Where Does Bibaktamna Come to Rest? — Poksang and the Clarity and Turbidity of the Mind-Will

After the Guk·Myeon·Gukhoe trilogy (獨行篇 × 壽世保元) · Part Four 〔暴傷 — what a single revolution inscribes upon the body〕

Opening

The three parts of Guk·Myeon·Gukhoe traced one revolution and closed it. The first part looked at the hardened guk (局, the standpoint a person occupies) from within, and found that 鄙薄貪懦 (bibaktamna—the four modes of moral degeneration: meanness, shallowness, greed, cowardice) name not those whose desires are large but those so sealed off that they cannot even see the clarity of their own mind-will. The second part watched that guk collide with another at the myeon (面, the surface where two standpoints meet), striking others through 凌·傾·賊·掩 (encroachment, toppling, plunder, concealment), yet blocked by a loosened guk cultivating itself on the opposite side, so that the encroachment never closed onto one side alone. The third part watched that collision turn one full revolution along chiran (治亂, order and disorder)—the gukhoe (局回, the one revolution)—and saw that the circle, unable to complete itself, opens instead onto the place where it turns back upon the self: 反誠 (banseong, self-rectification).

But banseong is not accomplished at a single stroke. Dongmu himself said that even at fifty-seven he could not finally put away his 詐心 (sasim, the deceiving mind); the turning-back is 屢復屢失—repeatedly regained and repeatedly lost. Then where does the place that fails to turn back—行己不誠 (haenggi bulseong, the failure to conduct oneself with sincerity)—go? The third part left that question open in a single sentence and closed: when the poksang one has dealt to another on the myeon, failing to turn back upon oneself, returns inward, it is no longer a matter of relation but a matter of one’s own body. That place, where the medicine of relation crosses over into the medicine of the body, is where the present study begins.

The thesis of this study stands in one line: the path by which bibaktamna injures the body is not a metaphor but a mechanism (機轉, gijeon), and Dongmu draws that mechanism step by step, beginning from the clarity and turbidity (淸濁, cheongtak) of the mind and narrowing down to a specific region of the body. This essay follows that descent in its own order. How does a stimulus received in the jang (場, the relational field) pass through the threshold of the mind-will and divide into 性 (seong, settled nature) and 情 (jeong, erupting disposition); how do seong and jeong divide into 表 (surface) and 裏 (interior); and how does the surface-interior division injure the body at the region fixed by constitution? That Dongmu drew this path through the physiology of the body, and not through the imagery of the Yijing, is the one thing this essay holds onto to the end.

1. The Place Where the Revolution Fails to Close

The revolution of gukhoe is the movement by which what was received on the myeon returns, over time, to its origin. As the third part showed, that return can close along two paths. One is banseong—each time sasim arises, turning back upon oneself before it erupts into act. The other is the place that fails to turn back: haenggi bulseong. Where it closes through banseong, the guk loosens and flows again; where it closes through haenggi bulseong, the revolution loses its destination.

Where the revolution that has lost its destination goes, the Chobon-gwon (初本卷, the early draft) records precisely. Dongmu divides people into four according to whether their joy, anger, grief, and pleasure (喜怒哀樂) incur poksang.

聖人之喜怒哀樂不暴傷者 行其性而知人明知之故也 賢人之喜怒哀樂猶暴傷者 知人不明之故也 不肖人之喜怒哀樂毎暴傷者 知人未賞全味而行己不誠之故也 修練人之喜怒哀樂不暴傷者 愛身絶欲畏人遠遁之故也 The sage’s joy, anger, grief, and pleasure do not incur poksang, because he acts upon his nature and knows others clearly. The worthy’s still incur poksang, because his knowledge of others is not clear. The unworthy’s incur poksang at every turn, because he has never fully tasted the knowing of others and conducts himself without sincerity. The ascetic’s do not incur poksang, because he cherishes his body, severs desire, fears others, and withdraws far away.

The sage does not incur poksang; the worthy still does; the unworthy does at every turn; the ascetic does not. Even where the result is the same—no poksang—the reasons for the sage and the ascetic differ. The sage does not incur it because he acts upon his nature and knows others clearly (行其性·知人明); the ascetic escapes it by cherishing his body, severing desire, fearing others and withdrawing far away (愛身絶欲·畏人遠遁)—that is, by severing relation altogether. That poksang is an event of relation becomes clear here: sever relation, and poksang too is gone.

The figure this study attends to is the unworthy. The unworthy is precisely bibaktamna. Dongmu records two reasons he incurs poksang at every turn: 知人未賞全味 (never having fully tasted the knowing of others) and 行己不誠 (conducting oneself without sincerity). These two reasons overlap exactly with what Guk·Myeon·Gukhoe has already drawn. The immaturity of jiin (知人, the knowing of others) is the distortion of the angong (眼孔, the aperture of perception) seen in the second part—the optical misalignment that reads the clear as turbid and the turbid as clear; and haenggi bulseong is the failure of banseong seen in the third part—the failure to turn back when sasim arises. The sealing seen in the first part, the encroachment on the myeon seen in the second, and the incompletion of the one revolution seen in the third are, in the fourth part, bound together again as the two causes of the unworthy’s poksang.

Here one must make clear that the two causes are not a simple parallel. They differ in temporal phase. The failure of jiin belongs to the time before an emotion is issued; haenggi bulseong belongs to the time after it is issued. As will be seen below, the Geonjam (乾箴) records that jiin is the condition for 喜怒哀樂 to be 未發而中 (centered before issuing), while the Banseongjam (反誠箴) records the act of gathering sasim back, once it has already issued, before it erupts into deed. The unworthy’s two deficits are therefore the front and back of a single event: 知人未賞 is the collapse of the threshold before issuing (the collapse of the not-yet-issued, 未發), and 行己不誠 is the failure to recover after issuing (the un-gathering of the already-issued, 已發). Failing to enter the center before issuing, and failing to gather it after issuing, poksang arises at every turn only where front and back have collapsed together. This double collapse will be drawn again in section 3 as the threshold of the mind-will.

