Tone, Breath, and Pulse Are Different Projections of the Same Process

At the end of the first series, the previous seven articles can be joined back together.

The Mirror Classic of Bian Que asks, “Why do tone and pulse share the same lü?” It answers:

A person’s tone and lü are the breath of Ying and Wei, the channels and collaterals, the zang-fu, qi and blood. The qi of breath is tone; the movement of breath is lü; the form of breath is pulse. Tone and pulse have different names but share the same qi.

This is one of the most important unifying principles in the book.

One process can have different observational faces

Breathing can be heard and seen; the pulse can be touched; voice has higher and lower qualities and clarity or turbidity; the pulse has rise, fall, length, and shortness. On the surface these are different sensory data.

But the Mirror Classic’s position is that if all are produced by the same movement of Ying and Wei, channels, zang-fu, qi, and blood, then the different senses are reading different faces of one dynamic system.

Thus:

• tone emphasizes the expression of qi;
• lü emphasizes the regulated measure of movement;
• pulse emphasizes palpable form;
• voice externalizes changes in tone.

This does not mean the four are identical. It means they can cross-check one another.

Correct position, responsive position, flow, and infusion

The text continues:

In the channels, above and below, front and back, left and right, qi interacts and flows and infuses, joining from beginning to end. What obtains its position is infused; what responds to its position flows. Infusion is qi interaction; flow is communication and convergence.

This adds another dimension to the earlier time and distance: position.

Qi is not abstractly “more” or “less.” It moves through a channel network of above/below, front/back, left/right. When qi interacts at a location, there is “infusion”; when it responds to another location and communicates, there is “flow.” Later, She is precisely what describes the positions at which such qi interactions occur.

Shenji and Qili: internal and external roots

Another passage says:

What is rooted within is called Shenji; what is rooted outside is called Qili. Shenji is the domain of generation and transformation; Qili is ascent, descent, entry, and exit.

The body’s dynamics are thus divided into an internal layer of generation and transformation and an external layer of ascent, descent, entry, and exit. Listening to tone and breath reveals changes of qi; tracing and palpating pulse and breath reveals how those changes take form in the pulse.

In this sense, looking, listening, asking, and palpating are not four unrelated methods in the Mirror Classic, but different observational channels.

Why does the second series begin with the “Ten Tones”?

By this point we have time, distance, pulse events, and position. What is still missing is a way to describe the state of qi itself.

The Mirror Classic next decomposes sound into inherited tone, basic tones, ten degrees, and the ten transformation tones. That is the work of the second series.

The first series can therefore be compressed into one sentence:

Breath provides time, bone measure provides space, pulse movement provides events, and tone-lü turns those events into states that can be classified and compared.

The next article enters the “Ten Tones.”