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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Suwen 15 · Essentials on the Jade Tablet
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked: “I have heard that Measuring and Assessing and The Extraordinary and Constant refer to different things. How are they used?”
Qi Bo replied: “Measuring and Assessing measures an illness’s shallowness or depth. The Extraordinary and Constant concerns extraordinary illnesses. Let me state the Way’s ultimate reckoning. Changes of the five colors and pulses, measurement and extraordinary patterns all have their Way in one. Spirit turns without reversing; reversed, it no longer turns and loses its mechanism. The essential of ultimate reckoning approaches the subtle. Inscribed on the jade tablet, it is called Uniting with the Jade Mechanism.
Color appears above, below, left and right, each with its essential meaning. Shallow color is governed by decoctions: ten days to end it. Deep color requires compounded preparations: twenty-one days. Very deep color is governed by fermented wine: a hundred days. With withered color and a stripped face, treatment is impossible; within a hundred days life ends. A short pulse and exhausted qi means death; warm illness with extreme deficiency means death.
Color above, below, left and right each has its essential meaning. Above is contrary; below following. For women, right is contrary and left following; for men, left is contrary and right following. Change into doubled yang is fatal, and doubled yin is fatal. Yin and yang turning against one another must be treated through the balance of their mutual displacement: this concerns both extraordinary patterns and measurement. A beating pulse with obstruction and inability to walk belongs to the meeting of cold and heat. A solitary pulse means qi consumption; deficient leakage means loss of blood. Solitariness is contrary and deficiency following.
Applying the method of The Extraordinary and Constant begins with Taiyin. Proceeding toward what overcomes it is contrary and brings death; proceeding toward what it overcomes is following and brings life. The prevailing relations of the eight winds and four seasons end and begin again. One passage in reverse can no longer be reckoned. The discourse on the essentials is complete.”
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