One further point must be made clear. Jiin is not a peculiar term belonging only to the Chobon-gwon; it is the opening concept of the Dokhaeng-pyeon (獨行篇) itself. The Dokhaeng-pyeon, unfolding its own title, records: to love and yet know one’s faults is to stand in the center and not lean (好而知其惡則中立而不倚); to hate and yet know one’s merits is to be harmonious and not drift (惡而知其美則和而不流). Only such a one walks alone of his own accord, and one who walks alone has an unmoved mind. And the condition for that unmoved mind it nails down as 知人然後正心 不動心之理—only after knowing others is the mind set right, the principle of the unmoved mind. Jiin is the axis running through the whole Dokhaeng-pyeon. The diagnosis of the unworthy’s 知人未賞 is therefore not borrowed from outside the Dokhaeng-pyeon; it is the place where the failure of jiin, of which the Dokhaeng-pyeon has spoken from the start, closes as the medical consequence of poksang.

Note on the character 賞. The 賞 in 知人未賞全味 follows the corpus’s original notation. In context “never having tasted” reads more naturally as 未嘗, but since 嘗 and 賞 have attested interchangeable usage, the matter is left undecided. Collation against the actual Han Du-jeong edition is deferred to later study.

2. However Various the Outside, It Is the Guk That Receives

If poksang is an event of relation, what is the first variable of that event—the kind of stimulus coming from outside, or the inside that receives it? “A Field Assigns the Role: The Relational-Dynamic Structure of Palgwaejam in Gyeokchigo” (溯源齋, 2026) has already drawn one side of the answer: the jang arising from the collision of two guk casts a role (役) upon each, but what actually receives that role is not the outside but my own guk. A line of the Gonjam (坤箴) records the activeness of that receiving.

我有强力 人必趁我 If I have strong force, others will surely come after me.

If I have strong force, others surely come after me—the configuration of a relation is not thrown one-sidedly by the outside but is decided from the place my own guk has first established. The same stimulus, depending on which guk it meets, shakes something different. The first determinant of poksang, therefore, is not the variety of the stimulus but the configuration of the guk that receives it.

This does not mean the outside is erased. Without a stimulus arriving from outside there is no activation at all—poksang is, after all, an event of relation, and does not arise in solitude. That the ascetic escaped poksang by withdrawing far from others (畏人遠遁) is the proof. The outside is the trigger (觸) of activation, but what determines what is activated, once that trigger is pulled, is the guk within. The outside is needed for anything to happen, but what happens is determined by the inside—the same insult, the same loss, which emotion it touches depends on the guk that receives the stimulus.

This connects in a single line with the conclusion reached by “Gisetwisang and the Contact Surface: A Reinterpretation of the Eight Trigrams in the Banseongjam of Gyeokchigo” (溯源齋, 2026) in reading the eight admonitions of the Banseongjam: the eight trigrams of the Banseongjam are not terms input into the jang but products forged within it. Which momentum (機勢) arises is not given from outside but is the product of two guk interlocking. So too with poksang. What the next section shows is the threshold at which the emotion, shaken by the guk that received it, divides into two branches—remaining as seong or erupting as jeong.

3. The Clarity and Turbidity of the Mind-Will Divides Nature from Disposition

Suppose a stimulus meets the guk and shakes a single emotion. Where does that shaking go? Here lies the heart of this study. Let me set it down in one line first: the clarity and turbidity of the mind-will (心地淸濁, simji cheongtak) is the threshold that determines together both the speed of the shaken emotion (whether swift or slow) and its phase (whether it remains not-yet-issued or erupts as already-issued). The double collapse seen in section 1—failing to enter the not-yet-issued, failing to gather the already-issued—is the two faces of this single mechanism. Of what and what this threshold is composed, let me first set the two axes apart.

Constitution is wiring. Which emotion turns toward seong and which toward jeong is fixed by constitution. The Sadannon (四端論) records: in the 太陽人 (Taeyangin) grief is seong and anger is jeong; in the 少陽人 (Soyangin) anger is seong and grief is jeong; in the 太陰人 (Taeeumin) joy is seong and pleasure is jeong; in the 少陰人 (Soeumin) pleasure is seong and joy is jeong. This wiring is fixed by endowment and does not change. Which emotion is placed in the seat of seong and which in the seat of jeong cannot be altered.

The clarity and turbidity of the mind-will is the threshold (閾). When a stimulus meets that wiring, what divides whether it remains in the seat of seong or crosses to the seat of jeong is the clarity or turbidity of the mind-will. That the Sadannon set the two axes side by side is no accident: in 太少陰陽之臟局短長—the long-and-short of the viscera-configuration across the four types—there is, within four differences, one great sameness, so that sage and common man are alike (the viscera-configuration is the unchanging frame); whereas in 鄙薄貪懦之心地淸濁—the clarity and turbidity of the mind-will in the four modes of degeneration—there are, within four differences, ten thousand differences, so that sage and common man divide into ten thousand branches (the mind-will is a variable degree). The wiring is the same, but how far it goes when a stimulus meets it is determined by the mind-will.

Dongmu draws the working of this threshold at three places. First, the 慟心 (tongsim, the grieving mind) of the Gwangje-seol (廣濟說).

太陰人恒有慟心 慟心寧靜則居之安資之深而造於道也 慟心益多則放心桎梏而物化之也 The Taeeumin always has a grieving mind. If that grieving mind is calm and quiet, he dwells in it at ease, draws from it deeply, and reaches the Way. If that grieving mind grows excessive, the loosened mind is fettered and becomes thing-like.

