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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 75 · Needling Divisions: True and Harmful Qi
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked Qi Bo: “I have heard that needling has five divisions. What are they?”
Qi Bo said: “There are indeed five: shaking off dust, dispelling obscuration, removing claws, taking off clothes and resolving confusion.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “You name five divisions, but I do not understand their meaning.”
Qi Bo said: “Shaking off dust needles the exterior to remove yang illness. Dispelling obscuration needles fu transporting sites to remove fu illness. Removing claws needles joints and branching networks. Taking off clothes needles all the unusual transporting sites of the yang channels. Resolving confusion means fully knowing how to regulate yin and yang, supplement and drain excess and insufficiency, and shift their imbalance.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “The needling divisions speak of shaking off dust, while you speak of needling outer channels to remove yang illness. I do not understand. I wish to hear it fully.”
Qi Bo said: “In shaking off dust, yang qi counterflows strongly, filling the chest above, with anger, staring and shoulder-assisted breathing. Great qi rises against its course, with panting, loud breathing, sitting or crouching, aversion to dust and smoke and choking inability to breathe. Let me explain shaking off dust: its effect is said to be faster even than shaking dust away.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. Where is it addressed?”
Qi Bo said: “Address Tianrong.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “For cough, rising qi, exhausted constraint and chest pain, where is it addressed?”
Qi Bo said: “Address Lianquan.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Is there a measure for addressing them?”
Qi Bo said: “In addressing Tianrong, do not exceed one li. In addressing Lianquan, stop when the blood changes.”
The supplied “one li” is disputed in older readings. It is retained without deciding that it is a modern insertion depth, distance or timed interval.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Excellent.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “I do not understand the division called dispelling obscuration. Obscuration means the ears hear nothing and eyes see nothing, yet you speak of needling fu transporting sites to remove fu illness. Which transporting site makes this happen? I wish to hear why.”
Qi Bo said: “Subtle indeed is the question! This is the great essential of needling, the utmost of the needle, akin to spirit clarity. Speech and written scrolls cannot fully reach it. Let me speak only of dispelling obscuration: its effect is said to be even swifter than removing a covering.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. I wish to hear it to the end.”
Qi Bo said: “This needling must take place at midday. Needle Tinggong, reaching what is called its mouzi; sound is heard in the ear. This is the transporting site.”
Mouzi ordinarily means the pupil, but its reference in this ear-site sentence is disputed by older commentators. The supplied expression is retained without inventing a route from ear to eye or an eye-needling procedure.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. What does sound being heard in the ear mean?”
Qi Bo said: “In needling the harmful influence, the two nostril openings are pressed firmly with the hand and the stated yan action is made swiftly. The sound must answer the needle.”
The yan action has differing old readings, including reclining and a straining or sound-related action. No missing maneuver is reconstructed here.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. This is what is meant by acting without seeing it, without visual inspection, yet apprehending and addressing it, so that spirit clarity answers spirit clarity.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “The needling divisions speak of removing claws, while you speak of needling joints and limb networks. I wish to hear it fully.”
Qi Bo said: “Waist and spine are the body’s great joints. Limbs and shins are its pivots for walking and moving freely. The shaft and hanging parts are mechanisms within the body, signs of yin essence and pathways of jin and ye fluids. Irregular food and drink and untimely joy and anger make fluids overflow within and remain below at the testicular region. Blood pathways cease to flow; it enlarges day after day, impairing bending and straightening, walking and free movement. The illness holds water, moving neither up nor down, and is addressed with the blade instrument and stone. Its form cannot be hidden or ordinarily covered. Hence the name removing claws.”
The source’s blood-pathway wording and water-swelling image are retained without substituting a modern diagnosis or an added drainage method.
The Emperor said: “Good.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “The needling divisions speak of taking off clothes, while you speak of all the unusual transporting sites of the yang channels, without a constant location. I wish to hear it fully.”
Qi Bo said: “Yang qi is in excess and yin qi insufficient. Insufficient yin produces internal heat; excessive yang produces external heat. The heats strike together, hotter than holding charcoal against the chest. Externally, even silk or cotton approaching is feared; it cannot come near the body, nor the body near the mat. The interstices close and no sweat emerges. The tongue is scorched, lips withered and dry, throat dry, and food and drink are not distinguished as good or bad.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. Where is it addressed?”
