with or against, and only keeping to a formula. To cite them is to point them out for those who come after.