The same grieving mind, if it rests in calm (寧靜則), reaches the Way; if it grows excessive and overflows (益多則), the loosened mind (放心) is fettered and turned thing-like (物化). The same stimulus divides according to whether it rests or overflows, and that division yields the opposite ends of the Way and thing-becoming. Second, Dongmu draws the same division in the contrast of the desiring mind and the righteous mind.

以慾心而喜者 急喜而必傷 以義心而喜者 緩喜而不傷 凡人皆然 He who rejoices with a desiring mind rejoices swiftly and is surely injured; he who rejoices with a righteous mind rejoices slowly and is not injured. So it is with all people.

The same joy: he who rejoices with a desiring mind (慾心) rejoices swiftly (急喜) and is surely injured; he who rejoices with a righteous mind (義心) rejoices slowly (緩喜) and is not injured—so it is with all people (凡人皆然). What divides injury from non-injury here is not the kind of emotion but from what mind it issues and at what speed it goes. For grief too Dongmu sets the same couplet: he who grieves with a desiring mind grieves swiftly and is surely injured; he who grieves with a righteous mind grieves slowly and is not injured. (Dongmu set this contrast explicitly at the two places of joy and grief. One may suppose the same structure holds for anger and pleasure as well, but this study confines its citation to the joy and grief the text states explicitly.) Third, the Banseongjam records the moment of not crossing that threshold.

詐心便發 未及行詐而反誠則學問也 The deceiving mind issues at once; if, before it reaches the act of deceiving, one turns back to sincerity, that is learning.

The deceiving mind issues at once (詐心便發)—the agitation of the mind itself cannot be blocked. But if, before it erupts into deed (未及行詐), one turns back (反誠), that is precisely learning. To let the stimulus issue yet slip out before it crosses into the act of deceiving—this is the state in which the mind-will is clear.

The three places say one and the same thing: if the mind-will is clear, then at a stimulus the nature stirs but rests in calm and does not erupt as disposition; if turbid, it cannot rest in the nature and overflows into disposition. What the clarity and turbidity of the mind-will divides is therefore not the choosing of one of two emotions to assign, but whether the shaken emotion rests and halts in the seat of seong or, unable to rest, crosses over into jeong. Seong and jeong are the two seats constitution has already wired; the mind-will, at the threshold between them, determines the resting and the overflowing.

Three misreadings must be forestalled here.

First, the stirring of the nature is not itself disease. That the mind-will is clear does not mean indifference to a stimulus. The nature is not-yet-issued (未發), not nothing (無); so long as one lives, it stirs at a stimulus without fail—if the grieving mind were zero, the very depth of “dwelling at ease and drawing deeply” (居之安資之深) would not arise. What Dongmu warned against is not the stirring but the excess.

恒戒哀怒之過度 不可强做喜樂虛動不及 Always guard against the excess of grief and anger; do not forcibly manufacture joy and pleasure into empty, deficient stirring.

Always guard against the excess of grief and anger, but do not forcibly manufacture (强做) joy and pleasure into empty stirring (虛動). It is not that the stirring is to be abolished but that the excess is to be guarded against; and to force oneself not to stir is rather an empty stirring, and worse. To make the stirring of the nature zero is not Dongmu’s aim. Here the path divides from one that takes the unmoved mind as its goal—even the unmoved mind of banseong still issues sasim. It is not that the agitation does not come, but that it does not reach the act of deceiving.

Second, not crossing that threshold is not endurance but a change of phase (相). To press down by force what would erupt as disposition (强做) is what Dongmu forbade—forced pressing produces empty stirring that festers within, and this is precisely thing-becoming (物化) and fetter (桎梏). Banseong is not pressing. It is letting flow along the grain of seong (the surface) before it falls into jeong (the interior)—the same grief, not falling into grief-as-disposition (resignation and blame) but spreading as grief-as-nature. If pressing the lid on boiling water is endurance, lowering the flame is banseong. The Chobon-gwon records this non-pressing as virtue and as measure: 旣發而不强揠者—only he who does not forcibly yank what has already issued—has the virtue of sincerity and accords with measure; and to yank forcibly and enlarge it (强揠而大做) is not merely useless but indeed harmful (非徒無益而又害之). And this turning-back does not end at a single stroke—屢復屢失, as Dongmu could not put away sasim even at fifty-seven, it is a thing repeated at every moment.

Third, the clarity and turbidity of the mind-will is therefore not nature and disposition themselves. The clarity and turbidity of the mind-will is a variable degree (萬殊); nature and disposition are the phases of an emotion (not-yet-issued and already-issued). The former determines the threshold of the latter; it is not that the degree of clarity or turbidity is the nature and disposition themselves. To smear the two together is to confuse the cultivating of the mind-will with the abolishing of emotion, and to fall into the very “empty, deficient stirring” (虛動不及) Dongmu so insistently warned against.

The Dokhaeng-pyeon nails down the place of this threshold in its own language as well. The Geonjam records:

知天然後喜怒哀樂已發而節也 知人然後喜怒哀樂未發而中也 Only after knowing Heaven are joy, anger, grief, and pleasure measured once issued; only after knowing others are they centered before issuing.

