Suddenly Fainting with All Nine Orifices Sealed Shut? When the Three Yang Merge, Illness Strikes Like Thunder — Doctor Ni Haixia on the Discourse on Transmitting the Perfect Teaching, from the Huang Di Nei Jing

Patient search terms: sudden collapse / epilepsy and mania / urinary incontinence / diarrhea that won’t stop / all nine orifices blocked / weak arms and legs / blood in the stool / wheezing and coughing / cold with stiff neck and no sweating / constipation / how to tell yin deficiency from yang deficiency / how Chinese medicine diagnoses / Huang Di Nei Jing / acupuncture bloodletting

Corresponding medical names: the Su Wen · Zhu Zhi Jiao Lun (Discourse on Transmitting the Perfect Teaching), Chapter 75 (the foundation of the medical Way lies in yin and yang, the sudden violent illness of the three yang merging, the method of separating yin from yang) + the opening of the Su Wen · Shi Cong Rong Lun (Discourse on Calm Diagnosis), Chapter 76 (calm diagnosis, one organ as the main, examining illness by age, floating pulse in kidney disease, spleen disease misdiagnosed as lung disease, inferring by analogy).

Opening: something that breaks a medical student’s heart — Chapters 66 through 74 are lost

At the start of this lecture, Doctor Ni has something to tell everyone — after Chapter 65 of the Huang Di Nei Jing, Chapters 66 all the way through 74 were lost in the course of transmission.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When you buy the DVDs, you’ll see our own translation — and with it comes a bonus volume. That one comes from the Song edition, the Song-dynasty printing, compiled by Wang Bing. He restored Chapters 66 through 74. I copied out that middle section for you and attached it so you can read it yourselves.

The Nei Jing text itself is incomplete — and Doctor Ni also told the story of how he once went looking for a book. He went to find the Twenty-Two Masters (a collection of Han Feizi, Zhuangzi, Confucius, Laozi… every “zi” you can think of), and his original purpose was to find Han Feizi. He finally got hold of Han Feizi’s complete works, brought them home, and opened them up — and hidden inside was a chapter of the Huang Di Nei Jing! It was Chapter 72, the Ci Fa Pian (Needling Methods).

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: That chapter is very good, so I put some effort into translating it for everyone. With a translation you can see it much more clearly. So in our own edition of the Huang Di Nei Jing, we appended Chapter 72, the Needling Methods chapter.

Fu Xi, Shen Nong, Huang Di: three eras, three treasures

At this point Doctor Ni lays out the family treasures of Chinese culture for everyone:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the past, the people China knew best were from three eras: Fu Xi, Shen Nong, and Huang Di. Fu Xi gave us the eight trigrams of the Yi Jing (Book of Changes); Shen Nong gave us the Ben Cao Jing (Classic of Herbal Medicine); and there is the Huang Di Nei Jing. Parts of these texts have been lost. In addition to the Huang Di Nei Jing, we once also had the Huang Di Wai Jing — the Outer Classic of the Yellow Emperor — and it has been lost. If one day it should surface again, I personally might go crazy — I’d be so happy! Because these are treasures of Chinese culture. We don’t care about getting the original — that’s impossible — even a photocopy, in any form, would be wonderful.

The Discourse on Transmitting the Perfect Teaching: the Yellow Emperor summons Lei Gong, fresh out of school

Now the main subject — this lecture covers the Zhu Zhi Jiao Lun, Chapter 75. Look at the original text: the Yellow Emperor summons Lei Gong (Thunder Duke), and Lei Gong is a student who has just started out.

The Yellow Emperor asks: have you studied medicine? Lei Gong answers honestly: I have read the medical books, but I have not understood them deeply or completely — he hopes the Yellow Emperor understands what he means.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the old days, those who studied medicine aimed to reach up to Shen Nong, to grasp the perfect teaching, to stand beside the Two Sovereigns — hoping to learn enough to match Fu Xi above. The Two Sovereigns are Fu Xi and Shen Nong. The Yellow Emperor said: good, then you know what this is about.

