The heart belongs to fire, governs the blood and vessels, stores the spirit, opens at the tongue, and has its bloom in the face. Its humor is sweat, its mind is joy, and its voice is laughing. It stands in exterior-interior relationship with the small intestine. The heart holds the Office of Sovereign.

Fire

Though fire is a powerfully destructive force, it is an equally powerful benefit when harnessed. The mastery of fire was an accomplishment that had long-term consequences for human evolution, enabling humankind to inhabit virtually every part of the globe and develop technology. It provided warmth that enabled us to live in cold climes. It provided protection against predators, especially at night. By providing light, it enabled us to extend daytime activities and reduce sleeping time, which eventually changed our circadian rhythms.

The fire is the heart of the human community. Keeping a fire going required social interaction. Activities performed around the fire at night deepened family and social ties. Still to this day, a campfire symbolizes warmth, safety, and social conviviality.

The cooking of food made possible by fire had numerous benefits: reducing harmful bacteria and parasites, removing toxins, making food more easily digestible, and facilitating preservation. Switching to cooked food increased the range of edible foods and caused our teeth and intestines to adapt to softer foods. Cooked food destroys certain nutrients but makes others more available. It accentuates flavors and enables them to blend, encouraging the development of food preparation as an art form.

Early humans learned to use fire to harden wood to make specialized tools, to burn vegetation to prepare the land for farming, and by controlled burning to nourish the earth by the nutrients from ash. Without fire, humans would never have learned how to smelt ores to produce metal or cauterize wounds to prevent infection. Indeed, the whole of human technological progress would have been impossible without fire. Some evolutionary biologists have even argued that the development of our current brain size and speech would not have occurred without harnessing fire.

Not surprisingly, therefore, fire has great symbolical value in all cultures, representing warmth, power, conviviality, and splendor, as well as the negative connotation of destruction and torment. Light, closely associated with fire, enables us to see and understand the world, and so is a symbol of consciousness, intelligence, and perspicacity. The mastery of the fire conquered the darkness of night.

Many cultures use fire ceremoniously to carry things to the spirit world or otherwise communicate with it. In Chinese culture still to this day, sheets of paper symbolizing money and sometimes even items of clothing are burnt to provide for the needs of the dead. Incense is burned for religious purposes throughout the major civilizations of the Eurasian continent. A plausible explanation for these practices is that when something burns, its physical form is destroyed, and it gives off smoke that rises upward, just as the body after death is believed to release the spirit dwelling within. Rising smoke therefore symbolizes transcendence to the spirit world. In the Zhōu dynasty, orders for the destruction of illness-causing demons were implemented by burning the paper on which they were written.

Of course, fire has also been used medically in China in the burning of mugwort, which warms the body, helps the flow of qì, and eliminates evils. It is also widely used in the processing of medicinals.

Fire is the flaming upward (火曰炎上 huǒ yuē yán shàng): In Chinese medicine, fire is classically said to have the quality of flaming upward, that is, heat and upward movement. It is the most yáng of all the phases. The five-phase concept of fire is associated with summer, growth, noon, south, red, and bitterness.

Noon, south: South is the position of the sun when it is highest in the sky at noon in the daily cycle. This is the time when the sun provides the greatest light and warmth. The Chinese refer to the sun as 太阳 tài yáng, the supreme yáng, reflecting the notion that it is the essence of yáng (阳之精 yáng zhī jīng). Even though the ancients did not know that the sun was, in fact, a gigantic thermonuclear reaction, they realized by analogical reasoning that it shared the yáng qualities of fire.

Summer, growth: Summer is the season when the sun reaches its highest point and provides the greatest heat in the yearly cycle. Hence, summer in the yearly cycle corresponds to noon in the daily cycle. Summer is the season in which abundant sunlight causes plants and animals to grow. Hence, growth (长 zhǎng) is the activity associated with summer. Although growth begins in springtime, it accelerates dramatically as a temperature rises in the early summer.

Red is the color associated with fire for several reasons. Red is seen in flames and in glowing embers. It is also associated with the sun, especially at sunset. The warmth of the sun in the summer turns fruits red. Although fruits are also red in late summer, summertime represents the first appearance of red.

Bitterness is the flavor associated with wood because burnt food tastes bitter. Note that although red fruits are sweet, sweetness is associated with earth, not with fire. Inconsistency of this nature is often encountered in the systems of correspondence.

