When the True Organ Pulse Appears, How Many Days Does a Person Have Left? Doctor Luo Dalun Presents Doctor Ni Haixia’s Twenty-Seventh Lecture on the Huang Di Nei Jing: The Threshold of Life and Death in the Ping Ren Qi Xiang Lun and the Opening of the Yu Ji Zhen Zang Lun

Patient search terms: is the last brightening of the candle real / a chronically ill person who never eats suddenly wants to eat / reading the pulse to know life and death / are puffy eyes a disease / what causes a swollen face / what causes swollen feet / how Chinese medicine sees diabetes / does yellow-red urine mean liver or gallbladder / how to feel the pregnancy pulse / constipated for seven days but the pulse is weak / how Chinese medicine judges how long someone will live / a pulse beating nine or ten times per breath

Corresponding medical names: Su Wen · Ping Ren Qi Xiang Lun (On the Qi of the Normal Person) · Yu Ji Zhen Zang Lun (On the True Organ Pulses, the nineteenth chapter) · yin and yang joined in the Way · hui guang fan zhao, the last brightening of the candle (yin level and yang hidden / yin exhausted and yang floating out) · chi-position diagnosis (jie yi, exhaustion / tuo xue, loss of blood / re zhong, heat in the middle burner) · qi heng and kui du (the strange constants and the measuring rod) · the heavenly stems and earthly branches and the five-element cycles for naming the day of death (liver meets geng-xin / heart meets ren-gui / spleen meets jia-yi / lung meets bing-ding / kidney meets wu-ji) · the true organ pulse (zhen zang mai) · the ren ying pulse (water qi in the chest) · mu ke, the eye bags, the wo can silk-worm cocoons, and reading water · yellow-red urine distinguishing gallbladder from liver · xiao ke, wasting-thirst, in three types (upper / middle / lower) · a swollen face is wind, swollen shins are water · feng shui, wind-water · huang dan, jaundice · a greatly stirring hand shaoyin pulse means pregnancy · the pulse going against the four seasons · the pulse contradicting the symptoms · man takes the grains and water as his root · stomach qi and the three yang pulses (taiyang huge and long / shaoyang now rapid now sparse / yangming floating, large and short) · the source of Zhang Zhongjing’s three-yang differentiation · the five viscera in health, in disease and at death (heart: a string of pearls / the hooked pulse / a belt-hook in the hand; lung: an elm leaf falling / feeling a chicken feather / wind blowing the down; liver: the tip of a long fishing rod / a long rod / a freshly strung bow; spleen: a chicken stepping on the ground / a bird pecking / water flowing away; kidney: firm under pressure / a trailing vine / a stone flicked off a string) · the spring pulse is wiry (the eastern wood) · in excess drain the child, in deficiency tonify the mother · the Xie Xin Tang (Draining the Heart Decoction) versus the Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan (Heavenly King Tonifying the Heart Pill)

Opening: when the candle burns to its last flicker, the flame is brightest

In this lecture Doctor Ni carries on from the pulse diagnosis of the previous episode — and he opens with a phenomenon that sends a chill down your spine: hui guang fan zhao, the last brightening of the candle.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Look at a person — is his voice weak, is his complexion pale? If the pulse feels very large, like a ditch, very wide, and then you check whether his urine flows (whether urination is smooth), and his complexion is pale — the viscera are nearly finished. Because when yin reaches its limit and is about to rise, yang must float out. Yin and yang are symmetrical to each other — it is like a candle about to burn dry: in that last instant, the flame is the brightest. That is hui guang fan zhao. There are people who have lain ill in bed a long time, eating nothing, and one night they suddenly say, “I want to eat.” You think the appetite has returned and the illness is cured? No — he is about to die. So when the pulse follows the four seasons, there is no disease; when the pulse goes against the four seasons, there is disease. Ji bu jian zang mai, yue nan zhi — when the extreme pulse shows no true organ quality at all, it is called hard to treat — the pulse has reversed, and the illness is difficult.

And one hard piece of inspection knowledge:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Hold out your arm and look at the inner side, not the outer side — if there are many green-blue veins on the inner side, this patient has had loss of blood; the blood is not enough.

