Suwen · Explaining What Is Fine and Subtle

The text

The Yellow Emperor was in the Bright Hall. Lei Gong asked: I have received the work and transmit it; I walk the teaching by the channel-discourses — ease and measure, the methods of form, yin and yang, needling and moxa, what decoctions nourish. In walking the putting-in-order there are the worthy and the unworthy; one cannot yet be complete in ten. If one first speaks of grief, weeping, joy, anger, dryness and damp, cold and summer-heat, yin and yang, women — I ask why it is so. Low and honored, poor and rich, what a person's form follows, how those below are sent through, and how, meeting the matter, one fits the arts of the Dao — I have carefully heard the command. I ask a humble, foolish, leaky question, not in the classic. I wish to hear its signs. The Emperor said: It is great. Lei Gong asked: There are those who weep and tears do not come, or come with little snivel — why is this? The Emperor said: It is in the classic. He asked again: I do not know where water is born from, or where snivel comes forth. The Emperor said: To ask this is of no gain in putting in order. What the worker knows is where the Dao is born. The heart is the gathered jing of the five zang; the eyes are its orifice; the flowering color is its flourish. Therefore when a person has virtue, qi is harmonious in the eyes; when there is loss, worry is known in the color. Therefore grief and sorrow, and tears fall. Tears falling: this is where water is born from. The ancestor of water is accumulated water; accumulated water is utmost yin; utmost yin is the jing of the kidney. The water of ancestral jing does not come forth because jing holds it. What assists wraps it; therefore water does not travel. The jing of water is the will; the jing of fire is the spirit. Water and fire answer each other; spirit and will are both in grief — therefore the water of the eyes is born. Thus the proverb says: grief of the heart is named grief of the will. The will and the jing of the heart gather together at the eyes. Therefore when both are in grief, spirit-qi is passed to the heart; jing does not pass upward to the will, and the will grieves alone — therefore tears come forth. Tears and snivel are of the brain; the brain is yin; marrow is the filling of bone. Therefore what the brain seeps is snivel. The will is what governs the bone. Therefore when water flows and snivel follows, their traveling is of one kind. Snivel and tears are like brothers among persons: in urgency they die together; in life they live together. The will has already grieved early; therefore tears and snivel both come forth and travel sideways. That a person's tears and snivel both come forth and follow each other is because they belong to one kind. Lei Gong said: It is great. I ask: those who weep and tears do not come, or come little, and snivel does not follow — why? The Emperor said: Those whose tears do not come: the weeping is not grief. Those who do not weep: the spirit is not kind. If the spirit is not kind, the will does not grieve. Yin and yang hold each other — how could tears come alone? When the will grieves there is a restless ache; the restless ache rushes yin; rushing yin, the will leaves the eyes; the will leaving, the spirit does not keep the jing. Jing and spirit leave the eyes — tears and snivel come forth. And have you alone not recited, not thought of, what the classic says? In reversal the eyes have nothing they see. When a person reverses, yang qi joins above, yin qi joins below. Yang joining above: fire shines alone. Yin joining below: the feet are cold; the feet cold, there is distention. One water cannot dominate five fires — therefore the canthi are blind. Therefore meeting a rushing wind, tears fall and will not stop. When wind strikes the eyes, yang qi keeps watch within upon the jing; this is fire qi burning the eyes — therefore meeting wind, tears fall. There is that to compare it to: fire urgent, and wind is born — then there can be rain. This is of that kind.

The line

Lei Gong asked: There are those who weep and tears do not come, or come with little snivel — why is this?

The note

What is fine and subtle is in water, in spirit, in weeping without tears. To explain is to make the finest layer clear: spirit and water were one road all along.