Five-phase cycles: In the engendering cycle, fire engenders earth, which is evidently based on the practice of burning crop residues to revitalize the earth. In the restraining cycle, it overcomes metal, a reference to the use of fire for smelting and forging. Fire is restrained by water, because a fire can be extinguished by dousing it with water.

Although fire is said to flame upward, this description is most poignantly reflected in fire as an evil that causes disease, since, as flames rise upward, so fire in a bowel or viscus is reflected in upper body signs such as redness of the face, eyes, and tongue or pain in the teeth. However, the qualities of fire in the five phases that gave rise to the association with the heart have less to do with the quality of flaming upward than with warmth, light, radiation, and connection with the spirit world. cc

The Heart

The heart’s ascription to fire was most likely prompted by the following observations: First, blood vessels attached to the heart grow thinner with distance away from it. This suggests that the heart is at the center of the vascular system. Thus, the vessels radiate from the heart as heat from a fire. Second, the body gets hot when the heart beats strongly during physical exertion and turns cold when the heart stops beating. This may have suggested that the heart was a major source of heat in the body. Third, blood, which is moved by the heart, is red, which is the color associated with fire.

The heart governs the blood and vessels: This statement derives from the connection of the heart to large arteries filled with blood. Wáng Bīng’s edited version of the Nèi Jīng states: The liver stores the blood; the heart moves it (肝藏血，心行之 gān cáng xuè, xīn xíng zhī). However, the heart was understood to move the blood by the action of its qì (or ancestral qì). Chinese physicians never understood circulation in mechanical terms of heart chambers, valves, and muscle action. Probably because of this, the heart as the viscus that stores the spirit took prominence over the function of governing the blood and vessels.

The heart stores the spirit: Although Chinese medicine associates specific emotions with the viscera, it also recognizes that we feel every emotion in our heart. So, the familiar Western idea of the heart as the seat of the emotions is implicit in the Chinese concept of spirit. However, Chinese medicine accords the heart the higher status of being the abode of the spirit (神 shén), that is, consciousness and intellectual faculties, in addition to being the seat of the emotions.

Western thought about the mind and body is cerebrocentrist, meaning that our sense of self is located in the brain and that our body and emotions are things that are somehow attached to us owing to our having to live in a physical world. Many other cultures, including the Chinese, are cardiocentric, viewing their essential self as being located in the heart.

The difference between cerebrocentrism and cardiocentrism may be attributable to a different sense of the relationship between emotion and thought. Westerners tend to draw a clear distinction between thoughts and emotions. We feel emotions throughout the body since they are associated with the activation of different physical responses and behaviors. We often feel them most strongly in the heart because they affect the heart rate. By contrast, thoughts are things that we tend to experience in our heads.

Yet other cultures appear not to distinguish thought from emotion so clearly. And, indeed, neuroscience has recently shown quite conclusively that the divide between the two is not so clear. People who have suffered brain damage in which the connections between emotional centers and the prefrontal cortex are impaired can be incapable of making any rational decisions. This is because thoughts are in part extensions of emotions. Of course, neuroscience places the origin of both thought and emotions in the brain, while Chinese medicine places it in the heart. However, the separation of emotion and thought that has occurred may stem from a cultural emphasis on rational thought that is not universal to humanity. Cardiocentric cultures may simply be more sensitive to the intimate connection between emotions and thoughts

It is interesting to speculate about a possible link between cardiocentrism and analogical thinking. By comparison with analytical thought, which often involves considerable conscious brain work, analogical thought tends to proceed unconsciously. Even our sensory perceptions require matching of sensory inputs to previous experience without our conscious effort. Analogical thought has been found to be pervasive in the everyday understanding of our world and in our expression of it. However, because it is largely unconscious, its importance has evaded neuroscientists and linguists until relatively recently. Emotions typically are not readily available to our conscious control. Therefore, analogical thinking shares characteristics with grounding in emotions (cardiocentrism). Analytical thinking has more in common with a grounding in conscious thought (cerebrocentrism). This would also explain why Chinese medicine requires a more intuitive understanding than the modern sciences do.

This brings us finally to the statement that the heart stores the spirit. The word 神 shén, spirit, originally meant an unseen being, a god, a life-giving supernatural force. The original form was 申 shēn, which meant lightning. It came to mean god through the belief that lightning was the manifestation of a god’s anger. The radical 示 shì, altar, god, spirit, was added later to distinguish the concept from new meanings that 申 accreted. Gods universally are invisible and intangible beings possessing consciousness, intelligence, and powers that living humans do not share. Though existing outside our world, they have the power to influence and even control human affairs. Consciousness, intelligence, and power are all things associated with fire and the light it emits.

