In the traditional Chinese medicine classic, emperor Huang Di desired to know why the people before his time were able to live beyond 100 years old without weakening. Here’s the conversation he had with his teacher Qi Bo.

Now, he asked the Heavenly Teacher:

“I have heard that the people of high antiquity, in [the sequence of] spring and autumn, all exceeded one hundred years. But in their movements and activities there was no weakening. As for the people of today, after one half of a hundred years, the movements and activities of all of them weaken. Is this because the times are different? Or is it that the people have lost this [ability]?

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Qi Bo responded:

“The people of high antiquity, those who knew the Way, they modeled [their behavior] on yin and yang and they complied with the arts and the calculations. [Their] eating and drinking was moderate. [Their] rising and resting had regularity. They did not tax [themselves] with meaningless work.

Hence, they were able to keep physical appearance and spirit together, and to exhaust the years [allocated by] heaven. Their life span exceeded one hundred years before they departed.

The fact that people of today are different is because they take wine as an [ordinary] beverage, and they adopt absurd [behavior] as regular [behavior]. They are drunk when they enter the [women’s] chambers.

Through their lusts they exhaust their essence, through their wastefulness they dissipate their true [qi]. They do not know how to maintain fullness and they engage spirit when it is not the right time. They make every effort to please their hearts, [but] they oppose the [true] happiness of life. Rising and resting miss their terms.

Hence, it is [only] one half of a hundred [years] and they weaken.

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Now, when the sages of high antiquity taught those below, they always spoke to them [about the following].

The depletion evil and the robber wind, there are [specific] times when to avoid them. Quiet peacefulness, absolute emptiness the true qi follows [these states]. When essence and spirit are guarded internally, where could a disease come from?

Hence, the mind is relaxed and one has few desires. The heart is at peace and one is not in fear. The physical appearance is taxed, but is not tired. The qi follows [its appropriate course] and therefrom results compliance: everything follows one’s wishes; in every respect one achieves what one longs for.

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Hence, they considered their food delicious, they accepted their clothes, and they enjoyed the common. Those of higher and lower status did not long for each other. The people, therefore, were called natural.

Hence, cravings and desires could not tax their eyes. The excess evil could not confuse their hearts. The stupid and the knowledgeable, the exemplary and the non-exemplary, none was in fear of other beings.

Hence, they were one with the Way.

That by which all of them were able to exceed a lifespan of one hundred years, while their movements and activities did not weaken, [that was the fact that] their virtue was perfect and they did not meet with danger.”

Source: Chapter 1 Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen (Unschuld and Tessenow translation)

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