Ice Cold

惟真陽以禦之，則蒸然流遍大千

Because the Genuine Masculin guards against, therefore steam boundlessly naturally flows all over and everywhere.

The text goes on explaining how one becomes impervious to cold in a, as usual, pretty obscure sentence involving a “Genuine Masculin” and steaming. 氣, having the meaning of vapours, steaming seems logical. Still, one can wonder how to train cold resistance. This post will explore some of the possible avenues of research the text leads to and a further one the sort of training linked to cold resistance.

The first phrase refers to a common theme in Chinese medicine, the Genuine Masculin (usually in the kidneys) while the second one goes on with the steaming process, supposed to be happening in those particular organs and its consequences.

I. Strong And Masculine

From a conventional understanding, one can explore further some of the characters used.

1.1 First Reading

真陽, the Genuine Masculine, usually refers to the original inborn Masculine and to the right kidney. It is normally mixed with the Genuine Feminine, the other kidney, to produce vapours. More simply, Genuine Masculine is pure heat, keeping the body warm is the obvious way to fight against the cold.

禦, clearly stands for 禦寒, which means “to defend against the cold” or more plainly “keeping warm”.

Hence the idea is to learn how to create warmth in the body, emphasising on the kidneys as a means to do so. The text goes further since it takes it as the only effective way to do so.

1.2 Additional Meanings

a. 真

One of the meanings of 真 is “real”, like in 真實, which is opposed to 虛假. There is, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the concept of 虛實 real/false or full/empty. This is applied in internal practices as a way to define whether one is in a virtuous or vicious circle. For the sake of not going into unnecessary and complicated details, starting with a very straightforward explanation may be opportune. As any simplification, it will not be totally accurate. Still, it is meant to give a basic idea for those who are training and wish to use such concept. The best example might be water, a genuine Femine. Water is one of the embodiments of the Feminine principle, but not all water is good. Hence, mineral water would be a genuine Feminine, distilled water the empty Feminine and poisonous water the fake Feminine.

Genuine Masculine, in the context of the quote, mainly points out to heat (it is cold, one needs to warm up his/her body, simple logic). Authentic heat would refer to the one resulting from mobilising the organs, physical exercise being the best-known way to do so, empty heat would be coming from nervousness (like being exhausted or getting anxious) and fake heat would be fever. Indeed, excitement and stress bring tiredness, and fever does not make someone impervious to cold, actually quite the opposite.

Therefore, the first part of the quote points simply to the fact that resisting cold results from making the body hotter, but not any type of heating, one that originates from healthy and relaxed organs.

b. 惟

One of 惟 original meanings was “to reflect on”. One possible extended sense would be that one has to reflect on the Genuine Masculine, an understanding leading to the capacity to fight against the cold. However, the use of 惟 as “only” instead of its synonym 唯 may indicate the importance of the heart. One can think, indeed, of the phrase “心為君火，肾為相火。心有所動，肾必應之”, the heart is the fire monarch, the kidneys the fire minister, any heart motion most certainly echoes in the kidneys. Hence if creating vapours is usually made by physical exercise, some breathing techniques focusing on the heart may reach similar feats.

The text goes on by pointing out the need to produce vapours, steaming being a direct reference.

II. Steaming

Once again, from a conventional understanding, one can explore further some of the characters used.

1.1 First Reading

The steaming process has been explained over and over in this blog. Kidneys are considered as one of the most important organs in such process, hence the Life Gate¹ in between them. Still, other organs also produce heat and vapours, one shall never take too literally any text when it comes to practices which cornerstone are change. Indeed, they give a general idea and a method, they are not there to provide strict rules but to help in one’s self-discovery.

Furthermore, the text goes on mentioning that it has to be all over and everywhere, meaning such heat must reach all and any parts of the body, hence no cold hands or feet.

1.2 Additional Meaning

a. 蒸

It is interesting to notice that 蒸 is also a way to stress on the idea of protecting introduced in the first phrase by 禦. Indeed, an older character for 蒸 is 烝, just without the grass radical, which can be seen as assisting, 丞, fire, 灬. Assisting is incidentally the theme of the last quote of the first section as far as the kidneys are concerned.

b. 流遍大千

流遍 means already flowing all over while 大千 is in fact a Buddisht term² referring to a chiliocosm.

流 can also mean to spread, to float, to circulate, to drift, to wander, all kinds of senses which can stress the need for the heat created in the kidneys (for the least, see the first section) to disseminate all over the body.

遍 could be seen as another indirect reference to a Buddisht term, 遍行, bringing the idea of omnipresence.

大千 seems to go a bit overboard, a tendency martial artists have when describing their art. One may see a hint to another enigma to be solved but this would be quite beside the issues dealt in this post.

Still, all this abuse of superlatives is, for the least, meant to put emphasis on the fact that the heat created has to disperse to all and every part of the body.

Though the quote gives a basic method to produce heat in order to guard oneself against the cold, one can wonder what more specific exercises could have been tied to such a feat, the next post.

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1 Also having the title of “fire minister”.

2 Martial arts being part of what can be called popular culture, it naturally takes, more or less successfully, expressions from everywhere. After all, hijacking being one of their favourite methods of studying. Hence, the use of a Buddhist term shall be more seen as a loan than a direct reference to Buddhism.