Only after knowing Heaven are joy, anger, grief, and pleasure measured once already issued (已發而節); only after knowing others are they centered before being issued (未發而中). Then Dongmu records what that jiin knows: only after thoroughly knowing (洞知) the evil desires (惡慾) of all the world’s hearts is one centered before issuing. Jiin, then, is to see through the evil desires of others, and that is the direct condition for keeping joy, anger, grief, and pleasure centered before they issue. The double collapse seen in section 1 closes here: jiin is the condition for being centered before issuing, yet the unworthy, immature in that jiin (未賞全味), fails to enter the center before issuing, and fails as well to gather through banseong what has thus erupted (行己不誠). The Geonjam’s 知人→未發而中 and the Banseongjam’s 未及行詐→反誠 are the front and back of the single threshold that is the mind-will, and the place where the two have collapsed together is precisely the unworthy’s poksang.

4. Nature to the Surface, Disposition to the Interior — and the Region

Suppose one has crossed the threshold of the mind-will and either rests in the nature or erupts as disposition. The two go to different places in the body. Dongmu divides the directions in which nature and disposition travel into surface (表) and interior (裏). The “Treatise on the Internally-Affected Small-Intestine Disease of the Taeyangin” (太陽人內觸小腸病論) records that direction explicitly.

太陽人 哀心深着則傷表氣 怒心暴發則傷裡氣 In the Taeyangin, when the grieving mind sinks deep it injures the surface qi; when the angry mind erupts violently it injures the interior qi.

When the Taeyangin sinks deep into the grieving mind (his nature) it injures the surface qi; when his angry mind (his disposition) erupts it injures the interior qi. In the same text Dongmu sets the same structure for the other three constitutions: in the Soyangin the anger-nature injures the mouth-and-bladder qi and the grief-disposition the kidney-and-large-intestine qi; in the Soeumin the pleasure-nature injures the eye-and-spine qi and the joy-disposition the spleen-and-stomach qi; in the Taeeumin the joy-nature injures the ear-and-brain qi and the pleasure-disposition the lung-and-stomach-cavity qi. The nature-qi to the surface, the disposition-qi to the interior—the division of nature and disposition is precisely the division of surface and interior.

Why the nature-qi goes to the surface the Sadannon records by its directionality. The nature-qi is expansive-scattering (闊散) and disperses outward; the disposition-qi is urgent-pressing (促急) and collides inward. When the Taeyangin’s grief-nature scatters expansively, qi is poured into the lung and the lung grows the stronger (哀性闊散則氣注肺而肺益壯); when the anger-disposition presses urgently, qi jolts the liver and the liver is the more pared down (怒情促急則氣激肝而肝益削). The nature, a movement spreading outward, goes to the surface; the disposition, a movement crowding inward, goes to the interior.

Here the fourth part sets its decisive guard: surface and interior are an axis of position (位), not an axis of gravity (輕重, lighter-and-heavier). The speed at which the nature (surface) festers is slower than the disposition (interior) (the 緩 of 緩喜而不傷). But that it festers more slowly does not make the disease lighter. Which is the root-disease (本病) is determined not by the speed of festering but by which side constitution has made the vital point. In the Taeyangin the surface is, on the contrary, the root-disease. The “Treatise on the Internally-Affected Small-Intestine Disease of the Taeyangin” records that surface-disease: 解㑊 (haeyeok), arising when the deep-sunk grieving mind injures the surface qi, is the most grave grade of the Taeyangin’s spine-and-loin disease, with the upper body intact but the lower body slack and unable to walk; for its treatment Dongmu names the Ogapi-jangcheok-tang (五加皮壯脊湯), and above all enjoins guarding against deep grief and sharp anger (戒哀遠怒). For the Taeyangin, then, the path by which the nature (grief) injures the surface is the gravest of all.

Why this guard is decisive in the fourth part lies in the constitution of 鄙 (the mean). The mean is the Taeyangin (by the Chobon-gwon’s constitutional assignment). In the Taeyangin the nature (grief) goes to the surface and becomes the root-disease, the grave grade, while the disposition (anger) going to the interior is rather secondary—a place where nature-and-surface is heavy and disposition-and-interior is light, inverted from the common assumption. So let it be nailed down in one sentence: the instant one deems it light because the nature goes to the surface, in the Taeyangin it becomes at once a fatal misreading. To read the mean’s poksang lightly because it is on the surface side is to read in reverse the very place Dongmu called gravest. The scheme “nature→surface→light” breaks at once in the case of the mean.

Thus the final region the stimulus reaches in the body is fixed by the intersection of two layers. One layer is the weak viscus fixed by constitution—in the Taeyangin the liver is small, in the Soyangin the kidney, in the Soeumin the spleen, in the Taeeumin the lung, and that small viscus is the vital point. The other layer is whether it is the surface region the nature-qi travels to or the interior region the disposition-qi travels to. Even within the same constitution the region that collapses through the nature and the region that collapses through the disposition diverge—even in the Taeyangin, the surface (loin-and-spine) that collapses when sunk in the grief-nature and the interior (small intestine) that collapses when the anger-disposition erupts are different places. At that intersection where the weak viscus of constitution meets the phase of nature-and-disposition, the abstract jang at last lands upon a single region of the body.

This far is the general path by which what was received in the jang narrows down to a specific place in the body. The guk receives in the jang, the clarity and turbidity of the mind-will divides nature from disposition, nature and disposition divide into surface and interior, and surface-and-interior meets the region fixed by constitution. But passing this path once does not yet make disease. The bok (暴) of poksang is, in origin, not a single event but the repetition of rise-and-fall—頻起頻伏, 屢得屢失, the repetition of rising and subsiding again and again is the substance of bok. When, unable to rest in the nature, one falls repeatedly into disposition, that repetition fixes the bias leaning toward one viscus, and that fixation at last hardens into the form of disease. If the dividing of a single shaking into nature and disposition is the path so far, the inscribing onto the body of that division accumulated repeatedly toward one side is the next place. What the next section shows is the four stages by which this repetition collapses in the body of the unworthy—bibaktamna—and into what bodily symptoms that collapse closes.

