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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 1 · Nine Needles and Twelve Sources
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Taking Heaven as the Model.
The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: “I treat the multitude as my children, nourish the people and collect their taxes. I grieve that their needs are unmet and illness repeatedly afflicts them. I wish them not to suffer potent medicinals or the use of stone lancets, but to have fine needles free their channel vessels, regulate blood and qi, and nourish the meetings of opposing and following, entry and exit.
“For this to be transmitted to later generations, its methods must be clear, enduring without extinction or interruption, easy to use and hard to forget. Establish its ordering, distinguish its chapters and its exterior and interior, and set out its beginning and end. Let each have a definite form. First establish a Needling Canon. I wish to hear its substance.”
Qi Bo replied: “Let me develop and order it, giving it a main thread and structure, beginning with one and ending with nine. Let me explain the Way. The essential of the small needle is easy to state but hard to enter. The crude practitioner attends to form; the superior attends to spirit. Spirit, indeed spirit! The guest is at the gate. Without seeing its illness, how could one know its source?
“The subtlety of needling lies in speed and slowness. The crude practitioner keeps to the joints; the superior attends to the pivot. Its movement does not leave the opening. The pivot within the opening is clear, still and subtle. Its coming cannot be met; its going cannot be pursued. For one who knows the pivot’s Way, not even a hair may catch in it. One who does not know may knock but fail to release it. Know its coming and going and meet its appointed moment. How dark the crude practitioner’s understanding! How wonderful the skill possessed by the accomplished practitioner alone!
“Going is opposing; coming is following. Clearly know opposing and following, and proper action has no doubt. Meet it and take away: how could emptiness not result? Pursue it and assist: how could repletion not result? Meet it or follow it, harmonizing through attention: the Way of the needle is complete.”
“In using needles, make the empty replete, discharge the full, remove longstanding congestion and empty what harmful influence makes excessive. The Great Essentials says: ‘Slow then swift makes replete; swift then slow makes empty.’ Speaking of repletion and emptiness is like having and not having. Examine afterward and before, as if present or gone. Making empty or replete is like losing or gaining. The nine needles are most subtle in this essential; supplementation and draining are performed with the needle at their proper time.
“For draining, firmly hold and insert it, then release and withdraw it. Displace yang and obtain the needle, allowing harmful qi to discharge. Pressing while drawing the needle is called warming within: blood cannot disperse and qi cannot emerge.
“For supplementation: follow it, follow it. Let attention seem unforced, as though moving and pressing, like a mosquito alighting, as though staying and returning. Withdraw like a severed string; let the left join the right, so the qi stops. The outer gate has closed and qi within becomes replete. There must be no retained blood: promptly take and remove it.
“In holding the needle, firmness is treasured. Set the fingers correctly and needle straight, without swaying left or right. Attend to the finest autumn hair; direct attention to the patient. Carefully observe the blood vessels and needling avoids peril. While needling, attend to Suspended Yang and the two Guards. Keep the spirit connected without departing and know whether illness remains or is gone. Blood vessels lie transversely at transporting points: they appear especially distinct and feel especially firm.”
The supplied draining phrase, mosquito graph and Suspended Yang/two Guards labels are difficult. Their wording is retained without assigning new anatomical sites or adding a technique absent from the source.
“The nine needles have different names and forms.
“First, the chisel needle: one cun and six fen long.
“Second, the round needle: one cun and six fen long.
“Third, the pressing needle: three and a half cun long.
“Fourth, the lancet needle: one cun and six fen long.
“Fifth, the sword needle: four cun long and two and a half fen wide.
“Sixth, the round-sharp needle: one cun and six fen long.
“Seventh, the fine-hair needle: three cun and six fen long.
“Eighth, the long needle: seven cun long.
“Ninth, the large needle: four cun long.”
Cun and fen remain the historical measures; no metric conversion is added.
“The chisel needle has a large head and sharp end, for removing and draining yang qi.
“The round needle is egg-shaped, rubbing between divisions without injuring flesh, to drain the qi of those divisions.
“The pressing needle has a tip like a millet grain, chiefly pressing the vessels without sinking in, to bring their qi.
“The lancet needle has three-edged blades to release entrenched illness.
“The sword needle ends like a sword point, for addressing great accumulations of pus.
“The round-sharp needle is as thick as coarse hair, rounded and sharp, with a slightly thicker middle, for addressing sudden qi.
“The fine-hair needle is pointed like the beak of the creature called xuyu. It advances calmly and slowly, is retained subtly and long, and nourishes while addressing painful obstruction.
“The long needle has a sharp tip and thin body, for distant obstruction.
“The large needle has a peg-like tip, slightly rounded, for draining water from the moving joints.
“This completes the nine needles.”
The creature name in the fine-hair comparison is obscure in the displayed source and is not silently replaced by a modern species.
