How to Use the Sweating, Vomiting and Purging Methods? Why Must Liver Disease Patients First Get Their Bowels Moving? Doctor Ni Haixia on the Great Treatment Laws and the Beginning of Pulse Diagnosis, from the Huang Di Nei Jing

Patient search terms: how is disease above treated? / what are the sweating, vomiting and purging methods? / how do you stop the fierce pain of gout? / massage and bloodletting for gout / fullness and distension of the belly / what should be treated first in liver disease? / can constipation hurt the yin? / should the blue veins and blood stasis on my legs be let out? / do Chinese herbs accumulate in the body? / why can’t I take vitamins? / how do you feel the pulse? / what are cun, guan and chi? / the left and right hand pulses are different / women’s pulses differ from men’s / five beats per breath / the true organ pulse

Corresponding medical names: the treatment laws of the Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun · the sweating, vomiting and purging methods · fullness in the middle is drained from within · disease in the skin is sweated out · the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica) · the fierce and swift are pressed and gathered · excess is dispersed and drained · deficient pain and excess pain · examine the yin and yang to distinguish the firm from the soft · yang disease treated in yin, yin disease treated in yang · settle the qi and blood, each keeping to its own home · when blood is excessive, break it open · when qi is deficient, draw it back · when deficient, tonify the mother · the Yin Yang Li He Lun, Chapter Six · number them and they reach ten, extend them and they reach a hundred · what has not emerged from the earth is yin within yin · the separation and union of the three yin and three yang · taiyang opens, yangming closes, shaoyang is the pivot · the source of the six channels of the Shang Han Lun · throbbing but not floating, throbbing but not sinking · the Yin Yang Bie Lun, Chapter Seven · the four channels and twelve branches · the Kan and Li hexagrams as pulse images · yang should be hidden · cun, guan and chi · the qi and blood of the left and right · the yang of the stomach cavity · the sea of water and grain · five beats per breath · the number five of the He Tu (River Chart) · the true organ pulse (the overflowing and covering pulses)

Opening: the Yellow Emperor lays down the laws of treatment, one by one

In the previous lecture Doctor Ni Haixia explained the many principles of the Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun. At the start of this lecture, the Yellow Emperor begins to “legislate” — the laws of treatment come out of these few sentences:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When the disease is above, we use the vomiting method. Vomiting does not necessarily mean a medicine that makes you vomit; it means that after taking the medicine, the reaction shows a vomiting phenomenon. And when the disease is below, we use the purging method — the purging herbs, the diuretics, they are all in here. So we have the sweating method, the vomiting method and the purging method — all of them come out of here.

Under the three great methods, there are two more rules:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Zhong man zhe, xie zhi yu nei — when the middle is full — the belly is distended and full — we must purge. When we purge, sometimes it comes out through the stool, sometimes through the urine, through diuresis — both phenomena occur. Qi zai pi zhe, han er fa zhi — when the disease is in the skin, we use the sweating method. This is where the definition is set: the “exterior” of exterior and interior.

When Zhang Zhongjing prescribed, he read the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing

Speaking of the sweating method, Doctor Ni immediately thinks of Zhang Zhongjing — and takes the opportunity to correct a widely circulated misunderstanding:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When Zhang Zhongjing used the sweating method, there were some taboos. Basically, all these principles of sweating are what Zhang Zhongjing saw back then: how do you induce sweat? What herbs do you use to induce sweat? You have to look at the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica). In Zhang Zhongjing’s time there was no Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica) yet! The Ben Cao Gang Mu is from the Ming dynasty, by Li Shizhen. Zhang Zhongjing had been dead for a very long time before the Ben Cao Gang Mu appeared, so he never saw it. So do you still need to verify? His prescriptions were absolutely not based on the herb properties recorded in the Ben Cao Gang Mu — he prescribed according to the herb properties in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing.

What do you do about fierce pain? Press and gather it — the massage and bloodletting method for gout

The next passage speaks of “piao han” (fierce and swift), and Doctor Ni explains it very practically:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi piao han zhe, an er shou zhi — the fierce and swift are pressed and gathered. What is meant by fierce and swift? There is severe pain, the illness comes on very fast, very fast, with severe pain — gout, for example. And we press and gather it (an er shou zhi) — that is, the way of massage and manipulation. Combined with the method of needling: for instance, if the whole palm is swollen, after you insert the needle, gently massage the palm; if it hurts on this side of the palm, you insert the needle from the other side, massage, massage, work your way over to this side, withdraw the needle, then let blood, then needle again, then massage again — do this several times in a row, and the gout is gone. This is what is meant by “press and gather it.”