One touch of the chi pulse: is it exhaustion, or loss of blood?

Next comes the chi pulse — the chi position is itself a yin pulse, and Doctor Ni links it directly to yin:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: If the chi pulse is relaxed yet forceful, that is jie yi — the person is extremely fatigued and weary. A person has spirit and strength because yin and yang can balance each other. When yin is deficient — yin is what you can see, the flesh, the nourishment — when the nourishment is not enough, then illness has no strength. If a person lies flat and still, resting peacefully, not moving, yet the pulse is very strong — like the pulse right after you finish running — lying still with a surging pulse is tuo xue, loss of blood. A person’s yin and blood: blood is yin. Once blood is lost, yin becomes deficient, and when yin is deficient, yang rises up against it and grows vigorous. The chi pulse can also distinguish several diseases: when the chi position is slippery — slippery, or rough and slippery together — the body sweats much; when the chi pulse is cold and thin, that is diarrhea that will not stop, the stool pouring down from the anus; when the chi pulse is warm at first touch, that is re zhong — the middle burner is comparatively hot. If the chi pulse is large, the yin and yang coming from above and below meet and exchange at the middle burner. In fact re zhong is very easy to diagnose — you look at this patient, the belly is rather big, the hands are yellow, and re zhong is finished. Of course, when we lecture on the Huang Di Nei Jing we cannot teach it that way; we must follow the book, or when you reach the clinical bedside the patients will not listen to you.

Consulting an almanac to name the day of death? This is not fortune-telling — it is the Huang Di Nei Jing

Turning to page 144, Doctor Ni explains the heavenly stems and earthly branches — this is what the Nei Jing calls qi heng and kui du, the strange constants and the measuring rod:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The heavenly stems are the qi of heaven; the earthly branches are the qi of earth. A person with liver disease meets great misfortune on geng or xin days — because the qi of heaven and earth on geng-xin days belongs to metal, and metal conquers wood; that is a day of conquest. So most people with liver disease die in that span of time, on a geng day or a xin day. People with heart disease easily die when they meet ren-gui days (water conquers fire). Spleen disease meets jia-yi days (wood conquers earth), lung disease meets bing-ding days (fire conquers metal), kidney disease meets wu-ji days (earth conquers water) — when the true organ pulse appears, all of these end in death. Simply remember the conquering days.

And how do you use it? Doctor Ni pulls out an almanac and demonstrates on the spot:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: For example, you feel a true organ pulse — the pulse comes only once or twice with each breath in and out, or it comes nine or ten times — you take out the almanac from your pocket and look. It is clearly a liver disease, and you see a geng-xin day, right? Then you know which day. If geng-xin falls tomorrow, there is only one day; if it is still three days away, there are three days. That is how it works. So this is not fortune-telling — it comes in from the Huang Di Nei Jing.

When the eye bags swell, it is a water disease — reading water, the liver and the gallbladder

The ren ying pulse governs the water in the chest: when the veins move and pant and cough, there is water — if you feel the ren ying pulse and it moves very fast, very quickly, there is fluid accumulated in the chest cavity.

Then the eye bags — Doctor Ni says the eye bags have a very elegant name in Chinese medicine: wo can, the silk-worm cocoons:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The eye bags are the place below the eyes. When the eye bags are like silk-worm cocoons — you see them whitish, and you can see water through the skin — that is edema, a water disease. I talk about this and it sounds very mysterious, but when you see it in the clinic, it really is exactly like this.

He also mentions the folk practice of reading offspring from the eye bags (the part unrelated to illness): if both eye bags are bright and glossy, the offspring are excellent; if the left is missing and the right is present, there are no sons and only daughters are born; if the right is missing and the left present, sons but no daughters; if black appears in the eye bags, folk belief says the child dies young. Doctor Ni says that just from the eye bags, Chinese medicine has studied this much — but he emphasizes especially that the little bit unrelated to illness, if you cannot remember it, no matter; the key point is “when you see the silk-worm cocoons, you know there is a water disease.”

