From ‘The essential woman’ Elisabeth Rochat De La Vallee
Life in traditional China was understood as a constant exchange and balance between yin and yang qi. This constant exchange is expressed in the human body as blood and qi or essences and qi. Every living being is a mingling of various qi which allow a form to appear. An embryo is the gathering of essences in a concentrating yin movement of qi. Through these essences and through their knotting together effected by the impulse coming from the heaven and giving the potential to develop, there is the beginning of a form and the beginning of the exploration through this form of its specific nature. For each being there is a different impulse or potential which is directed through species, race and lineage. So a child is the result of what comes from and through the parents, but is also full of the initiative and movement of the natural order, or what we may call heaven, tian. We find this idea particularly expressed in daoist texts from the 3rdcentury BCE. Every living being not only comes from their parents or from everything which comes from their parents, but also from something which exists behind and beyond all the specific expressions of life found in the parents and lineage. At each level and for each new life, the intrinsic nature is not only the mixture of sperm and blood, man and woman, but also a quality given by heaven. (…)
Very often in these texts the blood and qi are not really concerned with the physical aspects of life, but rather with the temperament and the characteristics of mind and will. For instance, to have strength in the blood and qi is to have strength in the temper, sometimes too violently (…).
In classical China, in the 1stand 2ndcentury BCE, blood and qi where definitely linked with the ability to know and perceive with full consciousness. For instance Xunzi, a Confucian philosopher living in the middle of the 3rdcentury BCE, cites the example of animals. Animals, and large ones in particular, share having blood and qi with humans. This is not the case with the vegetation or mineral life:
“Among all the living being (sheng) between heaven and earth, those having blood and qi possess awareness (zhi)’ (Xunzi chapter 19)
The ability to have some kind of inner self, sensitivity, perception, emotion, and consciousness, are all linked with the fact of having blood and qi. (…)
In a lot of texts, for example The book of Rites, it is said that a human being is composed of blood and qi with a heart capable of knowledge and consciousness.
‘By nature (xing) a human being possesses blood and qi, and a heart that allows awareness (xin zhi). Grief or joy, elation or anger do not stay constantly within [him or her]. They are reactions to the incitements of [exterior] objects. It is then that the art of the heart (xin shu) intervenes.’ (Book of Rites, Yueji)
The various feelings of sadness, joy, elation or anger do not exist continuously inside a person, they appear as a result of influences coming from the exterior. We have to behave accordingly to the Art of the Heart. In a human being everything which is physiology and psychology, tendency and reaction, may be called blood and qi.
A human being is ruled by their blood and qi and all the variations in the balance between them. But on the other hand a human being is also capable of guiding and ruling the blood and qi, and this is called the art of Heart. (…) a human being so is able to behave according to the Art of the Heart, and according to the wisdom of discernment which is in their heart. We are not completely determined by a loss or blockage of blood. Even if there are all these influences on our temperament, there is another level of possibilities which is always present. (…)
We know that what are called blood and qi are a lot more that just the substance of the blood and the dynamism of its circulation. They encorporate the whole physiology and all the yin yang expression of physiology and psychology, but they also enable the presence of the spirits. The presence of blood means the presence and the expression of consciousness, perception and knowledge. It is through our blood an qi that we are responsible for our lives, and if, as is said in Huanzi chapter 7, we are able to behave in such a way that our five zang concentrate and rule our blood and qi well, then the radiance of life will emanate from us without disturbances. (…)
It is said that for a man qi are prevalent and for a woman blood is prevalent. Qi are yang and blood is yin. In the body of a woman there is a natural predominance of yin and the yin movement of qi. This is not a question of quantity. It is not that a woman has more blood than a man. It is more to do with the internal organization of the vital movement of life in the body of a woman where the blood is prevalent and therefore the yin movement of qi is more prevalent.
There is more gathering, descending and concentration taking place in the body of a woman, while there is more expansion and upward, springing movement in the body of a man. It is simply a question of the movement of blood and qi, and this is manifest in the physiology and psychology. For example, the concentrating movement of the blood will lead to its concentration in the lower abdomen and uterus.