There is another method that goes with “press and gather”:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi shi zhe, san er xie zhi — disperse this qi, use the dispersing method. What is called the dispersing method? Massage is dispersing, and bloodletting is also dispersing. And excess pain differs from deficient pain: deficient pain is a dull ache, sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn’t; excess pain — it manages to hurt all twenty-four hours of the day, because it has grown there; there is something there, so of course the pain is continuous.

Yang disease treated in yin, yin disease treated in yang: why liver disease must first get the bowels moving

“Shen qi yin yang, yi bie gang rou” — examine his yin and yang; with yang disease know yin, with yin disease know yang. Doctor Ni translates these two sentences into a clinical formula:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Why do we say that with yang disease you know yin? Of course, when there is illness, once we discover yang has disease — for example, we know the large intestine is constipated; the moment we see constipation, we immediately treat the yin. Why? Because if you don’t cure it, this constipation will affect the yin. So when yang has a problem it will affect yin; we first secure the yin, and then the pathogen in the yang cannot enter. In the same way, when yin has disease it will transmit to yang — we first secure the yang, and then the yin will not fall ill again, will not advance further.

Doctor Ni uses liver disease as his example — one of the principles he values most in clinical work:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: For example, a liver disease patient is constipated, his bowel movement is bad. At this moment we think: first regulate his bowel movement. You haven’t even treated the liver yet — first regulate the stool — and the disease is cut off, it cannot advance further. But when liver disease reaches the end stage, the stool is gone and the urine is also gone — if you try to open the bowels and the urine then, it is too late! So from the very beginning of treatment, keep his urine and stool flowing freely, first secure the yang, and then we can slowly work on his yin, and the disease will not advance — it becomes very easy to treat. This is the principle inside the Huang Di Nei Jing.

When blood is excessive, break it open: whenever you see blood stasis, let it all out

“Ding qi xue qi, ge shou qi xiang” — blood should return to blood, qi should return to qi. What do you do when the blood is excessive?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Xue shi zhe yi jue zhi — when blood is excessive, it is proper to break it open. We see a lot of it on the body — pull up the trousers and on the legs, on the arms, there are many blue veins and blood stasis; this is blood excess. You can see that it really is blood stasis. When we do acupuncture and we see blood excess, blood stasis, we let it all out. But honestly, in clinical practice there really is no time — so many patients are standing there; if you let blood from each one one by one, one person would blow up. That person’s leg is full of it — what do you do with all those blue veins? All right, you let out the big ones, that’s how it is. But some days when there happen to be few patients, you let it all out, and then prescribe herbs — the effect comes very fast! Because you have let out most of the blood stasis, the medicine is absorbed very quickly. Whereas if you never let the blood out, absorption is poor and the treatment takes longer.

When qi is insufficient, you “invite” it back with the needle:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi xu zhe yi che yin zhi — when qi is deficient, use acupuncture to guide and lead it. That is why acupuncture has the rule “when deficient, tonify the mother” (xu ze bu qi mu): when the qi and blood pass through the channel above, we use the mother point of that channel, with the tonifying technique, to treat it — this is guiding the qi and blood back to balance.

And with this, the Yin Yang Ying Xiang Da Lun is finished.

The Yin Yang Li He Lun, Chapter Six: yin and yang can be divided without limit, but there is one great principle

The next chapter is the Yin Yang Li He Lun (The Discourse on the Separation and Union of Yin and Yang), Chapter Six. The Yellow Emperor asks: heaven is yang and earth is yin, the sun is yang and the moon is yin; the big and small months make a year of three hundred and sixty-five days, and man corresponds to it, having three yin and three yang to answer yin and yang — why?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says: yin and yang — count them and they reach ten, extend them and they reach a hundred, count them and they reach a thousand, extend them and they reach ten thousand — you can only keep dividing yin and yang, dividing, dividing, dividing, without limit, there is no boundary. But there is one great principle: those that have not yet emerged from the earth — those that are still under the ground — all belong to the yin place, and are named yin within yin; those that have emerged from the earth are called yang within yin.

