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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 55 · Contrary and Favorable Courses
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked Bo Gao: “I have heard that qi has contrary and favorable courses, vessels abundance and decline, and needling essential principles. May I hear them?”
Bo Gao said: “The contrary and favorable courses of qi answer heaven and earth, yin and yang, the four seasons and five phases. Abundance and decline of the vessels show blood and qi’s emptiness and repletion, excess and insufficiency. The essential principle of needling is to know clearly which illness may be needled, which may not yet be needled, and which can no longer be needled.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “How are they observed?”
Bo Gao said: “Military teaching says: do not confront a surging force or strike an imposing, orderly formation. Needling teaching says: do not needle blazing heat, pouring sweat, a surging, undifferentiated pulse, or an illness whose pulse contradicts it.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “How can one observe when needling is possible?”
Bo Gao said: “The highest practitioner needles before illness arises. Next is needling before it flourishes. Next is needling after it has declined. The lowest practitioner needles as it is attacking, when its form is flourishing, or when illness and pulse contradict each other.
“Thus it is said: at the height of its abundance, do not dare injure it. Needle after its decline and the undertaking will flourish. Thus the highest practitioner treats what is not yet ill, not what is already ill. This is what is meant.”
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