Yellow-red urine — gallbladder or liver? One question, “does he sleep well,” separates them:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: If the urine is yellow-red but the person sleeps very well, the gallbladder has a problem. If the urine is very yellow-red but the person cannot sleep, the liver has a problem. Why speak of peaceful lying down? Night is yin, and the liver governs the blood; a person must lie peacefully at night. If he cannot lie peacefully, the liver has a problem — you look at the viscus and at yin and yang: daytime is yang, nighttime is yin. Do not forget yin and yang.

The three brothers of wasting-thirst: cannot drink enough, cannot eat enough, cannot use it

Eat a meal and be hungry again — what is this? Doctor Ni takes the opportunity to divide xiao ke (wasting-thirst, what we call diabetes) into three kinds:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: If a person is hungry again right after eating, that is stomach heat — the stomach keeps dissolving grain — and this is what we call diabetes. We divide xiao ke into three types: one is thirst — however much water he drinks, the thirst cannot be stopped; one is eating — he eats bowl after bowl of rice, and after finishing, the stomach is still hungry; and one is that sexual function is gone. These are the upper, middle and lower three types of wasting-thirst.

A swollen face is wind, swollen shins are water, both swollen is wind-water

For a swollen face and swollen shins, Doctor Ni gives an extremely simple division:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: A swollen face is wind; swollen shins (jing, the shin) are water; a face and shins both swollen is feng shui, wind-water. Why? Water is heavy. If there is a lot of water, how could it climb up to the face? Water stays on the feet. The water that normally reaches the face is qi — when you breathe out, is not the breath a hot vapor? When the hot vapor is gone and it becomes water, it sinks to the feet, so the feet swell.

Where does the wind come from? Doctor Ni tells a clinical anecdote:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Often a patient wakes up in the morning with the face puffy and swollen — that is a wind pattern. I say I will prescribe a wind-dispelling medicine — Chinese medicine has medicines that dispel wind — and then I tell him: at night, do not run the air conditioner, and do not point the electric fan at yourself. He does not understand. The air conditioner blows on him, the fan is at the head of the bed blowing on him. I say: if you do not sleep in a draft, it will not come back. He says, “If I do not have the fan blowing I cannot fall asleep” — fine, then we will do it the opposite way! I never say it. I tell him: I am telling you, it is the night draft that causes it. The cold air blows on your face, the fan blows on your face, and that is how you get this disease. You do not have to turn it off — when it swells again, keep coming to me for treatment, and I will make my money. He stops coming, goes home and turns the fan off. Speak nicely and he will not listen — people are strange.

Yellow whites of the eyes are jaundice; the wrist pulse jumping is pregnancy

Two quick judgments, one by inspection and one by palpation:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Yellow eyes are huang dan, jaundice — the white part of the eye is yellow. When a woman’s hand shaoyin pulse stirs greatly, she is pregnant. The hand shaoyin is the heart channel here — near the Shenmen point (HT7, Spirit Gate) there is an artery; when the pulse there moves very fast and very large, she is pregnant. Now you have learned two pregnancy pulses, right? When the yin pulse at the chi position is very strong and the yang pulse separates into two channels — you feel it split into two — those are the heartbeats of two little children, twins. Speaking of the hand shaoyin artery: when needling, it is very easy to hit the artery, so when we needle Shenmen we go that way, not this way — we go against the direction. Sometimes for tonification and drainage you can follow the needle along the channel, but I personally fear touching the artery — because the pulse of a yin channel is in a yin place, and injuring yin is worse; injuring yang does not matter much, yang can hold itself together, and static blood is consumed very quickly. Inside yin there is less yang, and when yin is injured it does not recover easily, so I try as much as possible to avoid it.

A pulse that fights the season, a pulse that fights the symptoms — both are hard to treat