The human body as a picture: the diaphragm is the surface of the earth, the liver, kidney and spleen are seeds

Doctor Ni sets this great principle against the human body, and the whole room understands at once:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Look at the human body — isn’t it fun? That is why you cannot study Chinese medicine; once you study it, you become fascinated. If we take this diaphragm in the middle as the surface of the earth — then there is underground and above ground. The liver is here, the spleen is here, the kidneys are at the bottom — like two seeds buried under the soil. Water generates wood; earth and water generate wood; the wood grows many roots, stems, sinews and fascia, and when the fascia comes out, then the channels come, and the heart is generated, and circulation begins. So everything in the human body grows because of the spring, the spring season; it grows tall — in summer the grass grows tall, because of summer; it collects and stores — yin, autumn and winter collect and store — this is the transformation of the yin and yang of heaven and earth (zao hua, the creating transformation). So the body can be calculated, because there is growth, transformation, collection and storage.

The six channels of the Shang Han Lun come from right here

Speaking of the separation and union of the three yin and three yang, Doctor Ni points out a great matter — Zhang Zhongjing’s Shang Han Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage) got its chapters from exactly here:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Zhang Zhongjing’s Shang Han Lun — his chapters, the taiyang chapter, the shaoyang chapter, the yangming chapter — come from here. Qi Bo says: the sage stands facing south; in front is guang ming (broad brightness), behind is tai chong (great thoroughfare). The place of tai chong is named shaoyin; above shaoyin is named taiyang. If we look at it this way: the front of the person is guang ming, the back is tai chong; the kidneys are at our back, and above the kidneys we call it taiyang — that is the foot taiyang bladder channel of acupuncture. Is its jing-well point not at the foot? It runs all the way up from the foot. Below the diaphragm is all underground, so the yang channels are born from underground; their chong-yin knots at mingmen (GV4), so we call them yang within yin. Ascending to the chest, below guang ming is named taiyin — taiyin is the spleen; in front of taiyin is yangming — yangming is the stomach, and yangming is rooted at lidui (ST45, the well point on the foot); at the exterior of jueyin is named shaoyang — jueyin is the liver channel, and shaoyang is rooted at qiaoyin (GB44). Look at the three yang channels — their jing-well points are all on the foot, and they are named “shaoyang within yin.”

How do the three yang channels cooperate? Doctor Ni sums it up in three characters, then adds a little everyday “plot”:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The separation and union of the three yang: taiyang is the opening, yangming is the closing, shaoyang is the pivot. The three channels must not lose one another; throbbing but not floating, they are called one yang. Taiyang governs the opening and closing of the great gate; shaoyang governs the bolt — the pivot, speaking of transport: the yang qi and nourishment inside the body circulate because of shaoyang — only with shaoyang is there opening and closing, is there transport; yangming governs the closing — the closing means it stops here, it gathers. For example, take these three characters: in the morning your eyes open — taiyang has opened; you start brushing your teeth, moving — shaoyang has come; you are busy all day, and in the evening you go home, your eyes close — closed. Right? And if your yangming has a problem, you cannot sleep! Think with this way of thinking, and a whole day is told in a few sentences. The three must cooperate very well with one another, and together they are called one yang — it is only one movement.

The three yin: taiyin opens, jueyin closes, shaoyin is the pivot

The Yellow Emperor says: let me hear what the three yin are. Qi Bo continues:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: What is outside the person is yang; what is inside is yin. The middle is yin; its chong is below, and it is named taiyin — below the diaphragm we call it taiyin; taiyin is the spleen channel, rooted at yinbai (SP1, the well point on the foot) — this is yin within yin. Behind taiyin there is one channel, shaoyin — shaoyin is the kidney channel, rooted at yongquan (KI1); the kidney channel is shaoyin within yin. In front of shaoyin is named jueyin — jueyin is rooted at dadun (LR1, the jing-well point of the liver channel); the liver channel is jueyin within yin — inside yin, yang has reached its extreme place, because it is the extremity of yin (yin zhi jue yin). So the separation and union of the three yin: taiyin is the opening, jueyin is the closing, shaoyin is the pivot — shaoyin transmits and transports; at jueyin, at the very bottom line, in the innermost place, it closes. The three channels must not lose one another; throbbing but not sinking, they are called one yin.

