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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Suwen 75 · Setting Forth the Highest Teaching
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor sat in the Hall of Light, summoned Lei Gong and asked: “Do you know the Way of medicine?”
Lei Gong replied: “Through recitation I understand somewhat, but understanding has not yet become discrimination, discrimination has not yet become clarity, and clarity has not yet become manifest application. I can treat the officials, but am not yet equal to treating lords and kings. I wish to receive instruction establishing heaven’s measures, joining the four seasons with yin and yang, distinguishing stars and the light of sun and moon, and making the art of the channels manifest. Then later generations may understand more clearly, reaching back to Shennong, setting forth the highest teaching and approaching the two august rulers.”
The displayed final verb is uncertain and is read in the sense of approaching or matching, without naming rulers not specified here.
The Emperor said: “Good. Do not lose it. These are all the mutual transmission and response of yin and yang, exterior and interior, above and below, female and male. The Way knows heaven’s patterns above, earth’s order below and human affairs between. It can endure, teach the multitude and avoid doubt and peril. A discourse on the medical Way can be passed to later generations and treasured.”
Lei Gong said: “Please transmit the Way, so that I may recite it and understand its use.”
The Emperor said: “Have you not heard the Transmission on Yin and Yang?”
Lei Gong said: “I do not know it.”
The Emperor said: “Third Yang has heaven as its activity, with no constant position above or below. When influences join, illness arrives and harms yin and yang unevenly.”
The opening heaven-and-activity phrase is compressed and obscure; its supplied wording is not replaced with an unmentioned mechanism.
Lei Gong said: “Third Yang is without a match. Please explain it.”
The Emperor said: “When Third Yang arrives alone, it is Third Yang arriving together. Its combined arrival is like Wind and rain. Above, it produces illness of the head; below, leaking illness. Externally there is no appointed time; internally no proper order. It does not fit the channels’ measures. Examination lacks an upper and lower distinction by which to distinguish it in the writings.”
Third Yang is the numerical Taiyang designation. The apparently awkward “alone” and “together” wording is retained.
Lei Gong said: “In my treatment there is recovery; I can only speak from my understanding.”
The graph in the recovery phrase is obscure; the response is kept at this general level.
The Emperor said: “Third Yang is utmost yang. Accumulating and arriving together, it produces fright. Illness rises like a swift Wind and arrives like a thunderbolt. All nine openings close, yang qi overflows, the pharynx dries and the throat is blocked. Joining yin, it has no constant place above or below; its pressure produces intestinal flux. This is called Third Yang going straight to the heart. One sitting cannot rise; one lying has the whole body affected: this is Third Yang illness. If this is to make the world’s illnesses known, how are yin and yang distinguished, the four seasons answered and the five phases joined?”
The displayed sitting-and-lying clause is difficult; its impaired movement and whole-body involvement are retained without silently reordering the text.
Lei Gong said: “The yang words are not yet distinguished, nor the yin words ordered. Please let me rise to receive the explanation as the highest Way.”
The Emperor said: “If you receive transmission but do not know how to join it to the highest Way, you confuse the teacher’s instruction. I shall tell you its essential. Illness injures the five zang and wastes sinews and bones. You say it is unclear and undistinguished: then the learning on which the world depends is exhausted. The Kidney is about to be cut off; there is distress through the day’s decline. Unhurried discrimination does not emerge, and human affairs are not fully understood.”
The obscure closing phrases are retained as distress and failed understanding, rather than supplied with an invented prognosis or schedule.
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