The pulse must follow the four seasons, and Doctor Ni explains “going against the four seasons” very plainly:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The pulse has its following and its going against the four seasons; there is no constant course. In spring and summer the pulse should be comparatively floating and large — in spring the yang qi has just begun to rise, so it is floating; in summer the pulse should be larger. If it is the reverse — in autumn and winter the pulse should be deep, yet it is floating and large; in spring and summer the pulse is instead very thin and small — in spring and summer you feel autumn’s and winter’s pulse, in autumn and winter you feel summer’s pulse. This is going against the four seasons; it cannot match the four seasons, and it is not good. Even more troublesome than going against the seasons is the pulse contradicting the symptoms: wind-heat with a still pulse; diarrhea and loss of blood with a replete pulse; disease within with a vacuous pulse; disease without with a choppy, deep pulse — when pulse and symptoms do not match, it is comparatively hard to treat. Give a simple example: a person is constipated, no bowel movement for seven days. You already know it should be a replete pulse, right? You touch it, and the pulse is actually very small, very thin, without strength — pulse and symptoms do not match. It should be very large, feeling very strong; instead the pulse is vacuous — that is not easy to treat. This is what we call going against the four seasons — one is the reversal of the solar terms, the other is the reversal of the symptoms. The reversal of symptoms we call fan si shi, the reversed four seasons. Both are hard to treat, but not untreatable — they can all be treated, it is only a matter of how long it takes.

Man takes the grains and water as his root: stomach qi is eaten in, and the three yang pulses are Zhang Zhongjing’s source

Page 145 discusses the pulse of stomach qi and its relationship with the three yang pulses — and this passage, Doctor Ni says, is the source of Zhang Zhongjing:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Man takes the grains and water as his root; when a man is cut off from grains and water, he dies. The pulse of stomach qi comes from the five grains that we must eat — stomach qi is born from the food that comes from outside. If a person does not eat, does not drink, and the five grains do not enter, he will die. A pulse without stomach qi is a true organ pulse — the true organ pulse means exactly this: no stomach qi. As the text says, when the pulse cannot obtain stomach qi, the liver is not wiry and the kidney is not stony — the liver pulse is entirely wiry, the kidney pulse entirely stony, the yin and yang pulses all stony pulses. That is stomach qi clearly absent.

Then the three yang pulses — the pulse images of taiyang, shaoyang and yangming — which Doctor Ni says are the origin of Zhang Zhongjing’s Shang Han Lun:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The taiyang pulse is huge and long; the shaoyang pulse is now rapid, now sparse; the yangming pulse is floating, large and short. Zhang Zhongjing started from this very place and fixed the differentiation of the three yang — there is a taiyang chapter, a shaoyang chapter, and a yangming chapter. The so-called taiyang pulse is at the most superficial layer, where the skin is thinnest. If the disease is on the surface of the skin, you touch the pulse with the lightest touch — that is huge and long. The shaoyang pulse is truly large then truly small, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, because shaoyang governs opening and closing — it governs the opening of the gate. The yangming pulse is floating, large and short — for long and short, the boundary is nine fen to one cun: beyond that is long; shorter than that is a short pulse.

The taiyang pulse is huge and long — so why is it not a true organ pulse? Doctor Ni gives a special warning not to confuse them:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The taiyang pulse is huge and long, but it is not a true organ pulse — it is only an exterior syndrome; stomach qi is still there. When stomach qi is gone, the whole pulse shape stays unchanged, and it is very large and very hard, reaching past cun and past chi, extremely long, completely without stomach qi. Do not confuse the two: sometimes with a cold you touch the pulse and know it is a cold; sometimes you touch it and it is a true organ pulse — both float on the surface. But the true organ pulse pierces through chi and cun, it is very long, the pulse shape does not change, and it is very hard; the cold pulse you feel with a light touch, but press down and the pulse quality is gone — it is only a temporary exterior syndrome. The earliest names taiyang, shaoyang and yangming appear right here. From now on symptoms begin to be discussed, and later there will be taiyang patterns, shaoyang patterns, yangming patterns, and many formulas divided among them. Zhang Zhongjing was extremely familiar with the Huang Di Nei Jing; he extended the Huang Di Nei Jing outward, and that is how he could become the medical sage.

The five viscera in health, in disease and at death (part one): heart and lung

Page 146 — this passage of the Ping Ren Qi Xiang Lun speaks of the pulse of the “normal person,” and everything is judged by stomach qi:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: No matter spring, summer, autumn or winter, whether you feel the heart pulse, the liver pulse, the lung pulse or the kidney pulse, there must be stomach qi. What is stomach qi? Whether the pulse is wiry, huge, floating or deep, when you feel it, it must be relaxed yet forceful, and the speed is about five beats per breath; at eight beats and above, there is no longer stomach qi — stomach qi is about to rush upward. That is the basic concept.