5. The Unworthy’s Poksang — the Direction in Which the Circuit Breaks Down

The previous section drew the path by which a single shaking, received in the jang, passes through the threshold of the mind-will and divides into nature and disposition, that division into surface and interior, and again narrows down to the region fixed by constitution. But if it ended there, it would not yet be disease. To grieve once and to be angry once happens to anyone, and of itself no viscus collapses. Disease is inscribed only when that shaking repeats. This section watches the four stages by which that repetition collapses in the body of the unworthy—bibaktamna.

The Starting Point of Collapse — Reading the Same Circuit in Reverse

One thing must be noted first. The body Dongmu drew was not built to collapse. It is a well-turning circuit. As Lee Gi-bok (2014) precisely reconstructed, the sacho (四焦, four-burner) physiology of the “Treatise on the Viscera” (臟腑論) is a physiology of completion—the qi of grain and water flows from the stomach-cavity to the large intestine, distributed evenly to the four burners, and if the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth are used far, large, broad, and deep, the essence-spirit-qi-blood live (深遠廣大則生), and if the lung, spleen, liver, and kidney are used through study, inquiry, thought, and discernment rightly, the fluid-saliva-fat-oil fill (正直中和則充). That body, where the qi flows evenly, is the body of the consummate great man. Lee saw that this circuit is driven not by a cosmology such as the five phases but by the active activity by which a person relates to the world—and in this his reading meets exactly the path this study has followed from section 1, that the jang drives the body.

This study, upon the completion of that sacho Lee established, asks the one thing he did not treat: what happens when that circuit turns in reverse. Lee’s §3.2.4 looks thoroughly only at the well-turning body. Of the two faces—that the same grief, if slow, becomes the force that fills the lung, but if swift becomes the weapon that pares that lung down—he drew only the filling side. Poksang, the threshold of the mind-will, the fettering of the loosened mind: none are in that section. But if the same physiological structure can also turn in the direction of collapse, then the very “Treatise on the Viscera” that drew the circuit of completion also holds within it the circuit of collapse. What the fourth part means to see is that reverse direction. If Lee reconstructed the forward direction of the sacho (completion), this study joins its reverse direction (poksang) to the Dokhaeng-pyeon of the Gyeokchigo—the opposite movement of the same circuit.

Four Stages — Following the Mean (the Taeyangin)

Let me follow the path of collapse in one person to the end. The mean is the Taeyangin (section 1, the Chobon-gwon’s assignment). The Taeyangin’s weak viscus is the liver, and his disposition is anger. That when the anger-disposition presses urgently, qi jolts the liver and pares it down (怒情促急則氣激肝而肝益削) was seen in section 4. Now, when that anger rises and subsides again and again, what happens?

First, the rise-and-fall of emotion is transcribed into the rise-and-fall of a region. The Chobon-gwon records:

頻起怒而頻伏怒則兩脇暴盛而暴衰也 If one frequently rouses anger and frequently subdues it, both flanks suddenly flourish and suddenly wane.

If one frequently rouses anger and frequently subdues it (頻起怒而頻伏怒), both flanks suddenly flourish and suddenly wane (兩脇暴盛而暴衰). Here it becomes clear what the bok of poksang is—it is not the kind of emotion but the rise-and-fall itself. Not that the anger is once deep, but that the amplitude of its rising and subsiding again and again makes the flanks physically flourish and wane. The rise-and-fall of the mind is transcribed directly into the rise-and-fall of the body. This transcription is the actual place where the bodily cause crosses into the body—Dongmu did not speak abstractly of the mind “injuring” the body, but recorded which region physically oscillates and how.

Second, the oscillating region pares down the viscus at that place.

兩脇暴盛而暴衰則肝血傷也 If both flanks suddenly flourish and suddenly wane, the liver-blood is injured.

If both flanks suddenly flourish and wane, the liver-blood is injured (肝血傷). The flanks are where the liver is seated, so the abrupt oscillation of that region pares down the liver-blood. And in the Taeyangin the liver is, in origin, the small viscus—the vital point. The already-small liver is the more pared by the repeated bok of the anger-disposition; thus the same poksang is gravest in the Taeyangin’s liver. That Dongmu paired each of the four emotions with a viscus (anger→liver-blood injury, joy→spleen-qi injury, grief→kidney-essence injury, pleasure→lung-spirit injury) is a universal correspondence, but the place where that universal is gouged deepest in a given constitution is that constitution’s weak viscus.

Third, the pared viscus reaches even the body’s outermost tissue. Dongmu does not stop the viscus’s injury there but joins it to the body’s outermost tissue.

肝部衰弱則筋脉酸 If the liver region weakens, the sinews and vessels ache.

If the liver weakens, the sinews and vessels ache (筋脉酸). At the same place Dongmu joins all four viscera to the outermost tissue—if the lung weakens the skin and hair scorch (皮毛焦), if the spleen weakens the flesh-grain chills (肉理寒), if the kidney weakens the marrow withers (骨髓枯). A single thread begun in the mind closes into bodily symptoms one can touch by hand: sinews aching, flesh chilling, marrow withering, skin scorching. Here the common view that reads poksang only as a discipline of the emotions divides—what Dongmu drew is a mechanism in which the mind’s agitation issues in visible bodily symptoms.

Fourth, when that injury deepens further, it reaches even the sin (神, spirit). Dongmu sees the viscus’s injury in two layers. The poksang so far is the first-order injury, to the blood-qi-essence-spirit. Above it is one more layer—when the emotion does not merely oscillate but races to the end and loses measure (極), the deeper place, the hon-baek-ji-ui (魂魄志意, the four spirit-faculties), is injured.