There is also one phrase, “yin yang chong chong” — and Doctor Ni specially teaches the pronunciation of the character:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Yin yang chong chong — this character is read “chong,” the same as the “zhong” of the Middle Kingdom. Chong is the coming and going of qi; the coming and going of qi is chong. Ji chuan wei yi zhou, qi li xing biao, er wei xiang cheng ye — accumulated transmission makes one complete circuit; qi within, form without — on the surface of the skin, qi follows the skin from inside the body, mutually supporting and completing each other.

Throbbing but not sinking: Chinese herbs do not accumulate, Western medicines do

“Bo er wu fu” and “bo er wu chen” — throbbing but not floating, throbbing but not sinking. Doctor Ni says this sentence is the most important one in all of herbal pharmacology:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Yang, yin — it is all the same, all “bo er wu chen” — absolutely nothing may be deposited inside the body. This is the most important sentence. After a Chinese herb is taken, it does not accumulate in the body. Western medicine is different — you take one antibiotic, and it may stay in the liver for twenty-seven years without being eliminated. Chinese herbs are eliminated very quickly. Especially some of our toxic herbs: when we prescribe them, one dose of the toxic herb goes down, and three hours later you cannot find it anywhere in the body — because the toxin comes out together with the disease. And we do not casually give toxic herbs to a healthy person; we do use toxins, but only when they are needed.

An orange vs. a vitamin pill: nature produces nothing that is pure nutrition

Why is accumulation absolutely forbidden? Doctor Ni holds up the most ordinary thing there is — an orange:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Because of “bo er wu chen” — nothing deposits — look at everything in nature: an orange has its peel, it has a lot of fiber, it has water inside. When you eat an orange, you don’t say the water is absorbed and the fiber can’t be eaten — you put the whole thing in and eat it: the nutrition is eaten, the fiber is eaten, the water is eaten. So in the six harmonies of heaven and earth (liu he), there is not a single thing that is pure nutrition — nature does not produce pure nutrition, because pure nutrition would accumulate. Metabolism — the new replaces the old.

From this comes Doctor Ni’s famous criticism of vitamins:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Vitamins cannot be eaten — why? Because they are pure nutrition; you eat them and they are stored for two months, and nothing goes to replace them. For instance, when we eat an orange, the fiber helps you eliminate — not only is the vitamin C in there, you also have the fiber and the water helping you excrete it. But taking a vitamin C pill is different — inside it there is no fiber, no water, so it accumulates in the body. This is why Chinese medicine does not approve of taking nutritional supplements. Look: the first effect of taking vitamins is that your urine turns yellow — second, they accumulate in the body and slowly nourish the viruses — not very good. So it is better to eat natural things — this was already defined in the Huang Di Nei Jing.

The Yin Yang Bie Lun, Chapter Seven: straight to the pulse — first a basic concept

Take a rest; the next lecture is the Yin Yang Bie Lun (The Discourse on the Separate Discourses of Yin and Yang), Chapter Seven. The Yellow Emperor asks: people have four channels and twelve branches — what does that mean? This chapter is devoted entirely to the pulse — dividing yin and yang on the pulse. Doctor Ni first gives a basic concept, in the manner of the Book of Changes:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: You must understand what is called the normal pulse (chang mai) — normal. For example, we go and feel the pulses of a group of people: one yang hexagram — yang in the middle of two yin — this is the Kan hexagram; and two yang wrapping one yin — this is the Li hexagram — Li is fire, empty in the middle; Kan is yang between two yin. This kind of pulse image is called the normal pulse. You touch the hand and touch the skin, and the pulse is below — the pulse is hidden in the middle. Yang does not prize quantity; yang must hide, lurk within, and only then can it be used by our body. If yang goes outward, the person’s yuan qi (original qi) is gone, the strength is gone. The form is still inside — form is yin, but the body’s strength and power are yang. So the normal yin-yang relationship is: yin wraps yang, and yang lurks within. Ordinarily when you don’t exert yourself you can’t see it; but when you suddenly exert strength, the force is very great — this is yang hidden within yin.