The Chinese posited the notion that humans possess an invisible, but powerful conscious, animating, and controlling yáng force within us, analogous to and hence referred to as a god, or 神 shén. This force was assumed to be located in the heart probably by the association of emotions with our desires, intentions, and our power to control our actions.

The connections between heart, spirit, and fire are obvious. The heart itself resembles fire physically in the radiation of blood vessels from it and functionally in its provision of warmth. Shén is the principle of consciousness, the seat of the emotions, the origin of desires and intentions, and the power of intellect. Its power over our actions gives it yáng qualities akin to fire. The heart is in the center of the body, and like the fire of a small human community as the hub of social life, it represents the central point of coordination of the individual’s physical movement, social behavior, and view of the world. Táng Róng-Chuān in Xuè Zhèng Lùn (On Blood Patterns) draws some of these strands together in the line, The heart is the fire viscus; it illuminates things, so it is in charge of the bright spirit. The spirit exists in name but not as a thing; it is the fire qì of the heart.

Most signs associated with illness of the heart in Chinese medicine are manifestations of disturbances of the spirit: heart vexation, insomnia, profuse dreaming, forgetfulness, clouded spirit, feeble-mindedness, manic agitation. By contrast, few signs relating to the movement of blood are specifically related to the heart. This explains why the heart’s governing of the spirit is the focus of medical attention.

The spirit is yáng in nature and expresses itself in movement. When it is weak, there is forgetfulness, mental torpor, feeble-mindedness, or withdrawal (mental disease characterized by taciturnity). When its movement is excited by vacuity heat, there is heart vexation, insomnia, and profuse dreaming. This is described as disquieted heart spirit (心神不安 xīn shén bù ān). When heat takes the form of severe repletion heat, the spirit becomes so active that it manifests in manic agitation and flailing of the limbs. In the container metaphor of the heart storing the spirit, these latter conditions are often described as the spirit failing to keep to its abode (神不守舍 shén bù shǒu shè).

The heart opens at the tongue: The tongue, particularly its tip, is the orifice of the heart, possibly because it is flame-shaped, and because redness of the tip is a sign of heart disease characterized by fire (heat). Obviously, the term orifice is used metaphorically here to denote a window on the world. The phrases is also expressed more logically as the tongue is the sprout of the heart.

The heart has its bloom in the face: The face is the part of the body where the spirit is most manifest. Facial expressions provide important information about a person’s mental and emotional state. We all instinctively feel that a face gives us information about a person’s personality, their thoughts, even their secrets.

Sweat is the humor of the heart clearly because of the relationship to sweating and increased heart rate during exertion. We tend to sweat in the center of the chest, that is, the region of the heart. Excessive sweating damages the fluids, which are an important component of blood, which is governed by the heart. Hence, it is said that sweat and blood are of the same source (汗血同源 hàn xuè tóng yuán). Sweating is often associated with the contraction of external evils, which often affect the lung. However, this is pathological sweating. Physiological sweating is more closely associated with the heart.

Joy is the mind of the heart: Although all emotions are felt in the heart, joy (喜 xǐ) is the expression of the heart itself. It is associated with the yáng qualities of expansiveness, openness, enthusiasm, exuberance, and generosity. It manifests in an urge to spread the limbs, reach out, share positive emotion with others, and engage in positive action. It is felt throughout the body. Joy is the spirit of human communion, the conviviality of the campfire. In Chinese, words for happiness and joyfulness include 高兴 gāo xìng, literally high-exuberant and 开心 kāi xīn, open-heart, which underscore joy’s association with the yáng qualities of elevation and openness. In Chinese culture, joy is associated with red, the color of fire and blood. (Red’s association with danger in Western culture probably has to do with bleeding).

Although joy is a positive emotion, excessive joy, as too much of anything good, can be damaging. Excessive joy causes heart qì to slacken and therefore lack in force.

The heart is averse to heat: Because the heart is susceptible to cold conditions as well as heat conditions, this notion of the heart being averse to heat appears to be a forced application of five-phase logic. The phrase is not commonly cited in modern literature.

Laughing is the voice of the lung: Associated with joy is laughter, the voice that corresponds to the fire phase.