The true spirit of the medical Way: know astronomy above, geography below, and human affairs in between

The Yellow Emperor then explains the very spirit of Chinese medicine — yin and yang, exterior and interior, upper and lower, female and male, corresponding and supporting one another, echoing and sustaining each other.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The true Way requires knowing astronomy above, geography below, and human affairs in between — only then can it last. With this ability, Chinese medicine can teach the people properly, raise no doubts, and this medical Way can be passed down through the generations. Chinese medicine’s prescriptions, their sources, the needling techniques, and the way all the qi of the channels and vessels moves — everything is done according to heaven and earth, the four seasons, the sun, moon and stars. So you must understand the principles of heaven and earth, understand the waxing and waning of yin and yang, the rule of yin’s decline and yang’s growth — then the medical art will never go to extremes.

After all this talk, Chinese medicine is just two characters: yin and yang

Lei Gong asks again: please explain the mystery of the medical art. The Yellow Emperor asks: have you heard of yin and yang? Chinese medicine is about yin and yang — after all this discussion, everything we talk about is yin and yang.

So how does Lei Gong answer? Doctor Ni cracks a joke here:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Lei Gong didn’t dare speak. He said: I don’t know — please, Yellow Emperor, you explain it. If he answered wrong, he’d be beheaded, right? Of course he wouldn’t speak. Very clever, very clever!

Then the Yellow Emperor says: the three yang act as heaven and serve their office, moving up and down without fixed rule; when they merge and arrive together, they harm yin and yang. Lei Gong doesn’t understand — what does “the three yang cannot be withstood” (san yang mo dang) mean?

The three yang cannot be withstood: when the three yang merge, illness comes faster than wind and rain

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The three yang — Taiyang, Shaoyang and Yangming — when the three yang merge together, the force is enormous and the speed is extremely fast. Once they are sick together, the illness erupts in an instant, with no warning beforehand. When it erupts, it comes like wind and rain: if it rushes to the crown of the head, it causes manic epilepsy (dian ji). So people with epilepsy — perfectly normal people — when the three yang merge together, they fall ill immediately and collapse on the spot — that is when it erupts into the head. If it erupts into the body instead, entering the abdomen, it makes the patient have endless diarrhea, or urinary incontinence.

This kind of illness comes extremely fast — you cannot predict when it will arrive, you cannot know it correctly in advance; and it does not occur on the channels, so when diagnosing, you also cannot diagnose it by the normal rules of medicine.

So how is it treated? In acupuncture there is a method —

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When we treat three-yang illness — for example, bloodletting at Bai Hui (GV20), bloodletting at the Ten Xuan (EX-UE11) points, bloodletting at the jing-well points on the channels — all of this is to keep the yang from merging — so that the yang does not come together.

All nine orifices sealed: when it erupts, the eyes, ears, nose and mouth all close shut

Doctor Ni turns to page 535 and explains in detail “the three yang are the utmost yang” — extremely yang, extremely great. Normally the three yang channels each walk their own road — the Yangming channel in front, the Shaoyang (gallbladder) channel at the side, the Taiyang (bladder) channel in back — the three yang do not merge.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If the illness merges together, and then a channel illness is produced, it gathers like a whirlwind and erupts in an instant — it strikes like thunder, and all nine orifices are sealed shut. When it erupts, the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, urine and stool — every opening closes completely. You call to the person beside you and he can’t hear you — nothing can be heard. Yang qi spills to the sides; when yang is too extreme it scatters sideways, causing a dry throat and blocked throat: the mouth is very dry, you cannot swallow anything, and in the throat there is a gurgling sound, very loud. If the illness is on the yin side, it causes endless diarrhea.

At this point Doctor Ni also reminds everyone of a reading habit: when you reach page 536 and suddenly a passage jumps out — “and moreover, you already know how the world separates yin from yang, responds to the four seasons, and matches the five elements” — it doesn’t quite connect with what comes before and after. Reading the Huang Di Nei Jing and finding this is normal, because this is an annotated edition; when the chapters were divided up, a passage suddenly jumped out of place.

