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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 71 · Lodging Harmful Influence
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked Bo Gao: “When harmful qi lodges in a person, it may prevent the eyes from closing and prevent lying down to sleep. What qi makes this happen?”
The supplied ending of the sleeplessness phrase contains an extra emergence graph; no new symptom is invented from it.
Bo Gao said: “The five grains enter the Stomach and divide their dregs, jin and ye fluids, and gathering qi into three pathways. Gathering qi accumulates in the chest, emerges through the breathing throat, penetrates the Heart vessels and carries breathing.
“Nutritive qi separates the jin and ye fluids and pours them into vessels, transforming them into blood to nourish the extremities. Within, it pours into the five zang and six fu in correspondence with the water-clock counts. Defensive qi sends out its fierce, swift portion, traveling first among the extremities, divisions of flesh and skin without rest. By day it travels in yang and at night in yin, ordinarily entering through Foot Shaoyin’s divisions to travel among the five zang and six fu.
“When reversal qi lodges in the five zang and six fu, defensive qi guards only outside, traveling in yang and unable to enter yin. Yang qi becomes abundant and Yang Qiao sinks; unable to enter yin, yin is empty and the eyes cannot close.”
The supplied Yang Qiao “sinks” statement is retained. Older readings give fullness or abundance instead; the Chinese and its English rendering are not silently normalized.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. How is it treated?”
Bo Gao said: “Supplement insufficiency and drain excess, regulating emptiness and repletion to open the pathways and remove harmful influence. Give one preparation of Banxia Decoction. With yin and yang communicating, sleep comes immediately.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. This is what is meant by opening obstructed waterways, freely connecting channels and networks and harmonizing yin and yang. I wish to hear the formula.”
Bo Gao said: “For the decoction, take eight sheng of flowing water from beyond a thousand li, raise and pour it ten thousand times, and take five sheng of its clear portion to boil. Use reed fuel. When it boils, add one sheng of shu grain and five ge of treated banxia. Cook slowly until reduced to one and a half sheng, remove the dregs and give one small cup of the juice. Three times a day, increase gradually, using response as the measure. In a newly arising condition, sleep comes as the cup is overturned and sweating ends the illness. In a longstanding condition, three drinks are said to end it.”
Shu is a historical sticky-grain name with differing identifications. Banxia is the supplied drug name; “treated” does not specify a preparation process here. All units, repetitions, reduction amounts and claimed responses are retained as historical text, without modern dose conversion or added preparation instructions.
The Yellow Emperor asked Bo Gao: “I wish to hear how human limbs and joints correspond to heaven and earth.”
Bo Gao replied: “Heaven is round and earth square: the round human head and squared feet answer them. Heaven has sun and moon; people have two eyes. Earth has nine regions; people nine openings. Heaven has wind and rain; people joy and anger. Heaven has thunder and lightning; people voice and sound. Heaven has four seasons; people four limbs. Heaven has five tones; people five zang. Heaven has six pitch standards; people six fu. Heaven has winter and summer; people cold and heat. Heaven has ten days; people ten fingers.
“There are twelve branches: people answer with ten toes, the shaft and hanging part; women lack these two divisions and can carry human form. Heaven has yin and yang; people husband and wife. The year has three hundred and sixty-five days; people three hundred and sixty joints.
“Earth has high mountains; people shoulders and knees. Earth has deep valleys; people armpits and knee hollows. Earth has twelve channel waters; people twelve channel vessels. Earth has spring courses; people defensive qi. Earth has grasses and ming plants; people fine hair. Heaven has day and night; people lying down and rising. Heaven has arrayed stars; people teeth. Earth has small hills; people small joints. Earth has mountain rocks; people high bones. Earth has forests and trees; people membrane sinews. Earth has gathered settlements; people fleshy masses. The year has twelve months; people twelve divisions. Earth has places without grass through the four seasons; people may have no children. These are the correspondences of people with heaven and earth.”
The supplied three hundred and sixty joints is retained beside three hundred and sixty-five days. The reproductive count, grasses and membrane-sinew terms remain historical correspondences, not a revised modern anatomical tally.
The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: “I wish to hear the measures of holding the needle, the principle of insertion, the meaning of proceeding and stopping, and how to guard or part the skin and open the interstices. Where the vessels bend and enter or emerge, where should one withdraw, stop, proceed slowly or swiftly, or enter? I wish to hear all the transporting of the six fu through the body, the ordered places of separation, where one course leaves to enter yin and another branches into yang. By which pathways do they travel? I wish to hear their patterns fully.”
Qi Bo said: “What the Emperor asks encompasses the whole Way of needling.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “I wish to hear it to the end.”