The heart in health, in disease and at death — three appearances:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Ping xin mai lai, lei lei ru lian zhu, ru xun lang gan — the healthy heart pulse comes in a linked chain, like a string of pearls, like touching lang gan jade. It jumps in perfect order, like beads — this is the normal pulse of the heart, and in summer it takes stomach qi as its root. When the heart is diseased, the pulse comes panting and linked, slightly curved in the middle, shaped like a hook — the hook has two kinds: one hooks upward, one hooks downward; seen from the side, bulging out like a drum is also called a hook. Different circumstances, different pathological states. When the heart is about to stop, the pulse comes curved in front and dwelling behind, bent, like holding a belt-hook in the hand — this is called the pure hook pulse; there is no stomach qi left, the pulse is very hard and stiff, and the heart is finished.

The healthy lung pulse, Doctor Ni explains with a particularly vivid image:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Ping fei mai lai, yan yan nie nie, ru luo yu jia — this is the healthy lung. The ancients wrote beautifully; they describe the pulse as comparatively vacuous, comparatively empty, comparatively faint, not easy to feel. Just remember it is like a feather: a feather has a quill in the middle — you touch it and in the center there is a thin line, slightly higher, with down on either side. And the lung governs the skin and body hair, living at the pores of the skin, so you can feel it with a light touch — that is normal. The lung pulse sits at the cun position, five beats per breath, relaxed yet forceful — that is a constant pulse with stomach qi.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: When the lung is diseased, the pulse neither rises nor falls, like feeling a chicken feather — floating up then sinking down, floating up then sinking down, unstable. That is the diseased pulse of the lung. The death pulse of the lung is like a thing floating, like wind blowing the down — stomach qi is already gone, and at this time the pulse must be jumping nine or ten times, nine or ten beats per breath, and you know something is wrong.

The five viscera in health, in disease and at death (part two): liver, spleen and kidney

The liver pulse — Doctor Ni uses a fishing rod as his comparison:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Ping gan mai lai, ruan ruo zhao zhao, ru jie chang gan mo shao — like the tip of a fishing rod, like the fine end of a tree branch. The liver pulse sits at the right guan position. You touch it, fine and soft, four to five beats per breath, and forceful. When the liver is diseased, the pulse comes full and solid and slippery, like following a long rod — solid means forceful and comparatively fast, and slippery: you can feel the blood running, moving very quickly, like touching a water pipe with water flowing inside. When the liver dies, the pulse is urgent and increasingly forceful, like a freshly strung bowstring — the bowstring pulled taut. You touch it, and it is so fast that it feels like a single line; it does not sink at all, it is all floating, pushing against your fingers. Then the liver is already dead — all of this is without stomach qi.

The spleen pulse, with a chicken as the comparison:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Ping pi mai lai, he rou xiang li, ru ji jian di — a chicken steps lightly on the ground; it does not step heavily, the step is soft and steady, and when you touch it, it is very soft. When the spleen has problems, the pulse is sharp, like a bird pecking — it really is sharp, pushing up all the time; like the bird’s toes, the bird’s foot is very thin; like rain leaking from a roof, water running straight down — these descriptions are all metaphors. The death pulse of the spleen is like water flowing away.

The kidney pulse sinks beside the bone:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Ping shen mai lai, lei lei ru chuan, an zhi er jian. The kidney is a deep pulse, sinking beside the bone — the left chi position is the kidney. Look at the hand pulse from the side of the wrist: above, yang is a little higher; below, yin is a little lower; one cun behind the guan, nine fen in front of the guan. The kidney pulse comes deep and heavy, very close to the bone; you press heavily to the bone and can feel the pulse. The speed — a pulse with stomach qi — is five beats per breath. When the kidney is diseased, the pulse is like pulling a trailing vine, pressing makes it firmer — the harder you press, the stronger it springs, and the speed quickens. The death pulse of the kidney bursts forth like snatching a rope, pi pi like flicking a stone — it really is like flicking a stone; the stone is extremely hard. These are all death signs; kidney function is finished.

Opening the Yu Ji Zhen Zang Lun: why is spring a wiry pulse?