怒極者 怒之不勝其忿而悲哀動中則肝魂傷也 In one whose anger reaches the extreme, the anger cannot master its indignation and grief stirs within, so that the liver-hon is injured.

In one whose anger reaches the extreme (怒極者), unable to master the indignation, grief stirs within and the liver-hon is injured (肝魂傷). When joy reaches the extreme the spleen-baek, when grief the kidney-ji, when pleasure the lung-ui is injured. If oscillation (暴) pares the blood-qi-essence-spirit as the first-order injury, then immoderation (極) pares the sin dwelling in that viscus—the hon-baek-ji-ui—as the second-order injury. And at the place where that sin is obstructed, Dongmu sees the great disease.

肝魂淫則恍惚作也 If the liver-hon grows dissolute, bewilderment arises.

If the liver-hon grows dissolute, bewilderment (恍惚) arises. At the same place Dongmu pairs the obstruction of the four spirit-faculties with four great diseases—肺意阻則怔忡 (if the lung-ui is blocked, palpitation), 脾魄蕩則悅亂 (if the spleen-baek is shaken, derangement), 腎志促則健忘 (if the kidney-ji is hurried, amnesia). The mean (the Taeyangin) reaches bewilderment as the hon of his weak viscus, the liver, is pared.

Thus a single thread is drawn to the end: the repeated bok of the anger-disposition oscillates the flanks (①), the oscillation pares the liver-blood (②), the pared liver makes the sinews ache (③), and that injury, deepening, shakes the liver-hon until it reaches bewilderment (④). A path begun in a single agitation of the mind closes at the deepest place of the body, the disease of the sin.

Four Types, One Law

So far one person, the mean, has been followed; but the four of bibaktamna each tread the same chain in a different viscus. And the way the four scatter has one law. The Sadannon records:

哀怒之氣逆動則暴發而並於上也 喜樂之氣逆動則浪發而並於下也 上升之氣逆動而並於上則肝腎傷 下降之氣逆動而並於下則脾肺傷 When the qi of grief and anger moves contrarily, it erupts violently and crowds upward; when the qi of joy and pleasure moves contrarily, it surges and crowds downward. The ascending qi, moving contrarily and crowding upward, injures the liver and kidney; the descending qi, moving contrarily and crowding downward, injures the spleen and lung.

When the qi of grief and anger moves contrarily it erupts and crowds upward (並於上); when the qi of joy and pleasure moves contrarily it surges and crowds downward (並於下). Crowding upward injures liver and kidney; crowding downward injures spleen and lung. The bok of the four emotions, then, strikes no viscus at random but follows the direction of up and down. Grief and anger rise to strike liver and kidney; joy and pleasure descend to strike spleen and lung.

Lay the four of bibaktamna upon this directional law, and their collapse divides into exactly two symmetrical branches. The mean (Taeyangin) strikes the liver with the anger-disposition, the shallow (Soyangin) strikes the kidney with the grief-disposition—both are the upward-crowding branch. The greedy (Taeeumin) strikes the lung with the pleasure-disposition, the cowardly (Soeumin) strikes the spleen with the joy-disposition—both are the downward-crowding branch. The self-destruction of bibaktamna forms a symmetry of upper (liver-kidney) and lower (spleen-lung). The four types tread the same four stages each in their weak viscus, and whether that weak viscus lies above or below is divided by the Sadannon’s directional law.

Gather into one place the chain the four types tread, and it runs thus. The mean (Taeyangin·liver): the anger-disposition shakes the flanks, pares the liver-blood, makes the sinews ache, and the liver-hon is shaken to bewilderment; and at the surface, the grief-nature sinks deep and closes as 解㑊 (haeyeok), the most grave grade of the spine-and-loin disease. The shallow (Soyangin·kidney): the grief-disposition shakes the spine, pares the kidney-essence, withers the marrow, and goes to the place where, the large intestine not passing, the chest burns as if afire (少陽人大便不通則胸膈必如烈火). The greedy (Taeeumin·lung): the pleasure-disposition shakes the shoulders, pares the lung-spirit, scorches the skin and hair, and the lung-ui is blocked to palpitation. The cowardly (Soeumin·spleen): the joy-disposition shakes the chest, pares the spleen-qi, chills the flesh, and the spleen’s transformation collapses so that diarrhea will not stop and below the navel turns cold as ice (少陰人泄瀉不止則臍下必如氷冷). The four collapse different viscera with different emotions into different diseases, yet the form of the collapsing path is one—the path by which the repeated bok pares the weak viscus and closes upon one’s own body.

With this, the question posed in section 1—where does the revolution that fails to turn back go?—is answered in the body. Bibaktamna is one whose aperture is sealed so that he does not fully know others (jiin untasted, second part), who fails to turn back through banseong (haenggi bulseong, third part), and who is fixed at the place where disposition erupts repeatedly. Thus he rouses in his own joy, anger, grief, and pleasure the very poksang he dealt to another, so that the bok he sent to another on the myeon returns through the gukhoe and at last pares his own weak viscus. The one revolution begun in relation closes at the deepest place of one’s own body.

6. The Work of Keeping It from Closing — Spirit-Disease and Constant Calm

Section 5 followed the repeated bok paring the weak viscus to the very place where it shakes the sin. The mean’s liver-hon is shaken to bewilderment, it said. But the place where Dongmu drew spirit-disease is not one. The Chobon-gwon paired the obstruction of the four spirit-faculties with four diseases (the Fifth Statute, 第五統), and the Gwangje-seol nailed down as great disease only two of them. At the place where these two diverge lies the last knot of the fourth part. And what unties that knot is precisely the single medicine Dongmu prescribed: constant calm (恒寧靜, hang-nyeongjeong).

