A Random Essay

First published in "Daoist Yinfu Culture," 2019-08-13

The typhoon has just passed. Looking at the cyclone, this cool wind originally came from Siberia, passed through Tangshan, was then flung out by the typhoon's edge near Dalian, crossed Cangzhou, and came from Jinan.

So the weather from Shandong to Jiangsu suddenly became less sweltering, and thanks to the wind, smog could not be seen either.

Every time one looks up, blue sky and white clouds can be seen, accompanied by cool wind on the face and a refreshing feeling on the body — very pleasant.

This is largely what is meant by a clear and refreshed spirit: after the alternation of extreme heat and cold, yang qi rises again, and at just the right measure, such weather is formed.

At such times, people are always at their most energetic.

When the external weather is unsatisfactory — especially in places suffering severe drought — the weather always makes people irritable.

One can imagine standing on cracked, parched earth, not a single cloud in the sky, while the blazing sun floods the land with heat; one cannot help feeling drowsy, and with the cicadas in the surrounding trees crying desperately, there is no peace to be found.

Although the old saying holds that "a quiet heart brings natural coolness," anyone who has experienced it knows that whether the heart is quiet or not, it is still just as hot — one is simply better able to endure it.

Yet within the Daoist arts there is a method: quiet the mind and concentrate the spirit, visualize the ice cellar of deep winter, and this can purge the heat from the body.

This makes sense. When a person strives to imagine and simulate the environment of an ice cellar, if a certain degree of fidelity is achieved, it will promote increased secretion of thyroid hormone, adrenaline, and so on — thereby promoting and accelerating the breakdown of the heat-producing nutrients of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, increasing the body's cold-resistance, and thus accelerating heat dissipation.

Someone might ask: after accelerating heat dissipation, the surrounding temperature should rise — wouldn't that make one feel hotter? Of course not. Although the body's heat release brings a slight temperature rise, in actual fact even when it is hot, the body temperature remains lower than the surrounding air.

To make this effective, a certain investment of time is needed — and one cannot always live in imagination. So one must also seek somewhat more practical methods.

Anyone who often visits the remains of ancient dwellings (for example, frequently wandering through Beijing's hutongs) will notice that the alleyways are always very narrow — some so narrow that two people passing each other must turn sideways.

Yet such alleys are also quite long and narrow. Some may wonder: why build them so narrow?

In fact, narrow, elongated alleys in some places are called snake alleys, because they are long, narrow, and winding — like a snake.

Snakes are cold-blooded animals and never have high temperatures; moreover, the Northern Xuanwu has the imagery of turtle and snake, so such alleyways are also considered to have a cooling effect.

In fact this is effective, so every hot day many people come to sit in the alleys to cool off.

This also holds in architecture. Such narrow, elongated alleys are also called cold alleys (cold lanes). Besides being narrow, their characteristic feature is that the interior rarely receives direct sunlight — which still matches the imagery of Xuanwu.

So whenever wind blows into the alley, because the alley's cross-sectional area is small, the wind accelerates there, the air pressure drops, and the heat of the surrounding buildings is carried away.

This principle is very simple. One need only try blowing with one's mouth — how to blow out hot air, and how to blow out cold air — and everything becomes clear.

So the usual saying of "Vermilion Bird in front, Xuanwu behind" treats the Four Images as relative directions. But if one draws analogies from imagery, Xuanwu actually appears all around the dwelling.

Once this principle is understood, if one encounters those fake feng shui masters of the jianghu, one might as well ask them where Xuanwu is. If they can only say "Vermilion Bird in front, Xuanwu behind," it would be better to think twice.

This essay has said a few things. Those of keen understanding will naturally see it clearly; those versed in the art will naturally resonate with it. As for later students, after reading more of the Daoist Canon and returning to this essay, they will know where it opens the mind.

Words cannot exhaust the meaning. End.