Lei Gong seeks the Way: “spoken plainly I cannot separate it, spoken darkly I cannot grasp it”

Lei Gong says: spoken plainly (yang yan) I cannot separate it, spoken darkly (yin yan) I cannot grasp it — please grant me the explanation, and I will take it as the supreme Way.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The Yellow Emperor said: you must truly understand the real medical Way in order to pass it on to later generations. If you cannot understand the real medical Way — and the real medical Way is simply about yin and yang — and you pass on a wrong transmission, then instead you will wound people, you will harm others. It is like when the kidneys are about to exhaust their qi: the spirit, the will, and the physical strength all drain away with them. If you transmit the medical Way incorrectly, then “calmness cannot emerge, and human affairs are not fulfilled” (cong rong bu chu, ren shi bu yin) — because the next chapter is the chapter on Calm Diagnosis. Following the chapter on Calm Diagnosis, we learn how to relax the mind and focus completely when making a diagnosis — things of that sort.

Doctor Ni’s unique method for separating yin and yang: a person sleeps three cun above the ground

After the great teaching, Doctor Ni gives everyone a method for separating yin and yang — he tells everyone to forget all the Huang Di Nei Jing they learned before, and draw a bed in their minds:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Suppose this is your bed and this is your pillow, and you are lying here sleeping — neck here, chest here, legs here. Heaven is yang, earth is yin. Where do heaven’s qi and earth’s qi meet? Three cun above the ground — counting up from the ground surface, a distance of three cun is where the qi of heaven and earth meet, that is the standard. When a person sleeps, the head touches Bai Hui (GV20) at the top, the feet touch Yong Quan (KI1) at the soles, and the person sleeps right at the meeting place of heaven and earth.

So when a person sleeps, he receives the nourishment of heaven and earth — heaven is yang, earth is yin — it is a very balanced state.

After waking up? The person stands.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When a person stands up, he receives more of heaven’s yang and less of earth’s yin. So a human being is yang-primary, yang with a little yin within — and there is the definition of yin and yang! We separate yin and yang! No doubt about it? Very normal.

The yin-yang lesson taught by the mouse: yin creatures and yang creatures are born opposite

How do we prove this definition? Doctor Ni says: look at the mouse. A little mouse runs flat on the ground — the mouse lives below the meeting point of heaven’s qi and earth’s qi, so it receives more earth qi and less heaven yang.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Have you ever seen a mouse walk standing up? Kangaroos are the exception — those are in Australia. Ordinary mice always run flat on the ground, very fast — don’t they receive more earth qi? So we make our definition — mouse-kind are yin-heavy with little yang, yin and yang are reversed compared with humans.

For humans, balanced yin and yang is the normal state. Doctor Ni then explains all four states of yin and yang at once:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Suppose a person’s yang is too strong — when yang is too extreme, yin gets wounded, right? That causes yin-yang imbalance. Suppose a person’s yin is too strong — yang gets wounded. That is the concept. So you only need common sense and yin and yang come out — don’t overcomplicate it. If our yang is too excessive — for example, stool blocked in the large intestine, or a cold with fever, stiff neck, and sweating that won’t come out — that is yang excess (yang shi). If you don’t cure it, yin gets wounded. When yin is wounded, what do we call it? Yin xu (yin deficiency). If yin is too strong and yang is wounded, that causes yang xu (yang deficiency). After yang deficiency, the yang qi is gone and only yin remains inside — then what do we call it? Yin shi (yin excess).

Why does the mouse keep gnawing on things? Because it is afraid of yang deficiency

After the definitions, Doctor Ni returns to the mouse — this whole yin-yang system is perfectly visible in the mouse:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The mouse itself lives below the qi of heaven and earth; it is a yin creature, with a little yang inside its yin. When the earth’s crust moves — earthquakes underground, tsunamis — the mouse knows immediately and escapes the fastest. The mouse runs, and you are still standing there stupidly — dumber than a mouse! Now, if the mouse’s yin becomes too strong, its yang becomes deficient. The mouse is afraid of yang deficiency precisely because yang is movement: so the mouse keeps gnawing on things, digging holes in the wall corners, endlessly grinding its teeth. A mouse’s teeth grow very fast; if it doesn’t grind them, the teeth grow so long it can’t eat. Actually, it is because it is born yin-heavy: in the state where yang tends to become deficient, it must keep moving, moving very fast, gnawing hard things — for what? To lift the yang up. If the yang is drained away too, then in an instant it goes from yin-heavy to what? To yin excess (yin shi). When excess is inside, the mouse dies — so that is the final stage.

