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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 76 · The Circulation of Defensive Qi
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: “I wish to hear how defensive qi travels and how its entering and emerging meet.”
Qi Bo said: “The year has twelve months and the day twelve branches. Zi and Wu form the longitudinal axis, Mao and You the transverse. Heaven’s circuit has twenty-eight lodges, seven in each direction: four times seven makes twenty-eight. Fang and Mao form the transverse axis, Xu and Zhang the longitudinal. Thus Fang through Bi is yang and Mao through Xin yin. Yang governs day and yin night.
“Defensive qi makes fifty circuits through the body in one day and night: twenty-five through yang by day and twenty-five through yin by night, circling the five zang. At dawn yin ends and yang qi emerges through the eyes. When the eyes open, qi ascends to the head, follows the nape down Foot Taiyang, runs down the back and reaches the little-toe tip.
“A dispersed branch leaves the pointed outer canthus, descends Hand Taiyang and reaches the outer side of the little-finger interval. Another leaves the outer canthus, descends Foot Shaoyang and pours into the interval beside the toe next to the little toe. It then follows Hand Shaoyang’s division above, descending along the side to the little-finger interval. A branch rises before the ear, joins the jaw vessel and pours into Foot Yangming, descending to the upper foot and entering the five-toe intervals.
“A dispersed branch descends from below the ear through Hand Yangming, enters the great-digit interval and enters the palm. Reaching the feet, qi enters the center of the sole, emerges at the inner ankle, descends through the yin divisions and joins again at the eyes. This makes one circuit.”
The stated hand-digit intervals and the descending yin clause are retained without reconstructing missing route segments or substituting a modern channel chart.
When the sun travels one lodge, human qi travels one body circuit and eight-tenths of a circuit. At two lodges it travels three circuits and six-tenths; at three lodges, five and four-tenths; at four, seven and two-tenths; at five, nine circuits; at six, ten and eight-tenths; at seven, twelve and six-tenths. At fourteen lodges it travels twenty-five body circuits with the stated additional two-tenths. Yang ends in yin, and yin receives qi.
Every supplied intermediate and remainder is kept. They are not recalculated to enforce an exact modern astronomical ratio.
On first entering yin, qi ordinarily follows Foot Shaoyin into the Kidney. Kidney pours into Heart, Heart into Lung, Lung into Liver, Liver into Spleen and Spleen back into Kidney, completing a circuit. For one lodge traveled at night, human qi makes one yin-zang circuit and eight-tenths, likewise making twenty-five circuits as in the yang course before joining again at the eyes.
Across yin and yang in one day and night, the stated extra fractions are four-tenths of a body circuit and two-tenths of a zang circuit. Thus people lie down and rise earlier or later because the fractional portions have not been exhausted.
The stated fifty-circuit scheme and its additional fractions remain together as the source gives them.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Defensive qi travels up and down through the body without a fixed appointment. How does one observe qi and needle accordingly?”
Bo Gao said: “Divisions vary in amount and days in length. Spring, autumn, winter and summer each have their distinctions. Still, dawn is always the reference, the end of night the beginning. In one day and night the water clock descends one hundred ke. Twenty-five ke is the measure of half the daylight period. It proceeds continually in this way and stops at sunset. Follow the day’s length as the reference for needling. Carefully observing its time allows the course of illness to be anticipated. Missing the time and reversing the signs leaves the many illnesses untreated.
“Thus, needle repletion as qi comes and emptiness as qi departs. This concerns the time of qi’s presence and absence, observing emptiness and repletion to needle. Carefully observing qi’s place and needling there is called meeting the time. For illness in the three yang, wait until qi is in yang; for illness in the three yin, until it is in the yin division.
“As the water descends:
1 ke: qi is in Taiyang.
2 ke: Shaoyang.
3 ke: Yangming.
4 ke: the yin division.
5 ke: Taiyang.
6 ke: Shaoyang.
7 ke: Yangming.
8 ke: the yin division.
9 ke: Taiyang.
10 ke: Shaoyang.
11 ke: Yangming.
12 ke: the yin division.
13 ke: Taiyang.
14 ke: Shaoyang.
15 ke: Yangming.
16 ke: the yin division.
17 ke: Taiyang.
18 ke: Shaoyang.
19 ke: Yangming.
20 ke: the yin division.
21 ke: Taiyang.
22 ke: Shaoyang.
23 ke: Yangming.
24 ke: the yin division.
25 ke: Taiyang.
“This is the measure of half the daylight period. From Fang to Bi are fourteen lodges, fifty ke of water, with the sun traveling half its course. For each lodge on the returning course, the water descends three ke and four-sevenths of a ke.
“The great essential says: whenever the sun reaches a lodge, human qi is in Taiyang. Thus, during one lodge, human qi passes through the three yang and the yin division, continually without rest. Heaven and earth share an ordering; amid countless movements, ending begins again. One day and night exhaust one hundred ke of water.”
All twenty-five positions, the fifty/one-hundred-ke measures and the three-and-four-sevenths fraction are retained. Ke is the source’s water-clock unit, not silently converted into present-day quarter-hours. The speaker is Bo Gao here after Qi Bo earlier.
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