Qi Bo said: “Address Tianfu and Dazhu with the stated three punctures, and also needle the middle-back region to remove heat. Supplement Foot and Hand Taiyin to remove its sweat. Heat departs and sweat diminishes, faster than taking off clothes.”
The three-puncture count and supplied removal-and-diminution of sweat are retained. They are not silently replaced by another edition’s sweating statement or a modern point combination.
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “The needling divisions speak of resolving confusion, while you speak of fully knowing how to regulate yin and yang, supplement and drain excess and insufficiency and shift their imbalance. How is confusion resolved?”
Qi Bo said: “Great wind is in the body and the blood vessels are empty on one side. Emptiness is insufficiency and repletion excess. Light and heavy fail to balance; the body tilts, bends and crouches. East and west, south and north are not known; now up, now down, now turned one way and now the other, overturning without constancy. It is worse than ordinary confusion.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. How is it addressed?”
Qi Bo said: “Drain excess and supplement insufficiency; yin and yang return to balance. Using needles in this way is faster than resolving confusion.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Good. Let it be stored in the Chamber of Linglan; I dare not bring it out carelessly.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “I have heard that needling has five harmful conditions. What are they?”
Qi Bo said: “Illness may hold an abscess, be capacious and large, narrow and small, hot or cold. These are called the five harmful conditions.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “How are the five conditions needled?”
Qi Bo said: “Their needling methods do not exceed five principles: burning heat is extinguished, swelling accumulations disperse, cold obstruction grows warm, the small gains yang and the great is removed. Let me explain the patterns.”
In needling the abscess condition, do not meet its rising height. Change its tendency as one changes customs and nature. If pus is not obtained, soften the pathway and change its course, removing its direction of lodging. Unable to settle, it disperses. Address and drain the transporting sites of the yin and yang channels passing the abscess.
The softening-and-course clause is compressed and has differing readings. Its broad sequence is retained without a reconstructed procedure.
In needling the large condition, make it smaller day by day. Release its excess so repletion is diminished; open its passage and needle its harmful influence. Attend closely to flesh, inspecting without reversing or mistaking its true condition. Needle between the divisions of flesh of the yang channels.
The brief passage-and-flesh wording is uncertain; no additional site or cutting technique is supplied.
In needling the small or deficient condition, bring daily increase. Supplement insufficiency to avoid harm. Observe where it lies and meet its boundary, allowing qi from near and far to arrive fully. Prevent its outward encroachment; proceed gradually until the harmful condition exhausts itself. Needle between divisions of flesh.
In needling the hot condition, release and cool it, sending it away without return so illness ceases. Open passage and gates so harmful influence can emerge and the illness ends.
The cooling sense follows a disputed reading of the graph supplied as cang. The source’s written graph remains unchanged.
In needling the cold condition, bring daily warmth. Go and come slowly to draw spirit. With gates closed, qi does not divide and escape. Emptiness and repletion are regulated and qi remains.
The Yellow Emperor said: “How are the needles assigned?”
Qi Bo said: “For an abscess use the blade-edged needle; for the large condition the pointed needle; for the small the round-sharp needle; for heat the chan needle; for cold the fine needle.”
Let me explain the discussion of release. It corresponds to heaven and earth and matches the four seasons. People participate in heaven and earth, so their knots can be understood and released. Wet ground below grows reeds and rushes above: this reveals how much form and qi are present.
Yin and yang are cold and summer heat. In heat, moisture and rain are above and roots contain little juice. Human qi lies outside, skin relaxes, interstices open, blood and qi diminish, sweat pours and skin is soft and moist. In cold, earth freezes and water becomes ice. Human qi lies within, skin is dense, interstices close, sweat does not emerge, blood and qi are strong and flesh firm and rough.
At such a time, a skilled water traveler cannot cross ice and a skilled digger cannot pierce frozen ground. A skilled needler likewise cannot immediately address reversal of all four limbs or make congealed, firm, pounding blood vessels that do not move soft at once. Travel and digging must wait for warmth to release ice and frost; human vessels are likewise.
Treating reversal therefore first calls for warming and harmonizing the channels, palms and armpits, elbows and feet, nape and spine. Once fire qi communicates and blood vessels move, inspect the illness. Moist, yielding vessels can be needled to balance; hard, tight ones opened and dispersed. Stop when qi descends. This is releasing knots.