Testing medicines on mice? That is harming people

The mouse is a yin creature, a human being is a yang creature — one is born of heaven’s yang, the other born of earth’s yin. Doctor Ni shifts tone and sharply denounces modern animal experiments:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Now there are foolish people testing medicines on mice. Your yin and yang are obviously different — humans and mice are completely different, but zoology forces them to be the same — “oh, its DNA is close to human, so we use it.” You run the experiment and, of course, you get the opposite result! You don’t need to verify it, you don’t need to take it — one look and you know. This is sophistry! So a crowd of people who don’t understand yin and yang take mice as their experiment, and after the experiment they use the medicine on people — that is harming people, harming people!

Doctor Ni sums up this long passage: this is how we treat illness — treating yin and yang. Wipe your mind clean, take one look, and yin and yang separate themselves.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So I hope that when you go out to study Chinese medicine and you master it well, your life will certainly be simple — you won’t be one of those people who talk endlessly and are muddled every day, unable to manage. Try your best to keep your life simple — if your life is complicated, “tonight I have to go here, I have to put on a big show” — then you cannot concentrate. So in the end you must be calm, you must be composed.

The Discourse on Calm Diagnosis: a patient arrives in the emergency room, and the doctor cannot panic along with the family

The next chapter is Chapter 76, the Shi Cong Rong Lun (Discourse on Calm Diagnosis) (page 538). Doctor Ni first explains the two characters “cong rong” (calm and composed) in his own words:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: You must be calm and composed. When a patient comes into your hands, don’t panic. If a patient is rushed into the emergency room, the family is panicking, their faces turning green — and the moment you see it, you also start panicking, your face turning green; he breaks out in cold sweat and so do you — that is not being composed enough! Of course the doctor must be steady; when something happens in an instant, you must calm down, be able to observe — only then will you see.

A human being is first born of water: why Western medicines wound the water

The first passage of the Discourse on Calm Diagnosis speaks of the dialogue among the five organs, six bowels, and the large and small intestines. Doctor Ni picks out one key sentence — “that from which water is born; these are all that which gives life to humans” — a human being is first born of water:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the Chinese medical concept, the first organ of a human being is water — different from Western medicine, which thinks it is the heart. So water is extremely important, and the Western medicines developed by Western medicine all wound the water. Taking Western medicine is like eating MSG — the moment it touches your mouth, it dries out. Taking Western medicine also dries you out; it expels the water. Whether or not it is a diuretic, once it goes down it releases the water — just a matter of how much.

Doctor Ni adds one more point about the doctor’s duty:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When seeing patients, you must be calm and composed. To be a real doctor, you must cover everything — a doctor who covers everything is one whose medical skill is genuine; you cannot have a single slip!

One organ as the main: don’t let the other organs fool you

In the middle of the Discourse on Calm Diagnosis, the Yellow Emperor asks: when the five organs are abnormal and the six bowels (gallbladder, small intestine, stomach, large intestine, bladder) are out of harmony, when acupuncture is lacking, when can medicine be used to cure disease, and where is the distinction between decoctions (tang ye) and pills (yong yao)? Lei Gong answers “liver deficiency, kidney deficiency, spleen deficiency” — Doctor Ni says all of this is wrong:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When we see illness, we take one organ as the main. When the pathological mechanism emerges, the root illness is in one organ, and it transmits to the other organs. Don’t be confused by the other organs — look at the one organ only; heal that one organ and all the rest recover. Lei Gong couldn’t sort it out, saying liver deficiency, kidney deficiency, spleen deficiency — a whole pile of deficiencies — so the Yellow Emperor scolded him: you are so old, and yet you still live so shallowly! He scolded him, so we won’t explain it further. Actually, this chapter was not written for you to watch the Yellow Emperor scold Lei Gong — it is to teach us how not to be confused when we first start out as doctors, using this dialogue as the vehicle.

Different ages, different places to look

Lei Gong asks again: when the liver, heart, spleen, lung and kidney are deficient, some people have headaches, twitching sinews and vessels, heavy bones, fear of cold and scanty qi, belching and sighing with abdominal fullness, cannot eat, cannot sleep — which organ does this match? The pulse is floating but when pressed, he cannot understand it. The Yellow Emperor says: this is where calm diagnosis comes in — if you are very calm, you will not make a mistake.

