The forms and meanings of the nine needles, and how heat or cold beneath the needle indicates tonification or reduction.
Su Wen (素问)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.
“Needling deficiency so as to make it full” means heat beneath the needle; when qi is replete there is heat.
ORIGINAL刺虚则实之者，针下热也，气实乃热也。
cì xū zé shí zhī zhě，zhēn xià rè yě，qì shí nǎi rè yě。
“Draining fullness” means cold beneath the needle; when qi is vacuous there is cold.
Zhen Jie Pian explains the nine needles and the symbolism of their shapes, then turns to the signs by which the practitioner knows whether the technique has worked. Its criterion is a change in temperature felt beneath the needle: heat indicates that yang qi has been restored, cold that heat has been dispelled.
The chapter also elaborates the correspondence between the needle and the human being, treating the instrument as a small model of the body it treats. This is characteristic of the analogical mode of the Su Wen and helps explain why later literature invests technique with so much meaning.
ANNOTATION
Stagnation and long standing (菀陈): the same as 宛陈 — evil accumulated over time.
The opening and closing of qi (气开阖): the emergence and entry of channel qi, with which tonification and reduction must keep pace.
Each needle exhausts its proper tonification and reduction (针穷其所当补泻): each of the nine needles has the occasion to which it is suited.
COMMENTARY
“Heat beneath the needle” and “cold beneath the needle” describe how the ancients felt the effect of tonification and reduction. Infrared thermography in contemporary research offers a natural cross-check. If a practitioner attends carefully to the change of temperature beneath the needle, there is an objective sign of whether the manipulation has been properly executed, and the method need not remain an empty form.