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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 48 · Restricted Teaching and Observance
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Lei Gong asked the Yellow Emperor: “This humble pupil has received instruction and become familiar with the nine needles and sixty writings, practicing them diligently morning and evening. The bindings of recently handled texts have broken and older bamboo slips are stained, yet I recite them without setting them aside and still do not understand their whole meaning. External Assessment speaks of gathering and binding everything into one; I do not know what this means. The great has nothing outside and the small nothing within, size has no limit and height and depth no measure. How can these be bound together? Students differ in capacity; their thought may be narrow and shallow, unable to encompass breadth and depth. Even with forced study like mine, I fear the teaching will scatter in later generations and be lost to descendants. I dare ask how to make it concise.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Excellent is the question! This is what earlier teachers restricted and transmitted privately, seated together under an oath of cutting the arm and tasting blood. If you wish to obtain it, why do you not prepare by fasting?”
Lei Gong bowed twice and rose: “I ask to receive your command in this.” He then fasted and kept vigil for three days, and asked: “I dare say that today is properly yang. This humble pupil wishes to receive the oath.” The Yellow Emperor entered the fasting chamber with him; they cut their arms and tasted blood.
The Yellow Emperor personally pronounced: “Today is properly yang. By tasting blood we transmit the methods. Whoever dares turn against these words shall receive the calamity in return.”
Lei Gong bowed twice: “This humble pupil receives it.”
The Yellow Emperor held his hand with the left and delivered the book with the right, saying: “Be careful, be careful. I shall explain it to you.”
“The principle of needling begins with the channel vessels. Attend to their courses and know their measures. Internally needle for the five zang and externally for the six fu. Carefully examine defensive qi, the mother of the many illnesses, and regulate emptiness and repletion until they cease. Drain the blood networks; when the blood there is exhausted, danger is averted.”
The blood-ending statement belongs to the historical account of the affected networks, not a modern instruction to exhaust a person’s blood.
Lei Gong said: “These are all things this humble pupil understands. I still do not know how they are bound together.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Binding methods together is like tying a bag. If a bag is full but untied, its contents spill. If methods are complete but not bound together, spirit does not remain with them.”
Lei Gong said: “For a person of lesser capacity, I ask that the bag be tied before it is full.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Knowing how to bind it before fullness may make a skilled practitioner, but cannot make a teacher for all under heaven.”
Lei Gong said: “I wish to hear how to become a skilled practitioner.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Cunkou governs within and Renying without. They answer each other, coming and going together like a stretched cord, equal in size. In spring and summer Renying is slightly larger; in autumn and winter Cunkou is slightly larger. This is called a person in ordinary health.”
“When Renying exceeds Cunkou by the stated onefold measure, illness is in Foot Shaoyang; when onefold and agitated, in Hand Shaoyang. At the twofold measure, illness is in Foot Taiyang; twofold and agitated, in Hand Taiyang. At the threefold measure, illness is in Foot Yangming; threefold and agitated, in Hand Yangming.
“Abundance brings heat, emptiness cold, tightness painful obstruction, and intermittence alternating severity and relief. Drain abundance and supplement emptiness. For tightness and pain address the divisions of flesh; for intermittence address blood networks and also give medicines. For sinking, use moxibustion. If neither abundant nor empty, address the channel: this is named channel needling.
“Renying at the fourfold measure, both large and rapid, is named overflowing yang. Overflowing yang is exterior exclusion, declared fatal and beyond treatment. Carefully palpate root and end and inspect cold and heat to verify illness of the zang and fu.”
The supplied onefold, twofold, threefold and fourfold measures are retained without converting the historical comparisons into newly calculated ratios.
“When Cunkou exceeds Renying by the stated onefold measure, illness is in Foot Jueyin; when onefold and agitated, in the Hand Heart Ruler. At the twofold measure, illness is in Foot Shaoyin; twofold and agitated, in Hand Shaoyin. At the threefold measure, illness is in Foot Taiyin; threefold and agitated, in Hand Taiyin.
“Abundance brings distension and fullness, internal cold and failure to digest food. Emptiness brings internal heat, gruel-like discharge, scant qi and altered urine color. Tightness brings painful obstruction; intermittence brings pain that comes and stops by turns. Drain abundance and supplement emptiness. For tightness, needle first and apply moxibustion afterward. For intermittence, address blood networks and then regulate. For sinking, use moxibustion alone. Sinking means vessel blood is networked within, with adhering blood inside; because the blood is cold, moxibustion is appropriate. If neither abundant nor empty, address the channel: this is named channel needling.
“Cunkou at the fourfold measure is named internal closure. When both large and rapid, it is declared fatal and beyond treatment. Carefully inspect cold and warmth at root and end to verify illness of the zang and fu.”
The source’s abundance/cold and emptiness/heat sequence is retained without normalization. The compressed description of retained network blood is not expanded into a modern anatomical account.
“Once familiar with the nutritive transporting courses, one may receive the general principles. They say: for abundance use draining alone; for emptiness supplementation alone. For tightness use moxibustion and needling and also give medicines. For sinking use moxibustion alone. If neither abundant nor empty, address the channel. Channel treatment includes taking medicines and also moxibustion and needling. An urgent pulse calls for drawing or stretching. A large but weak pulse calls for quiet rest; exertion must not become toil.”
The final drawing instruction lacks a fuller object here; no particular maneuver is added.
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