Spirit-Disease — the Four Places of the Fifth Statute

Let me first see the whole of spirit-disease in the Chobon-gwon. The Fifth Statute records:

肺意阻則怔忡作也 脾魄蕩則悅亂作也 肝魂淫則恍惚作也 腎志促則健忘作也 If the lung-ui is blocked, palpitation arises; if the spleen-baek is shaken, derangement arises; if the liver-hon grows dissolute, bewilderment arises; if the kidney-ji is hurried, amnesia arises.

If the lung-ui is blocked, palpitation (怔忡); if the spleen-baek is shaken, derangement (悅亂); if the liver-hon grows dissolute, bewilderment (恍惚); if the kidney-ji is hurried, amnesia (健忘). When the sin dwelling in each of the four viscera—ui, baek, hon, ji—is each blocked, shaken, made dissolute, and hurried, a different great disease arises. The terminus of the two-layer injury seen in section 5 is here—above the first order, where oscillation (暴) pares the blood-qi-essence-spirit, is the second, where immoderation (極) pares the hon-baek-ji-ui, and the end of that second order is these four spirit-diseases.

Lay these four spirit-diseases upon the four types of the fourth part, and section 5’s chain is filled to its last cell. The greedy (Taeeumin·lung) reaches palpitation as the lung-ui is blocked; the cowardly (Soeumin·spleen) reaches derangement as the spleen-baek is shaken; the mean (Taeyangin·liver) reaches bewilderment as the liver-hon grows dissolute; the shallow (Soyangin·kidney) reaches amnesia as the kidney-ji is hurried. The four types tread the same chain each in their weak viscus and close upon the disease of the sin dwelling in that viscus. The Fifth Statute is the scheme that draws those four closings in one place.

The Divergence — the Gwangje-seol Speaks of Only Two

But the Gwangje-seol, which Dongmu wrote in his late years, does not join these four places as they are. The Gwangje-seol records the mind each constitution always holds (恒心, the constant mind), and where that mind goes when it overflows—and there it draws the path to great disease in only two.

太陰人恒有慟心 … 若慟心至於怕心則大病作而怔忡也 怔忡者太陰人病之重證也 少陽人恒有懼心 … 若懼心至於恐心則大病作而健忘也 健忘者少陽人病之險證也 The Taeeumin always has a grieving mind … if the grieving mind reaches a dreading mind, great disease arises as palpitation; palpitation is the grave grade of the Taeeumin’s disease. The Soyangin always has a fearing mind … if the fearing mind reaches a terrified mind, great disease arises as amnesia; amnesia is the perilous grade of the Soyangin’s disease.

The Taeeumin always has a grieving mind (慟心), which on reaching a dreading mind (怕心) produces great disease, palpitation, the grave grade of the Taeeumin’s disease. The Soyangin always has a fearing mind (懼心), which on reaching a terrified mind (恐心) produces great disease, amnesia, the perilous grade of the Soyangin’s disease. This far does not diverge from the Fifth Statute—palpitation in the Taeeumin (lung), amnesia in the Soyangin (kidney), the two places exactly the same. But in the remaining two, the Gwangje-seol halts.

少陰人恒有不安定之心 不安定之心寧靜則脾氣卽活也 太陽人恒有急迫之心 急迫之心寧靜則肝血卽和也 The Soeumin always has an unsettled mind; if the unsettled mind is calm, the spleen-qi at once revives. The Taeyangin always has an urgent mind; if the urgent mind is calm, the liver-blood at once harmonizes.

The Soeumin always has an unsettled mind, which if calm makes the spleen-qi at once revive (脾氣卽活); the Taeyangin always has an urgent mind, which if calm makes the liver-blood at once harmonize (肝血卽和). For the Taeeumin and Soyangin Dongmu drew even the path by which the mind overflows to great disease, but for the Soeumin and Taeyangin he recorded only the side where the viscus revives when the mind is calm, and did not record to what great disease it overflows. Where the Fifth Statute fills all four places, the Gwangje-seol leaves two empty.

How is this asymmetry to be read? One thing must be made clear—Dongmu did not hold that the Taeyangin and Soeumin have no spirit-disease. Had he, he would not have recorded the dissolute liver-hon and shaken spleen-baek in the Fifth Statute. Moreover, the Taeyangin’s great disease lies elsewhere—haeyeok, seen in section 5, the most grave grade of the spine-and-loin disease arising when the deep-sunk grieving mind injures the surface qi. The Soeumin too holds his own great disease apart: ceaseless diarrhea and an ice-cold below-navel. The gravest place of the Taeyangin and Soeumin, then, lies not in spirit-disease (bewilderment, derangement) but in another disease, and the Gwangje-seol appears to have named, for each constitution, the great disease that strikes clinically first—for the Taeeumin and Soyangin that happened to be spirit-disease (palpitation, amnesia), and for the Taeyangin and Soeumin it was a place other than spirit-disease.

Therefore this study sets the framework of spirit-disease as the four assignments of the Fifth Statute. The Gwangje-seol’s palpitation and amnesia are, among those four assignments, the two cases Dongmu drew to the very end of the path to great disease—not a reduction of the whole of spirit-disease to two, but an exemplification of two of the four followed to their clinical terminus. Taking this reading, the Fifth Statute (the four places of theory) and the Gwangje-seol (the two examples of clinic) do not diverge but overlap in layers. (One may also read this divergence as a trace of Dongmu’s own late revision—the narrowing of the four spirit-disease assignments to two in clinical practice. But that bibliographic judgment exceeds the scope of this study and is deferred to a separate place.)