Needling concerns regulating qi. Qi gathers in the Stomach to connect nutritive and defensive circulation, each following its route. Gathering qi stays in its sea; below it pours into Qijie and above it runs into the breathing pathway. When reversal is in the feet, gathering qi does not descend and vessel blood congeals and remains. Without regulation by fire, it cannot be addressed.
Before using needles, inspect emptiness and repletion of channels and networks. Palpate and follow, press and flick, observing their moving response before addressing and bringing qi down. When the six channels are regulated, this is called freedom from illness; even if illness exists, it is said to cease of itself. If one channel is replete above, empty below and blocked, a transverse network must be overly abundant against the great channel. Inspect and drain it: this too is releasing knots.
For cold above and heat below, first needle Taiyang at the nape and retain a long time. Afterward warm nape and shoulder blades until heat joins below; this is called pushing upward. For heat above and cold below, inspect and address empty vessels sunk in the channels and networks, stopping when qi descends: this is called drawing downward.
For great heat throughout the body with kuang and unreal seeing, hearing and speech, inspect Foot Yangming and the great networks. Supplement emptiness and drain sites containing blood and repletion. The account then describes the patient lying on the back, the practitioner positioned at the head, using four fingers of both hands to press beside the moving neck vessels, holding, rolling or pressing and pushing downward to the collarbone hollow, then repeating as before until heat leaves. It calls this pushing and dispersing.
The supplied diminution of blood and qi in heat, the downward-joining heat in the method named upward pushing, and the compressed final rolling/pressing actions are retained. The historical neck-vessel account is not expanded into modern vessel identification, force, duration or clinical technique.
The Yellow Emperor said: “One vessel can produce dozens of illnesses—pain, abscess, heat, cold, itching, obstruction or numbness—with endless changes. Why?”
Qi Bo said: “These all arise from harmful qi.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “I have heard of true qi, proper qi and harmful qi. What is true qi?”
Qi Bo said: “True qi is received from heaven and joins grain qi to fill the body. Proper qi is proper wind, coming from one direction, neither replete wind nor empty wind. Harmful qi is the injurious empty wind that strikes deeply and cannot leave of itself. Proper wind strikes shallowly, joins and leaves of itself. Its approach is gentle and weak and cannot overcome true qi, so it leaves.”
The source distinguishes proper, replete and empty wind here; these terms are not collapsed into one category.
An empty harmful influence brings shivering and bodily movement, raises the fine hairs and opens the interstices. Entering deeply, it strikes bone and becomes bone obstruction; striking sinews, contraction; striking vessels, closure of blood and blocked passage, then abscess. Striking flesh, it contends with defensive qi: prevailing yang brings heat, prevailing yin cold. Cold drives true qi away; departure brings emptiness and emptiness cold.
Between skin layers its qi emerges outward, opening interstices and stirring hair. Qi moving back and forth produces itching; remaining without leaving produces obstruction; failure of defensive qi to move produces numbness.
If an empty harmful influence occupies one half of the body, enters deeply and dwells in nutritive and defensive circulation, they gradually decline, true qi departs and harmful qi remains alone, producing one-sided withering. A shallow influence produces vessel pain on one side.
When an empty harmful influence enters deeply, cold and heat contend, remain long and adhere within. Cold prevailing over heat brings bone pain and withered flesh. Heat prevailing over cold rots flesh into pus and injures bone within, producing bone erosion.
If illness affects the front sinews so they bend and cannot stretch, harmful qi remains without returning and produces a sinew liu. Where something knots, qi gathers and defensive qi stays without returning. Jin and ye fluids remain long and combine into an intestinal liu, taking several years to form and feeling soft under the hand.
Where a knot already exists, qi gathers, fluids stay and harmful qi strikes it. Congealing worsens daily and links into a fixed mass called an old liu, firm under pressure. A knot striking deeply into bone draws qi to bone; bone and qi combine, enlarging daily into bone ju. A knot in flesh draws gathering qi; retained harmful influence with heat transforms into pus, without heat into flesh ju. These several qi arise in no fixed place but have established names.
The front-sinew phrase and liu graphs are textually uncertain. Liu and ju retain the historical names for swellings and deep lesions; no modern tumor type or missing anatomical site is substituted.
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