The Nine Needles and the Twelve Yuan-Source Points
The opening chapter of the Ling Shu: the essentials of needling, tonification and reduction, the forms of the nine needles, and the arrival of qi.
Ling Shu (灵枢)General Principles of Needling
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English is translated from the Chinese vernacular. The original text and its pinyin sit beneath each sentence in smaller type; hide them whenever you prefer to read the translation alone.
The essentials of the small needle are easy to state but hard to master. The lesser physician grasps only the outward form of the technique; the superior physician attends to the patient’s spirit.
In all needling: where there is deficiency, make it full; where there is fullness, drain it; where blood is stagnant and long settled, remove it; where evil prevails, reduce it.
The Great Compendium says: slow in and quick out produces fullness; quick in and slow out produces emptiness.
ORIGINAL《大要》曰：徐而疾则实，疾而徐则虚。
《dà yào》yuē：xú ér jí zé shí，jí ér xú zé xū。
Speaking of fullness and emptiness, they seem present and yet absent; observe what comes before and after, and they seem to remain and yet to vanish. In making empty or making full, one seems to gain and yet to lose.
ORIGINAL言实与虚，若有若无，察后与先，若存若亡，为虚与实，若得若失。
yán shí yǔ xū，ruò yǒu ruò wú，chá hòu yǔ xiān，ruò cún ruò wáng，wéi xū yǔ shí，ruò dé ruò shī。
The subtlety of needling lies in speed and slowness. The lesser physician guards the joints; the superior guards the mechanism. The movement of that mechanism never departs from the hollow of the point.
The crux of needling is that qi arrives and there is effect. The certainty of that effect is like wind scattering the clouds so that the blue sky suddenly appears; here the way of needling is complete.
This is the programmatic opening of the Ling Shu and the closest thing the classical literature offers to a general statement of acupuncture theory. It sets out the principle that treatment must be adjusted to deficiency and excess, describes the nine needles and the situations each was made for, and defines the twelve yuan-source points as the places where original qi surfaces.
The chapter also contains the earliest concise account of what the practitioner should feel at the needle: the arrival of qi, described as a sensation of tightness and heaviness beneath the fingers. Nearly every later discussion of deqi, of the distinction between tonifying and reducing, and of the relationship between the needle and the spirit traces back to these few hundred characters.
ANNOTATION
Small needle (小针): the filiform needle among the nine, so called because it is fine and subtle.
The coarse physician guards the form, the superior physician guards the spirit (粗守形，上守神): the lesser practitioner clings to the outward technique, while the superior one perceives the state of the patient’s spirit and the rise and fall of qi and blood.
The mechanism within the hollow (空中之机): 空 is read as 孔, the point itself; 机 is the sign of qi arriving and departing. The qi within the point is quiet and subtle, and must be sensed with a still mind.
Stagnation and long standing (宛陈): 宛 means knotted, 陈 means old — evil that has settled in the vessels over time.
COMMENTARY
As the opening chapter of the Lingshu, this is in effect the general programme of needle technique for the whole book. Every later discussion of tonification and reduction traces back to it. In practice the phrase “guard the spirit” is the most easily forgotten: students today devote themselves to the choreography of manipulation while giving little attention to the patient’s qi and blood or to mood and movement, and so earn the very reproach of “the coarse physician guards the form.” Read this chapter by first establishing the intention to guard the spirit, and only then discuss technique.