Then comes the great principle of diagnosis — examining illness according to age:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When a person is old — still alive at seventy or eighty — basically the organs (zang) have no problem. If they had problems, they would have kicked the bucket at 30, 40, or 50. So after 50, look at his bowels (fu) — the bowels distend first. For the young, look at the channels (jing) — young people’s organ qi is very strong; you don’t need to look at the organs, just look at the channels. For the middle-aged — our generation of strong adults, 30 to 50, who work the most and get injured most easily — look at their bowels (fu). If they are injured, “the eight winds brew heat, the five organs melt away” (ba feng wan re, wu zang xiao shuo) — the five organs burn as if in fire. Because you labor with your mind and labor with your body, and on top of that the weather is hot — you keep consuming the primal qi inside the organs, and this kind of pathological change is produced.

Kidney turbidity disease: when you see a person lying prone and hanging, the kidney is insufficient

The original text says: “when you see a person lying prone and hanging (fu wo xuan), that is kidney insufficiency; when it becomes fatal, it is because the kidney qi is turbid within.”

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the future we will see something called kidney yang insufficiency, kidney turbidity disease — this is where it comes from. Zhang Zhongjing will mention kidney turbidity disease. Fear of cold with scanty qi, the water passage not functioning, the qi of movement withering away, coughing — in any case, it is deficiency of kidney qi. So one person’s qi illness is in one organ; if you say all three organs are involved, that is not the rule — the true law of Chinese medicine is one organ.

A kidney disease, but why a floating pulse? The kidney yang is scattering outward

Doctor Ni leads everyone back to the last line of Lei Gong’s question on page 540 — a person is heavy-headed, sinews and vessels pulled tight, bones heavy, fearful of cold with scanty qi, belching and sighing with abdominal fullness… and when you feel the pulse?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: With our pulse, if you press down to the bone and it is very hard and strong, that is disease. The patient reports headache, sinews and vessels pulled tight, heavy bones, fear of cold and scanty qi, belching and sighing with abdominal fullness — and you feel a floating pulse. A floating pulse means disease on the exterior; if it is exterior, there should be exterior symptoms, right? But these are not exterior symptoms at all. You look again: next comes the bone — the kidney pulse sits at the bone, and that is the disease. So when you encounter this situation — you clearly have a kidney disease, but you feel a floating pulse — it means the kidney’s yang is walking outward. When kidney yang is insufficient, it is certainly a deep pulse; with a deep pulse, in the chi (foot) position you also feel a thin, deep, relaxed pulse — thin, deep and relaxed means there is stomach qi, the stomach and yin-yang are joined. When the kidney pulse becomes very strong and a light touch already feels the pulse, that means the kidney yang is scattering outward. So with one look, you know it is kidney disease.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So when you see a patient in clinic with many symptoms, don’t be nervous. Focus on which organ the illness is coming out of — don’t let it become two organs.

A misdiagnosis case: weak arms and legs, wheezing, coughing, blood and diarrhea — not lung damage, spleen disease!

Doctor Ni turns to page 542 and tells a brilliant misdiagnosis case: a person has slack, collapsing four limbs, wheezing, coughing, blood and diarrhea. Ordinary doctors diagnose lung damage; on top of that the belly is large and tight, so they dare not treat. Later he bleeds a great deal, and after the blood comes out the body clears up — what is going on?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Just look at this — the four limbs: the spleen governs the four limbs! As for the wheezing, coughing, blood and diarrhea: if the bleeding came from the lung, the patient would certainly cough blood, or have a nosebleed — because the lung opens at the nose. But here the blood comes out below — blood in the stool — and the spleen governs the lower abdomen; the small intestine is managed by the spleen. After food is digested, the small intestine is the official of receiving and transforming. After digestion, if spleen yang is insufficient, the food transforms into blood but cannot enter the five organs, because your yang is not enough; then it drains downward and what comes out is blood. So with one look you know the spleen has a problem.

And as for the four limbs being slack and collapsing — arms and legs weak, sometimes not obeying — as soon as you see a problem of the four limbs, you know it is a spleen problem. Lei Gong judged it as lung damage — but lung damage certainly brings nosebleeds and a pale face, and also wheezing and coughing; however, with wheezing, coughing, nosebleed and blood-streaked cough, lung damage never brings blood in the stool.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: This is a case where you only need to grasp one organ and you can cure it. The Yellow Emperor said: the ones you can cure, many people know — this is where the confusion lies.

