A Natural Breath

呼吸往來，不及法禁

Exhaling and inhaling going and coming, never reaching what the system prohibits

呼 to breathe out, exhale

吸 to breathe in, inhale, absorb.

往 to go, towards, past

來 to come, to arrive, next

不 not, no

及 to reach, up to

法(灋) method, system, to punish, to force

禁 (jìn) to prohibit, to forbid, (jīn) to contain, to restrain oneself

Breathing is one of the cornerstones of old practices. If the first part of the quote seems quite clear, the second part is quite obscure, what is prohibited by the system isn’t explained further in the text.
What is more, 法 is a character with an original complex polysemy including meanings like to force, punishment*... There is, also, the fact that the second character in both the first and second parts of the statement contains 及, an enigma.

From what has already been written in this blog, one knows that breathing is a complex issue of balancing two opposites, the need to be natural as well as having a certain control on it. Furthermore, what the present quote does not seem to imply, breathing, sometimes called internal breathing, often refers to a process similar to pulmonary breathing but concerns actually the flow of vapours. Still, by using 呼吸, it seems that the text limits itself to the external, pulmonary breathing.

The first part of the text seems quite clear, stressing out the need to be natural and have a certain pace. The second part is a bit more obscure and one has to consider the closeness in writing between inhaling, 吸, in the first part and reaching, 及, in the second part.

Basically such quote revolves around the concept of being “natural” which is often confused with doing whatever one feels like doing, the second part stressing that it is not such thing. 吸 and 及 seems to be an enigma to be solved, though the latter character does not leave a lot for interpretation, as well as 法, through its original writing 灋 and its original meaning to punish.

I. Natural

In old practices, natural is actually quite a specific concept. One has, then, to apply it to breathing.

1.1 The Concept

Natural is a kind of catch-all term used in most civilisations and leading to many interpretations, China being no exception. Still, any Martist should have a more precise idea about what is meant when referring to being natural and not limit him/herself to the simplistic “doing what I feel like doing” answer. 

顺乎自然, to comply with nature, is what old practices were looking for. In other words, as a lawyer has an intimate understanding of the law and knows how to take advantage of it, a “naturalist” shall do the same with the laws of nature. The limits are then what is forbidden, 禁, and leads to punishment (mainly hurting oneself, especially the organs), 灋 .

1.2 Breathing Naturally

Then, how breathing follows at its best the rules of Mother Nature ? The first part of the text gives us the answer, it comes and goes, hence knows no stop. What the first part of the quote is trying to describe is a steady breathing at a normal rhythm and with no stops. In other words, such training forbids all kinds of apnoea related exercises and any sudden changes in the breathing. Hence the need to never be out of breath, even slightly.

The first understanding of the quote can be further explored when trying to solve some of its riddles.

II. Riddles

Indirectly, the original meaning of 法 leads back to the idea of beneficial and detrimental training. Furthermore, using a previous text in which one can find 吸 and 及 linked together can give us a new reading on the quote.

2.1 Punishing and Forcing

As it has been already mentioned, 法 was first written 灋, and its meaning was to punish, to force. Hence the second part of the quote could be seen as “not reaching punishment for what is forbidden”. Indeed, internal arts used to put the organs at the centre of their practices and avoid hurting them. It was all about a certain lifestyle and hygiene to keep one’s source of vitality, the organs, at their best. The system was simple, abusing the organs, hence getting dark circles around the eyes, meant that the training was detrimental. It is also interesting to note that the character 灋 contains 廌, a legendary kind of unicorn which could distinguish between right and wrong.

Therefore, for internal arts, one had to become able to distinguish between what was profitable and what was detrimental for the organs. 

2.2 Rewriting

There is an older or contemporary text which uses 吸 and 及 in the same sentence, 呼不及吸, exhaling is inferior to inhaling**. It happens to also be in a text describing a fencer, an interesting coincidence for the least.

Such statement seems in contradiction with the need to evenly breathe in and out during training. To understand it, one has to go to 新陳代謝, metabolism in Chinese, or literally “the new replaces the old”. Therefore, saying that exhaling is inferior to inhaling refers to the fact that a body in a great health processes better and has less to reject. This actually concerns internal breathing, not just the pulmonary one. Hence, in the old days, teenagers knew that their organs were deeply improving and that their training was good when they hardly had to go to the toilet every day. Some training sessions, even, were supposed to replace urinate by sweat.

Reorganising this way the quote, the second part becomes then 往法禁來, going toward the method restrictions appear, as one of the possible translations. Basically, this new second part is another way to insist on the fact that one does not have total freedom in his/her training, a certain compliance is to be taken into consideration. More especially, for breathing, it is again a question of not going into apnoea.

As it has already been mentioned in many previous posts, such demonstration is to be taken more as an example of the methods one can use to decipher old martial arts texts. It is neither a translation nor the only possible interpretation. 

*灋(the original character) , 刑也。《釋名》法，偪也。

**指武, 說苑, 刘向  Pointing at the Martial, Garden of Stories, Liu Xiang