The Medicine Is One — Constant Calm

If the four spirit-diseases all come from one root, then their medicine too is one. Look again at the four passages of the Gwangje-seol, and the branch point dividing them from the path to great disease hangs on a single word—calm (寧靜). The grieving mind, if calm, reaches the Way (慟心寧靜則造於道); if it overflows, it becomes thing-like (慟心益多則放心桎梏而物化). Whether the same mind rests in calm or overflows divides the Way from great disease. This is exactly the structure of the threshold of the mind-will seen in section 3—calm is precisely resting at that threshold, and overflowing (益多) is precisely crossing the threshold and erupting as disposition.

Then how does one rest in calm? Dongmu sets a different prescription for each constitution.

太陰人察於外而恒寧靜慟心 少陽人察於內而恒寧靜懼心 太陽人退一步而恒寧靜急迫之心 少陰人進一步而恒寧靜不安定之心 如此則必無不壽 The Taeeumin, examining the outer, constantly calms the grieving mind; the Soyangin, examining the inner, constantly calms the fearing mind; the Taeyangin, stepping back one pace, constantly calms the urgent mind; the Soeumin, stepping forward one pace, constantly calms the unsettled mind. Do thus, and none will fail to live out their years.

The Taeeumin, examining the outer (察於外), constantly calms the grieving mind; the Soyangin, examining the inner (察於內), the fearing mind; the Taeyangin, stepping back one pace (退一步), the urgent mind; the Soeumin, stepping forward one pace (進一步), the unsettled mind—do thus, and none will fail to live out their years (如此則必無不壽). The four constitutions govern the mind each in a different direction, but the place that governing faces is one: constant calm. And its end is not deathlessness but longevity—if poksang is the path that pares life away, constant calm is the path that halts that paring and fills out one’s natural span.

Here one more prescription Dongmu added joins the beginning and end of this study.

太陽人恒戒怒心哀心 少陽人恒戒哀心怒心 太陰人恒戒樂心喜心 少陰人恒戒喜心樂心 如此則必無不壽 The Taeyangin always guards against the angry mind and grieving mind; the Soyangin against the grieving mind and angry mind; the Taeeumin against the pleasure mind and joy mind; the Soeumin against the joy mind and pleasure mind. Do thus, and none will fail to live out their years.

The Taeyangin always guards against the angry and grieving minds; the Soyangin against the grieving and angry; the Taeeumin against the pleasure and joy; the Soeumin against the joy and pleasure—do thus, and one lives out one’s years. The two minds each constitution must guard against are precisely that constitution’s disposition and nature—for the Taeyangin, anger (disposition) and grief (nature). As seen in section 5: the Taeyangin’s anger-disposition strikes the interior (liver) and the grief-nature strikes the surface (loin-and-spine), so to guard against both together is to block both the eruption of the interior and the deep-sinking of the surface. This last prescription of the Gwangje-seol is, then, a prescription that climbs back up the path of nature-disposition and surface-interior drawn by the Sadannon and the “Treatise on the Internally-Affected Small-Intestine Disease,” to block it at the entrance.

The Return to Gukhoe — Banseong Is Constant Calm

With this, the three parts of Guk·Myeon·Gukhoe and the present part close in one place. The third part saw the revolution of gukhoe close through banseong or fail to close through haenggi bulseong. Banseong was the act of turning back when sasim arises, before it erupts into the act of deceiving (詐心便發 未及行詐而反誠). Seen from the fourth part, that banseong is, in the language of medicine, constant calm. To let sasim issue but not cross into the act of deceiving, and to let the grieving mind stir but rest in calm and not cross into thing-becoming, are one and the same act occurring at one and the same threshold. The turning-back the Banseongjam drew in the seat of relation, the Gwangje-seol drew again in the seat of the body as constant calm.

Thus the poksang of bibaktamna obtains its medicine from the opposite side. The reason they incur poksang at every turn was that, immature in jiin, they fail to enter the center before issuing (the collapse of the not-yet-issued), and, conducting themselves without sincerity, fail to gather after issuing (the un-gathering of the already-issued). Constant calm is the prescription that fills both places together—examining the outer and the inner (察於外·察於內), examining others and oneself to approach jiin, is the medicine before issuing; stepping back or stepping forward one pace (退一步·進一步), placing the mind in calm, is the medicine after issuing. The two deficits seen in section 1 are filled, exactly interlocking, by the two prescriptions of the Gwangje-seol.

That the gukhoe never finally closes meant, in the third part, the opening of a revolution that fails to complete; but in the fourth part it takes on another sense—the endless repetition of constant calm, the work of turning back each time so that the revolution of poksang does not close upon one’s own viscus, is itself the not-closing. As banseong is 屢復屢失 (as Dongmu could not put away sasim even at fifty-seven), so constant calm too does not end at a single stroke. The one sameness within the ten thousand differences of bibaktamna—the possibility of aspiring to sagehood (希聖)—appears, in the seat of the body, as the possibility of filling out one’s natural span through that endless turning-back. The single step of turning one’s own mind back to calm each time, at that place that has not closed, is what gukhoe says last, and the single path of saving the body on the road where the mind injures the body.

A Remaining Place — A Separate Study on the Four Beginnings and Seven Feelings

This study treated poksang through the four dispositions of joy, anger, grief, and pleasure (四情). But where Dongmu’s theory of the emotions diverges from, and where it meets, the Neo-Confucian debate on the four beginnings and seven feelings (四端七情) is a place this study could not finally inquire into. The way Dongmu divided joy, anger, grief, and pleasure into nature and disposition is not the same as the issuing-of-principle / issuing-of-qi (理發·氣發) framework of Toegye and Gobong, nor unrelated to it—measuring that distance requires the separate work of placing the Gyeokchigo’s theory of the emotions within the history of Joseon Neo-Confucianism. As this exceeds the scope of the present study, it is deferred to a separate place, the same place as the critique of the Yijing-lineage foundation.

References

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