“Within the vessels, harmful qi is above, turbid qi in the middle and clear qi below. Thus needling the superficial vessel releases harmful qi; needling the middle vessel releases turbid qi. Needling too deeply instead drives harmful qi downward and worsens illness. Skin, flesh, sinews and vessels each have their places. Each illness has what suits it; forms differ and each is assigned its appropriate task.
“To disregard repletion and emptiness, diminish insufficiency and add to excess is called intensifying illness. If illness is made more severe, addressing the five vessels brings death; addressing the three vessels brings fearful weakness. Seizing yin brings death; seizing yang brings frenzy. This completes the harms of needling.
“If needling does not bring qi, do not ask for a fixed number. When qi arrives, withdraw and do not needle again. Each needle has its suitability and distinct form, assigned to its place: this is the essential. The arrival of qi brings an effect. Its certainty is like Wind blowing clouds away, clear as seeing the blue sky. The Way of needling is complete.”
The compressed repletion/emptiness clause is read through its stated contrast between diminishing deficiency and increasing excess; no missing Chinese wording is inserted.
The Yellow Emperor said: “I wish to hear where the five zang and six fu emerge.”
Qi Bo said: “The five zang have five transporting points each: five times five gives twenty-five. The six fu have six each: six times six gives thirty-six. There are twelve channel vessels and fifteen network vessels, twenty-seven qi in all, moving above and below. Where qi emerges is a well; where it flows a spring; where it pours a stream; where it courses a river; where it enters a sea. All twenty-seven qi travel through the five transporting kinds.
“At the meeting of the nodes are three hundred sixty-five gatherings. One who knows the essential can finish in one statement; one who does not scatters into endless discussion. The nodes mean where spiritual qi roams, enters and exits, not skin, flesh, sinews and bones. Observe complexion and examine the eyes to know scattering and return. Attend wholly to bodily form and listen to movement and stillness to know harmful and proper influences. The right chiefly advances it; the left holds and controls. When qi arrives, withdraw. Before using a needle, examine the pulse and observe whether qi is urgent or moderate; only then may treatment proceed.
“If the five zang qi are already cut off within and needling instead makes the outside replete, this is called doubled exhaustion. It necessarily brings death, quiet in character. The treatment reverses qi, addressing armpit and chest.
“If the five zang qi are already cut off outside and needling instead makes the inside replete, this is called contrary counterflow. It necessarily brings death, agitated in character. The treatment instead addresses the four extremities. Needling that injures the middle and is not withdrawn lets essence discharge; injury to the middle with withdrawal brings qi. Discharged essence worsens illness and causes fearful weakness; qi brought in this way produces abscesses and ulcers.”
“The five zang have six fu; the six fu have twelve sources. The twelve sources emerge at the four gates, which govern treatment of the five zang. When the five zang are ill, the twelve sources are addressed. Through them the five zang receive the qi and flavors of the three hundred sixty-five nodes. Illness in the five zang shows its response at these sources. Each has its emergence: know the source and see the response, and the harm to the five zang can be known.
“Shaoyin within yang is the Lung: its source emerges at Taiyuan, two Taiyuan.
“Taiyang within yang is the Heart: its source emerges at Daling, two Daling.
“Shaoyang within yin is the Liver: its source emerges at Taichong, two Taichong.
“Utmost yin within yin is the Spleen: its source emerges at Taibai, two Taibai.
“Taiyin within yin is the Kidney: its source emerges at Taixi, two Taixi.
“The source of gao emerges at Jiuwei, one Jiuwei.
“The source of huang emerges at Boyang, one Boyang.
“These twelve sources govern illness of the five zang and six fu. For distension, address the three yang; for diarrhea with undigested food, the three yin.”
All point counts and the supplied Heart/Daling and Kidney/Taiyin correspondences are retained. Gao and huang name the text’s fatty and deep membranous regions; no modern organ or point code is substituted.
“Illness of the five zang is like a thorn, dirt, a knot or a blockage.
“A thorn, though long present, can still be drawn out.
“Dirt, though long present, can still be wiped away.
“A knot, though longstanding, can still be untied.
“A blocked gate, though long closed, can still be opened.
“To say longstanding illness cannot be addressed is not the proper explanation. Those skilled with needles address illness like drawing out a thorn, wiping away dirt, untying a knot or opening a blockage. Though longstanding, illness can still be ended; those saying it cannot be treated have not obtained the art.
“Needling heat is like putting a hand into hot water. Needling cold is like a person reluctant to walk. For yang illness within yin, address Xialing Sanli, proceeding correctly without peril; stop when qi descends. If it does not descend, begin again. For illness high and within, address Yinlingquan; for illness high and outside, Yanglingquan.”
The supplied component graph in the blockage line is rendered as a closed gate without reconstructing a different Chinese reading.
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