Turning to page 149, we enter the nineteenth chapter, the Yu Ji Zhen Zang Lun (On the True Organ Pulses) — this chapter discusses the healthy pulse and the diseased pulse. The Yellow Emperor asks: the spring pulse is wiry — what exactly is wiry? Qi Bo’s answer, Doctor Ni turns into plain speech:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: The spring pulse answers the eastern wood. When all things are just beginning to be born, the pulse is soft, light, vacuous and slippery, straight and long — that is the wiry pulse. What is opposite to it is disease. Because spring is the liver. In the concept of Chinese medicine, when a person acts as a physician, when diagnosing he must see the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter — birth, growth, harvest and storage — and bring the image of nature into it as well. Only then can he see heaven and earth together, truly diagnose the disease and truly cure it. This is why, from the viewpoint of heaven and earth, the liver is a wiry pulse: because of spring, the time when all things begin to be born.

And what is the reversed pulse? — excess and insufficiency:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: When the liver qi comes strong, that is excess (tai guo) — disease is without. When it comes insubstantial and faint, that is insufficiency (bu ji) — disease is within; it means there is disease inside the body. The Yellow Emperor asks: when the spring pulse is excessive or insufficient, what are the symptoms of the disease? Qi Bo says: when the liver pulse is excessive — in spring the speed is too fast, too strong — the person becomes forgetful (shan wang), and suddenly dizzy with vertigo and disease of the crown (hu hu xuan mao er dian ji). Why? Because the liver channel does not only connect to the eyes — the liver channel connects directly to the eyes, and it also connects to the Baihui point (GV20, Hundred Meetings) at the crown of the head, threading from inside all the way to Baihui. If the liver qi is too vigorous, it rushes to the brain — the yang inside the liver goes outward, and the person becomes forgetful, often dizzy, and develops epilepsy and fainting attacks of this kind. With insufficiency, the person suffers chest pain pulling to the back, and below, distension and fullness under both ribs.

For the great principle of treatment, Doctor Ni first throws out a formula — “drain the south, tonify the north” — and then takes “tonify the mother, drain the child” apart piece by piece, correcting a common misunderstanding along the way:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni: Excess is repletion, and the principle we hold is called “drain the south, tonify the north” — when the liver is too replete, drain the fire of the heart in the south (in excess, drain the child); when the liver is vacuous, insufficient, you must look after its kidney, tonify the water of the north (in deficiency, tonify the mother). Someone will ask: Teacher, earlier you said “in excess drain the child, in deficiency tonify the mother” — how does that work? When the liver is too replete, we drain its child — the child of the liver is the heart, so we use medicines that drain the heart fire. The medicines that drain heart fire and the medicines that tonify heart fire both enter the heart, but their functions are not the same: if you use medicines that tonify the heart fire, that is tonifying the deficiency of the liver (in deficiency, tonify the mother); if you use medicines that drain the heart fire, that is draining the child. So for repletion patterns of the liver family, we drain the heart. Many people know the Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan (Heavenly King Tonifying the Heart Pill) tonifies the heart — and we also have the Xie Xin Tang, many Xie Xin Tangs (Draining the Heart Decoctions). The formulas differ, the functions differ, so do not misunderstand; there is no contradiction at all.

Closing: the next passage is long, so we will take it up next class

This lecture carries an enormous amount of information — from hui guang fan zhao to chi-position diagnosis, from naming the day of death by the stems and branches to reading the eye bags, from the three types of wasting-thirst to wind-water and jaundice — and then it walks all the way through the five viscera in health, in disease and at death, and finally opens the spring wiry pulse of the Yu Ji Zhen Zang Lun. Doctor Ni says at the end: the passage that follows is rather long, so we will defer it to the next class; today we stop here.

String this lecture’s pulse wisdom into one sentence: when you feel the pulse, first look for stomach qi — with stomach qi there is life, without stomach qi there is death; then look at whether the pulse follows the four seasons and agrees with the symptoms; finally remember the three faces of each of the five viscera — healthy, diseased and dying. What those three fingers of yours press on has never been only a pulse — it is the entire qi mechanism of a person’s life.

Based on Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji (Human Records) lecture series on the Huang Di Nei Jing (Twenty-Seventh lecture)