Infer by analogy: watch the deer sleep, and you know why deer antler is pure yang

On page 543, the original text says: “when sages treat illness, they follow the rules and keep the measure, infer by analogy (yuan wu bi lei), transform in the profound darkness, and follow from above to below” — you don’t need to cling rigidly to the classics.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: For example, what I just said about the nature of the deer — the classics, the classics: does the classic say anything about the nature of the deer? How do you know it? Within heaven and earth, within the six directions, yin and yang are everywhere — look and you see yin and yang. Later I will explain, for example, the deer: look at its nature. The deer runs around in the daytime, but watch it at night — the deer does not lie down to sleep. It goes to a thicket, puts its legs inside, and the trees support it — it sleeps standing up. While sleeping its head is still forcibly raised upward. Why? Pure yang! Even while sleeping it stands there. From this you can see its medicinal nature — deer antler (lu rong)! And for everything else, think and infer. Of course, when we study the Ben Cao Jing, I will gradually explain it all to you so you understand yin and yang.

A pulse that is floating, large and empty: the spleen qi is exhausted externally, and the stomach qi is gone

At the end of this lecture, Doctor Ni takes everyone to read the pulse passage on page 543 — “a pulse that is floating, large and empty means the spleen qi is exhausted externally”:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: This pulse — in general Chinese medicine we say relaxed and forceful (huan er you li) is the normal pulse. If it is floating, large and empty, or floating, large and excessive, it is certainly an exterior sign. Remember one concept: if you feel a floating pulse — the fingertip lightly touches the skin surface and already feels the pulse — that is the exterior, right? Isn’t the skin surface the exterior? If it is deficient, of course it is a deficient pulse; if it is excessive — very strong, very hard — it is exterior excess. Since we are speaking of the exterior and speaking of excess, we know it is wind-cold — for example, a cold: wind-cold on the exterior, you can’t get the sweat out, the illness is on the exterior, and the body’s strength is fighting the wind-cold: “I want to sweat” — the wind-cold says “no, you don’t get to sweat” — the two of them quarrel, quarreling on the yang, and that gives you an excessive pulse. Why do we need to know exterior excess? Because when we write a prescription, there are herbs that release the exterior and herbs that remove excess — then you know how to prescribe. If the exterior is deficient, we know we must secure the exterior.

And what about floating, large and empty? Once it is floating and large — the spleen qi is exhausted externally, which means the stomach qi is gone.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The stomach-qi pulse must always be relaxed and harmonious. If today your pulse is floating and large, that’s fine — but as long as it is relaxed, there is no problem. If the pulse is deficient — the spleen qi is exhausted externally.

What to take away from this lecture

From the Discourse on Transmitting the Perfect Teaching to the opening of the Discourse on Calm Diagnosis, Doctor Ni laid out his most valuable treasures: the foundation of the medical Way is yin and yang — a person lies down to sleep at the meeting place of heaven’s qi and earth’s qi and is nourished by both; standing up, yang governs with yin following. A mouse runs flat on the ground, yin-heavy with little yang — its yin and yang are the reverse of a human being’s — so testing medicines on mice and then using them on people is pointed in the wrong direction. When the three yang merge, illness strikes like thunder and all nine orifices seal shut; the treatment is bloodletting at Bai Hui (GV20), the Ten Xuan (EX-UE11) points and the jing-well points so the yang does not merge. Diagnosis must be calm and composed: look at one organ and take it as the main; examine the elderly through the organs, the young through the channels, the middle-aged through the bowels; a kidney disease showing a floating pulse means the kidney yang is scattering outward; weak four limbs with blood in the stool is spleen disease, not lung damage; the deer sleeps standing up — pure yang — and that is where the nature of deer antler comes from.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If calmness does not emerge, human affairs are not fulfilled. Next lecture, we continue with the Discourse on Calm Diagnosis — when the patient is in your hands, don’t panic. The doctor must be steady, must calm down in an instant — only then can you see.

Compiled from Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji (Human Records) lecture series on the Huang Di Nei Jing (Lecture 70), presented by Doctor Luo Dalun.