Nan Jing, Chapter 68: The Five Shu Points and Their Indications
The most compact statement of what each of the five shu points is for.
Nan Jing (难经)Meridians and Points
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.
Question: The five viscera and six bowels all have well, spring, transport, river and sea points. What does each govern?
Answer: The classic says: where qi emerges is the well, where it flows is the spring, where it pours is the transport, where it passes is the river, where it enters is the sea.
ORIGINAL然：经言所出为井，所流为荥，所注为俞，所行为经，所入为合。
rán：jīng yán suǒ chū wéi jǐng，suǒ liú wéi xíng，suǒ zhù wéi shù，suǒ xíng wéi jīng，suǒ rù wéi hé。
The well governs fullness below the heart; the spring, heat of the body; the transport, heaviness of body and pain in the joints; the river, cough with asthma and cold-heat; the sea, rebelling qi and diarrhoea.
The sixty-eighth difficulty assigns a therapeutic sphere to each of the five categories of shu point: the well points for fullness beneath the heart, the spring points for heat in the body, the stream points for heaviness of the limbs, the river points for cough and dyspnoea with chills and fever, and the sea points for counterflow qi and diarrhoea.
This scheme is the basis of most subsequent five-shu teaching. It is worth noting that it is a generalisation: later commentators qualify it heavily, and clinical practice often departs from it. But as a mnemonic for the function of each category it has never been improved upon.
ANNOTATION
What emerges is the well (所出为井): channel qi like spring water first issuing; hence well points lie mostly at the tips of the digits.
Shu (俞): the same as 输, transport.
Heavy body, painful joints (体重节痛): a sense of bodily heaviness with pain in the limbs and joints.
COMMENTARY
Of the eighty-one difficulties, nearly thirty concern needle method, which shows the weight the Nanjing gave to acupuncture. This difficulty compresses the indications of the five transport points into the fewest possible words and is ideal for memorising. Read it against the Lingshu chapter Ben Shu: one gives location and phase correspondence, the other the indications, and together they show the five transport points whole.