Qi Bo said: “The Hand Taiyin vessel emerges at the tip of the thumb, bends inward and follows the border of pale flesh. Behind the root joint it reaches Taiyuan, where it lingers and moves gently. It bends outward, rises below the root joint, bends inward and meets the yin networks at Yuji. Several vessels pour together; qi is slippery and free. It travels hidden beneath the yong bone, bends outward and emerges at Cunkou, then rises to the inner elbow edge. It enters below the great sinew, bends inward, ascends the yin side of the upper arm, enters the armpit, bends inward and runs to the Lung. These are the bends of its favorable course enumerated in reverse.
“The Heart Ruler vessel emerges at the middle fingertip, bends inward and follows its inner edge upward. It lingers in the palm, travels hidden between two bones, bends outward and emerges between two sinews at the border of bone and flesh, with qi slippery and free. Rising two cun, it bends outward and travels between two sinews to the inner elbow edge. It enters below the small sinew, lingers at the meeting of two bones, rises into the chest and networks internally with the Heart vessels.”
Yong remains the supplied bone name. The full courses and two-cun measure are retained without replacing them with a modern point map.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Why does Hand Shaoyin alone have no transporting sites?”
Qi Bo said: “Shaoyin is the Heart vessel. The Heart is the great ruler of the five zang and six fu and the dwelling of essence and spirit. Its zang is firm and secure and cannot accommodate harmful influence. If it did, the Heart would be injured; injury would drive spirit away, and departure of spirit would mean death. Thus harmful influences said to be in the Heart are all in its enclosing network. That network is the Heart Ruler vessel, so Shaoyin alone has no transporting sites here.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “If Shaoyin alone has no transporting sites, does it not become ill?”
Qi Bo said: “Its outer channel becomes ill, while the zang does not. Thus its channel alone is addressed at the end of the pointed bone behind the palm. The entering, emerging and bending of the other vessels, and their slow and swift travel, are all like the Hand Shaoyin and Heart Ruler vessel account. Root transporting sites are addressed according to qi’s emptiness and repletion, swiftness and slowness. This is draining with the surge and supplementing with decline. Harmful qi can then leave and true qi remain secure. This is called following heaven’s sequence.”
The compressed Shaoyin/Heart Ruler wording and the distinction between an ill outer channel and the protected zang are retained. No absent transporting-site list is supplied.
The Yellow Emperor said: “How does one hold the needle, proceed and stop?”
Qi Bo said: “First clearly know the roots and ends of the twelve channel vessels, cold and heat of skin, and abundance, decline, slipperiness and roughness of vessels. Slippery, abundant vessels indicate daily advance of illness. Empty, fine vessels call for long management. Large, rough vessels indicate painful obstruction. Yin and yang alike make illness difficult to treat. Heat remaining at root and end means illness remains; when heat declines, illness also leaves.
“Hold the chi region and examine the flesh for firmness or brittleness, size, slipperiness or roughness, cold or warmth, dryness or damp. Then observe the five eye colors to know the five zang and decide life and death. Inspect blood vessels and their color to know cold, heat and painful obstruction.”
The chi region remains the source’s forearm diagnostic region; no new measurement or validated prognostic rule is introduced.
The Yellow Emperor said: “I still have not grasped holding the needle, proceeding and stopping.”
Qi Bo said: “The Way of holding the needle seeks uprightness and straightness, steadiness and quiet. First know emptiness and repletion, then act swiftly or slowly. The left hand holds the bone and the right follows it; do not become wrapped with the flesh. Draining should be upright and straight; supplementation must close the skin. Support the needle and guide qi so harmful influence can spread out and true qi remain.”
The source explicitly writes “bone” in the left-hand clause and has an uncertain wrapping graph. Both are retained without silently substituting “needle” or adding a handling technique.
The Yellow Emperor said: “How is the skin guarded or parted and the interstices opened?”
Qi Bo said: “Follow the divisions of flesh. With the left hand separate the skin; enter slightly and straighten slowly. Keep spirit from scattering, and harmful qi can leave.”
The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: “People have eight hollow regions. What does each reveal?”
Qi Bo replied: “They reveal the five zang.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “How do they reveal them?”
Qi Bo said: “When Lung and Heart contain harmful influence, its qi remains in both elbows. In the Liver, its qi flows into both armpits. In the Spleen, it remains in both thigh regions. In the Kidney, it remains in both knee hollows. These eight hollows are chambers of the joints’ mechanisms, passages of true qi and places where blood networks travel. Harmful qi and bad blood must not remain there. If they remain, they injure sinews, networks, bones and joints, preventing bending and stretching and producing contraction.”
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