Opening the chapter
Loading the text. Please wait.
Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 3 · Explaining the Small Needle
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
“Easy to state” means easy to say. “Hard to enter” means hard to establish in a person.
“The crude practitioner attends to form” means keeping to needling methods. “The superior attends to spirit” means attending to excess and insufficiency of the person’s blood and qi, which can be supplemented or drained.
“Spirit and guest” are the meeting of proper and harmful influences: spirit is proper qi, guest harmful qi. “At the gate” means harmful influence follows proper qi’s entry and exit.
“Without seeing its illness” means first knowing which channel has the illness of proper and harmful qi. “How could one know its source?” means first knowing the affected channel and the place to address.
“The subtlety of needling lies in speed and slowness” concerns slow and swift action. “The crude practitioner keeps to the joints” means keeping to the limbs without knowing the coming and going of blood, qi, proper and harmful influences.
“The superior attends to the pivot” means knowing how to guard qi. “Its movement does not leave the opening” means knowing qi’s emptiness and repletion and the needle’s slow and swift use. “The pivot within the opening is clear, still and subtle” means obtaining qi with the needle and guarding it with close attention, without losing it.
“Its coming cannot be met” means abundant qi must not be supplemented. “Its going cannot be pursued” means empty qi must not be drained. “Not even a hair may catch” means qi is easily lost. “Knock but fail to release” means not knowing supplementation and draining: blood and qi are exhausted, yet qi does not descend.
“Know its coming and going” means knowing opposing and following, abundance and emptiness. “Meet its appointed moment” means knowing when qi can be addressed. “The crude practitioner’s darkness” means not knowing qi’s subtle closeness. “Wonderful skill possessed alone” means fully knowing the needle’s intent.
“Going is opposing” means qi is empty and small: smallness opposes. “Coming is following” means bodily form and qi are balanced: balance follows. “Clearly know opposing and following, and proper action has no gap” means knowing the place to address. Meeting and taking away is draining; pursuing and assisting is supplementation.
“Make the empty replete” means an empty Qikou should be supplemented. “Discharge the full” means an abundant Qikou should be drained. “Remove longstanding congestion” means removing blood from the vessels. “Empty what harmful influence makes excessive” means draining harmful influence wherever channels are abundant.
“Slow then swift makes replete” means slow insertion and swift withdrawal. “Swift then slow makes empty” means swift insertion and slow withdrawal.
“Repletion and emptiness are like having and not having” means repletion has qi and emptiness lacks qi. “Examine afterward and before, as if gone or present” concerns qi’s emptiness and repletion and the order of supplementation and draining: observe whether qi has already descended or remains. “Making empty or replete is like gaining or losing” means supplementation gives a felt sense of gaining, while draining gives a vague sense of losing.
The unusual graph describing the supplementation sensation is read as a felt sense rather than assigned a separate diagnosis.
“Harmful qi is above within the vessels” means harmful influence strikes the person high up. “Turbid qi is in the middle” means water and grain enter the Stomach, their essential qi pours upward into the Lung and the turbid flows to the intestines and stomach. Unsuitable cold or warmth and irregular food and drink produce illness there, hence “turbid qi in the middle.”
“Clear qi is below” means clear, damp earth qi strikes a person beginning at the feet. “Needling the superficial vessel releases harmful qi” means addressing above. “Needling the middle vessel releases turbid qi” means addressing Yangming’s sea. “Too deep drives harmful qi downward” means a shallow, floating illness should not be needled deeply; otherwise harmful influence follows inward.
“Skin, flesh, sinews and vessels have their places” means channels and networks each govern something. “Addressing five vessels brings death” means that with illness within and insufficient qi, needling greatly drains all the yin vessels. “Addressing the three yang vessels” means exhausting the three yang qi and leaving the patient fearfully weak without recovery. “Seizing yin brings death” means addressing Wuli of the chi region five times. “Seizing yang brings frenzy” states its meaning directly.
The explanatory three-yang wording is retained, though the earlier chapter’s corresponding line says only three vessels.
“Observe complexion and examine the eyes, knowing scattering and return; attend wholly to form and listen to movement and stillness” means that a superior practitioner knows how to examine the five colors in the eyes and assess cun and chi for size, slowness, urgency, slipperiness and roughness, thus describing the illness.
“Know harmful and proper influences” means distinguishing Winds of empty and proper harmful influence. “The right advances; the left holds and controls” refers to holding the needle in entry and withdrawal. “Withdraw when qi arrives” means withdrawing once supplementation and draining have regulated qi. Regulating qi with beginning and end as one means keeping the mind steady. The three hundred sixty-five gatherings at the nodes are where network vessels seep into and irrigate the joints.
“The five zang qi are already cut off within” means the inner qi at the pulse opening has ceased and does not arrive. Instead, one addresses illness outside and the sea points of yang channels, retaining the needle to bring yang qi. When yang arrives, exhaustion within is doubled and death follows. Death is quiet because there is no qi to move.
“The five zang qi are already cut off outside” means the outer qi at the pulse opening has ceased and does not arrive. Instead, one addresses transporting points at the four extremities and retains the needle to bring yin qi. When yin arrives, yang qi instead enters; this entry opposes the order and brings death. Death is agitated because yin qi is excessive.
“The eyes are examined because the five zang make their five colors follow their brightness. When brightness follows, the voice becomes distinct: its sound differs from the person’s ordinary voice.”
The compressed connection between eye brightness and altered voice is retained as supplied, without constructing a new diagnostic mechanism.
Use ← / → or swipe left or right to change chapters