Emotions Also Have “Composite Effects”: Fifteen Transformations of the Five Intentions
After listing the fifteen taste transformations, “Tongtian” immediately applies the same method to emotion.
The text says:
Joy with anger transforms into Duan; joy with grief into Rou; joy with thought into Yue; joy with fear into Lian; joy with fright into Yang. Anger with grief transforms into Ji; anger with thought into Zao; anger with fear into Bao; anger with fright into Luan. Grief with thought transforms into Ai; grief with fear into Nei; grief with fright into San. Thought with fear transforms into Yuan; thought with fright into Yu; fear with fright into Wei.
Rather than attaching each emotion to one zang-fu label, the passage asks: when two emotional states are present together, in what direction does the overall state transform?
Emotions are dynamic variables in the Mirror Classic
Section titled “Emotions are dynamic variables in the Mirror Classic”“Anger,” for example, does not correspond to only one outcome. Combined with grief it becomes Ji; with thought, Zao; with fear, Bao; with fright, Luan.
This wording tells us that a single emotion is only one input. What actually shapes bodily state is how it combines with other emotions, the person’s existing essence-qi, and zang-fu conditions.
Reducing “emotion causes disease” to statements such as “anger damages the Liver” is therefore too flat. The Mirror Classic presents something closer to an emotional combination space.
Why are emotions and tastes placed together?
Section titled “Why are emotions and tastes placed together?”The text immediately continues:
When the Five Intentions and Five Tastes are harmonious, essence-qi is full. What overcomes damages qi; what combines damages essence; what is excessive undergoes transformation; what is insufficient becomes Bing.
This sentence links the preceding levels together. Emotion and diet are not two completely separate systems; both can alter essence and qi through relations such as Zhuan, Sheng, Jian, and Bing.
In other words, the same food may not produce exactly the same result under different emotional states, while the same emotion may shift differently depending on the person’s underlying essence-qi.
The source also distributes emotions across different zang-fu
Section titled “The source also distributes emotions across different zang-fu”A later passage further states that when essence-qi gathers in the Heart there is joy; in the Lung, grief; in the Liver, worry; in the Gallbladder, anger; in the Brain, fright—and continues through the Spleen, Stomach, Kidney, Bao, Sanjiao, Bladder, Small Intestine, and Large Intestine.
This again shows that “intent-emotion” is not confined to a simple five-box correspondence with the Five Zang, but is connected to a much larger zang-fu network.
Do not turn the fifteen transformations into a modern psychology diagnostic table
Section titled “Do not turn the fifteen transformations into a modern psychology diagnostic table”Terms such as Duan, Rou, Yue, Lian, Yang, and the rest are qi-transformational descriptions in the Mirror Classic. At present they should not be directly equated with categories in modern psychiatry or psychology. They are better understood first as state-transition markers within the ancient model.
The next article turns to an even more fundamental issue in “Tongtian”: how qi, form, and essence transform into one another.