The heart stands in exterior-interior relationship with the small intestine: The small intestine is responsible for the separation of the clear and turbid, that is, extracting useful fluid from the stool. The main connection with the heart is the tendency of heat in the heart to spread to the small intestine to disrupt this function, causing reddish urine. Since the bowels and viscera all exhibit relationships in pathology, a single relationship between the heart and small intestine seems to be an insufficient reason for such a special association between the two. This may therefore be an association that has been forced to conform to the systems of correspondence.

The Sovereign

The association of the heart, the spirit, and fire were strengthened by a further metaphor. The Nèi Jīng states: The heart holds the Office of Sovereign; the bright spirit arises from it. The government metaphor is that of the ruler of a nation, who is expected to be aware of the needs of the people, have the intelligence to know how to meet them, and command the powers needed to ensure they are met. The sovereign is thus to the nation what the spirit stored in the heart is to the individual.

The heart is the great governor of the bowels and viscera (五脏六腑之大主 wǔ zàng liù fǔ zhī dà zhǔ) and the governor of the entire body (一身之主 yì shēn zhī zhǔ). The heart is considered the most important organ of the body. The other four viscera, though performing essential functions, are all subordinate to it. Just as the enlightened ruler has full control over the nation, the heart exerts control over the whole domain of the body. The spirit stored in the heart represents the intelligence required to ensure the integrated functioning of the entire body.

According to biomedicine, the organ that controls the functions of almost the entire body is, of course, the brain. So, it makes sense to equate some of the heart’s functions as described in Chinese medicine with the brain as understood in biomedicine. However, in Chinese medicine, the heart gained the status of the great governor probably as much by prospective analogy to the qualities of fire (power, glory) and the sovereign as by empirical observation.

The ideal sovereign embodies the qualities of fire. He (rarely she) is the outstanding natural leader who rises above the masses, as flames from the fire rise high in the air. He holds the highest position in society, as the sun occupies the highest position in the heavens. His power ensures the safety and protection of his people. His intelligence is its guiding light. His beneficence ensures social cohesion and harmony. The opulence and splendor that surround him represent the people’s affirmation of the ideal ruler, as well as the glory and spirit of the nation.

Rulers in many cultures are assumed to have divine powers or connections with the divine. In China, the emperor was believed to receive his power to rule the country from Heaven (天命 tiān mìng, the Heavenly Mandate) and was referred to as the Son of Heaven (天子 tiān zǐ). The ruler is all-powerful, wise, and beneficent as a god or 神 shén. He resides in a palace located in the capital city, to which all roads lead as all vessels lead to the heart.

One condition identified according to the theory of warm disease is called heat entering the pericardium, which is characterized by clouded spirit and delirious speech, which are normally symptoms of heart disease. It has been proposed that the pericardium is the locus of the condition rather than the heart itself because the suggestion that an external evil could threaten the sovereign might be construed as a politically subversive message. In a strong, well-ordered society, ill-doers may reach the palace walls but are unable to get into the palace itself to threaten the sovereign.

Joy is associated with the sovereign. Just as joy is felt throughout the body, so a good sovereign ensures the welfare and happiness of all people throughout the nation. He is mentally balanced and untrammeled by negative emotions. Similarly, a person who maintains a positive attitude to life and knows contentment is likely to suffer less from illness. A joyful spirit is the root of health.

Summary of Heart-Fire

The heart belongs to fire and stores the spirit. It governs the blood and vessels, opens at the tongue, and has its bloom in the face. Its humor is sweat, and its mind is joy. It holds the Office of Sovereign.

• The association with fire derives from the bodily heat that develops during strenuous exercise that makes us aware that the heart is throbbing.
• The association with the blood and vessels derives from the radial formation of large vessels from the heart. Given the location in the center of the chest, this reflects the radiating quality of fire.
• Storing of the spirit derives from the sensing of emotions in the heart. The concept of spirit derives from that of an unseen, all-powerful, all-knowing being in the other world with which fire provides a channel of communication (burning of incense, money).
• The tip of the tongue is associated with fire because it is flame-shaped.
• The face is the clearest reflection of the state of the spirit.
• Fire represents safety, the center of social life, conviviality. Hence, it is associated with joy. Fire also represents power and splendor. Hence the heart is said to hold the Office of Sovereign, who gains his mandate from heaven (the spirit world) and who ensures the safety and well-being of the nation.