Four channels and twelve branches: four seasons match four organs, twelve months match twelve channels

Why is it called “four channels and twelve branches”?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The four channels speak of, besides the spleen — the heart, liver, lungs and kidneys — corresponding to spring, summer, autumn and winter; the spleen is the long summer (chang xia), appearing at the transitions of the seasons. The twelve branches (the twelve channels) correspond to the twelve months — one month uses one channel. The pulse itself divides into yin and yang: he who knows yang knows yin, and he who knows yin knows yang.

Cun, guan and chi: guan is the place where yin and yang meet

How is the yin and yang on the pulse located? Doctor Ni points at his own hand and teaches it bit by bit:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: This is the crease of the palm, this is the thumb — we are speaking of the left hand. Taking the position of guan: above, we look for the place of yang; below, we look for the place of yin — this guan is the place where yin and yang meet, and a name is given to it: guan. So when taking the pulse we call it cun, guan and chi: cun speaks of yang, chi speaks of yin, and guan is in the middle.

Then he maps it onto the human body, and cun, guan and chi come alive at once:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In terms of the human build: the throat, the neck, the shoulders, then on to the chest and the belly. In the chest, here, between the two ribs, is where our diaphragm lies — the place of the diaphragm is the position of guan. Above it is what we call the cun position, and below it is what we call the chi position. Think of it with this idea.

The left hand governs blood, the right hand governs qi: and men’s and women’s pulses are not the same

The pulse divides into qi and nutrient blood — the pulse of the left hand governs the blood vessels, the pulse of the right hand governs the qi vessels:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When taking the pulse, sometimes we press with both hands at the same time, taking the left and right hands of the patient together for comparison. Women are different from men: women are governed by blood, so women take blood as the master — when her lung qi is very vigorous, the breast milk it produces is white; this is yang qi. Because women are governed by blood, the yang qi transforms into blood; blood is heavier, more sinking, so it sinks down, and becomes menstruation. Men are governed by qi; qi is lighter, so it rises — exactly the opposite. So when taking a woman’s pulse, the normal pulse is that the left hand is a little larger than the right, because women are governed by blood; for men, the right hand’s pulse should be a little larger than the left, because men are governed by qi — men and women must be separated.

The cun pulse of nine fen: when it overflows, the throat has a problem

He who knows yang knows yin — yang is more superficial, more firm; above is the ruler, below is the minister:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The cun pulse above — its shape and force should be a little greater than the chi pulse; this is a normal pulse. Cun must not cross the line of chi — one cun in length is the length of chi’s nine fen; if it exceeds this upward, it reaches the throat region. When you examine a patient and feel his cun pulse — why is this pulse always so long? It almost crosses the crease into the palm — it has overflowed! When it overflows, we know: the throat has a problem, the upper burner will have a problem. If a mass grows here and the tumor grows bigger and bigger, the pulse cannot go straight — the pulse is blocked, so the pulse qi bends to the left or to the right and becomes an L shape.

This L-shaped pulse is Doctor Ni’s sharp instrument for tracking the effect of treatment:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Why do you need to know this? Because when you are treating a disease and after a week of medicine the pulse bends more and more, more and more curved, it means you are wrong; if it slowly returns, slowly comes back, slowly comes back to straight, it means the patient is in the middle of recovery. This is how we look at the pulse to decide whether the patient’s disease is developing in a good direction or becoming more severe. So he who knows yin knows yang: we know yin at this position, and we also know the size of yang — generally speaking, yang should be a little larger than yin. For a woman’s pulse, the yin pulse of the left hand is larger than the right — this is knowing yin through yang and knowing yang through yin.

The yang of the stomach cavity: in pulse diagnosis, first set a standard — the stomach pulse

“What is called yin is the true organ [pulse]; when it appears it is defeat, and defeat means death. What is called yang is the yang of the stomach cavity. Distinguish the yang, and you know the place of the disease; distinguish the yin, and you know the time of life and death.” Doctor Ni says a definition is set right here:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Our right hand also has a guan — guan is the place of the diaphragm, and the diaphragm is exactly our stomach cavity (wei wan). That is to say, this place is the seat of the yang of the stomach in the middle. When taking the pulse, we must first establish a standard, and use it as the benchmark to measure everything else. So when you feel the guan pulse of the patient’s right hand, what you feel is his stomach pulse; take this stomach pulse as the master and compare — look at which pulse opposes it, and you know in which organ the disease lies.

