Yin and Yang: The four laws
Each one explains a different picture. 6 activities, about 13 minutes.
They oppose, and that is how they brake
Yin cools what yang warms and yang moves what yin settles. While the brake works there is no symptom; the picture appears when one stops braking the other.
- Yin brakes yang
- heat does not run away
- Yang brakes yin
- fluids do not stagnate
- The brake fails
- heat appears, or cold appears
Common mistake: Reading opposition as enmity. It is mutual control: without its counterpart, each pole overflows.
They depend: each is the other's root
Yang is the activity of a substance, and that substance is yin. With nothing to burn there is no fire; with no fire to move it, matter sits still. That is why long deficiencies end up dragging the other pole down.
- Yin is the base
- it gives yang something to hold on to
- Yang is the drive
- it makes yin be produced and circulate
- A very long deficiency
- ends as a deficiency of both
Common mistake: Tonifying only the missing pole for months without checking whether the other has begun to fall with it.
They consume: if one rises, the other falls
There are four possible movements and it pays to name them, because two produce heat and two produce cold, yet they are treated in exactly opposite ways.
- Yang rises
- excess heat
- Yin falls
- deficiency heat
- Yin rises
- excess cold
- Yang falls
- deficiency cold
Common mistake: Seeing heat and draining it without asking whether the heat comes from too much fire or too little water.
They transform: the extreme flips sign
When one pole reaches its limit it turns into its opposite, and the turn is abrupt. It is what explains a very high fever ending in cold hands and feet, or acute pain ending in sudden exhaustion.
- Very high fever, then cold
- extreme yang burns out and flips
- Agitation followed by collapse
- the same turn in the mental sphere
- Condition for the flip
- it needs the extreme; a lot is not enough
Common mistake: Mistaking the transformation for improvement. The turn is usually the most delicate moment of the whole picture.
Which law best explains each scene?
- Cold water settles their burning stomach
- After years of exhaustion they tolerate neither cold nor effort
- The more sleepless nights pile up, the redder the eyes
- A very intense anxiety attack ends in deep, unstoppable sleep
- After gastroenteritis with vomiting they are left dry and hot
- Wrapping up warm makes the cramps disappear
Someone has taken very cold herbs for two years for persistent heat and now has diarrhoea, a cold abdomen and still has heat in the face. What happened?
Level complete!
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Study content. The exercises describe concepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine; they are not medical advice.