How is the standard of the stomach pulse calculated? Within one breath:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Inhalation is yin, exhalation is yang; between one exhalation and one inhalation is the exchange of yin and yang. Exhalation comes from the heart and lungs; inhalation comes from the kidneys and liver; between the breathing appears the spleen — so in this middle is our spleen and stomach, the seat of stomach yang. Between one breath, the pulse reaches four beats: the exhalation pulse beats twice, the inhalation pulse beats twice. But it is impossible for a person to breathe without an interval, so there is an interval in the middle of one breath, and that adds one beat — so the normal pulse beats five times in one breath; take this as the standard. Do you remember the He Tu (River Chart) we spoke of earlier? The number five of the He Tu is the number of earth, the number of the spleen and stomach — this is the most standard — earth gives birth to the ten thousand things.

The stomach is the sea of water and grain: whether the organs have received stomach qi, one touch tells

The standard is set — how do you use it? Doctor Ni uses the heart pulse as an example:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The stomach is the sea of water and grain (shui gu zhi hai): all the food we take in, once digested, is enjoyed by our organs. How do you know whether the organs have received the nourishment of stomach qi? Take the stomach pulse as the master and feel the heart pulse — if the heart pulse is the same speed as the stomach pulse, the same force, the heart pulse above, a little more floating — all these are normal pulses. But if you feel the stomach pulse is normal, yet when you feel the heart — the heart has become very, very small. The heart is a yang pulse — how can that be? Any pulse that is very deep and very sinking is a yin pulse; any pulse that is very floating, very superficial, very fast is a yang pulse. The chest is our yang position; in the yang position there are the heart and lungs, and the yang pulse should be larger — when the pulse becomes small, we know the heart has a problem.

By the same reasoning, the chi pulse has its own story:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The chi pulse governs yin; the normal yin pulse is a little deeper. If the yin pulse beats even larger than the stomach pulse, then the kidneys and the spleen-stomach are crying for help — “Hey, you must save me, the food you ate, I did not receive it!” So with the stomach pulse as the standard, every other pulse can be measured.

The true organ pulse: when you feel the overflowing or covering pulse, this person is doomed

“Distinguish the yin, and you know the time of life and death” — this passage speaks of the true organ pulse. Doctor Ni puts the words out first:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The normal pulse has two kinds of abnormal pulse: the overflowing pulse (yi mai) and the covering pulse (fu mai) — these two pulses are what we call the true organ pulses (zhen zang mai). Generally speaking, when we feel a true organ pulse, this person is doomed. How do you see it? Normally it is nine fen, one cun. If this nine fen keeps rushing upward, rushing into the chi position — the yang pulse rushes out; why does it rush out? Because the yin below is pushing it: when your yin is too abundant, the yang is pushed toward the yang position and forced to go outward — at this moment it becomes the overflowing pulse: the whole pulse becomes one line, rushing all the way up. This is the overflowing pulse — a true organ pulse.

And there is another kind, the covering pulse, also a true organ pulse — from above, the yang position, it covers downward…

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: And if this kind of deadly position, if this pulse (covers down)… we will continue with this in the next lecture.

Closing: the laws are set, and the gate of pulse diagnosis has just opened

In this lecture Doctor Ni moved from “how to treat” to “how to diagnose”: the sweating, vomiting and purging methods come from the Huang Di Nei Jing, and Zhang Zhongjing induced sweat according to the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing; the fierce pain of gout can be pressed and gathered, and letting out blood stasis makes the medicine act faster; liver disease first gets the bowels moving, yang disease is treated in yin and yin disease in yang — this is the general outline of treatment. The Yin Yang Li He Lun finished the opening, closing and pivoting of the three yin and three yang, and in passing revealed the source of the six channels of the Shang Han Lun; the four characters “bo er wu chen” set the iron rule that Chinese herbs never accumulate. And in the Yin Yang Bie Lun, the gate of pulse diagnosis has just opened: cun, guan and chi, the qi and blood of left and right, the yang of the stomach cavity, five beats per breath, the true organ pulse — in the next lecture, Doctor Ni will take us on to keep feeling the pulse.

Based on Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji · Huang Di Nei Jing lecture series (Lecture Ten)