Son Runs Wild and Sings Naked Every Afternoon at 5 PM? Positioning Heaven and Earth Can Change Everything — Doctor Ni Haixia on Lecture 76 of the Huang Di Nei Jing: The Zhu Zhi Jiao Lun and the Positioning of Heaven and Earth

Patient search terms: son goes mad and runs about at the same time every afternoon / climbs high and sings / runs around without clothes / can homosexuality be treated / a daughter who is too fierce and refuses to marry / can you adjust whether you have a boy or a girl / cannot conceive even with artificial insemination / what does the direction your home faces matter

Corresponding topic (medical terms): Zhu Zhi Jiao Lun (On Transmitting the Ultimate Teachings) · positioning of heaven and earth (tian di ding wei) · Earlier Heaven trigrams as substance and Later Heaven trigrams as function · He Tu and Luo Shu nine palaces · the three yin and three yang · form and spirit (xing shen) · illness from the emotions · solitary yin does not generate, single yang does not grow

Opening: before this chapter, nine entire chapters were lost

Doctor Ni Haixia first leads everyone through the original text — chapter 75 of the Huang Di Nei Jing, the Zhu Zhi Jiao Lun, pages 532 to 535. He points out a piece of history many readers do not know:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Before this chapter, from antiquity to the present, nine entire chapters have been lost! Those nine chapters covered a great deal. In the Song-dynasty edition of the Huang Di Nei Jing, what people "patched the heavens" with — those were all well-meaning supplements by physicians of later generations — since these nine chapters were missing, they said, let us patch them in to make it look better.

How were the nine chapters patched? Physicians of later ages argued endlessly: this one said "I’ll patch it," that one said "I’ll patch it." Doctor Ni Haixia said: don’t argue, today I will patch them for you to see. And one crucial change happened after the nine chapters were lost:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Because you never saw the nine chapters before this, after these nine chapters, Qi Bo disappears! It becomes the Yellow Emperor speaking with Lei Gong. Lei Gong is a physician — do you know the way of medicine?

Lei Gong pleads: how should the way of medicine be handed down?

Lei Gong asks the Yellow Emperor with earnest words: "I wish to receive the measures of heaven, to examine life and death and yin and yang, to distinguish the stars and the light of sun and moon, so as to make the classics shine — thus one is named one who penetrates the teachings of Shen Nong, and is one with the two sovereigns."

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Page 533 — the Yellow Emperor says "very good, you already understand this principle." The true spirit of Chinese medicine absolutely cannot depart from the mutual relationships of yin-yang, interior-exterior, above-below, male-female, and mutual correspondence. One who truly obtains the way of medicine — knows astronomy above, geography below, and human affairs in between. This way of medicine can long be used to teach the many, can be handed down to later generations, and only then can it be treasured.

Lei Gong then asks about the principle of yin and yang, and the Yellow Emperor explains it for him at length. But Doctor Ni Haixia reminds everyone: after all that talk about disease, why does "astronomy and geography" suddenly appear? — Because the nine lost chapters in between have a great deal to do with it.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: For us human beings, what the entire Huang Di Nei Jing speaks of is not only that we fall ill. You can be affected by wind and cold — the hundred diseases of wind and dampness enter from the exterior into the sinews, then into the flesh, then into the bowels, then into the organs; or they transmit through the six channels. There are also the emotions — joy, anger, worry, longing, sorrow, fear, fright — all of these can make people ill.

And illness is not only these: some people die of grief, some die of terror, some die from laughing too hard in joy; there are also accidents and misfortunes. Only when the way of medicine extends to all of these can it be handed down through the ages.

Between substance and function: what kills is not the gun, it is the person

Doctor Ni Haixia says that for a person to establish "the position between heaven and earth," the Huang Di Nei Jing contains nothing about it — it is in the Yi Jing (Book of Changes) that it is found. The Changes are divided into two sets of trigrams:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: One is the Earlier Heaven trigrams, the Xian Tian sequence of Fu Xi. The Earlier Heaven trigrams are the ti (substance) — ti means: I give you a gun; the gun has no life of its own, it is a substance. The Later Heaven trigrams are the yong (function) — it depends on who holds the gun. So what truly kills is not the gun — what kills is the person! You must distinguish this concept of substance and function.

When speaking of "function," positioning must be re-established, and re-establishing the positions between heaven and earth brings out ruler and minister, father and son — the entire great way of the human world is filled within it, because we are positioned. What Doctor Ni Haixia will speak of today is, after a person is positioned, some matters within the family.

Case one: a son who, every day at five in the afternoon, sheds his clothes, climbs high, and sings

Doctor Ni Haixia says: I will treat all of you as a blank sheet of paper, and start with the simplest case. One day a patient came to see the doctor, furious:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The doctor said: "This son of mine — I am about to send him to a psychiatric hospital!" The doctor asked: what are the symptoms? — "He goes mad and runs about! Every day, starting at 5 to 7 in the afternoon, he climbs high and sings, discards his clothes and runs — no matter how cold the weather, he wears nothing and runs to high places to sing. After 7 o’clock he is fine!"

Doctor Ni Haixia says: a classical-formula (jing fang) physician hears this — simple, cure it! And indeed it was cured, and the father was very happy. But a few days later the father came back to see the doctor, hesitant:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: He said: "Doctor, before, he had his episodes from 5 to 7; now that he is cured, he doesn’t have them anymore. But now he goes out on dates every night — the problem is my son is dating men, not women! Do you have some decoction, some method, to cure him of this?"

Doctor Ni Haixia spread his hands: what to do? The Western pharmaceutical companies cannot even imagine how to treat this disease; they even treat it as a disease and argue about whether AIDS comes from that direction or not — very despicable. Chinese medicine can reach this stage — this is the "above and below, male and female" spoken of earlier: heaven and earth must be divided into yin and yang. I am now going to position it for you; once I have positioned it, one look and everything becomes clear!

He Tu and Luo Shu: however you add the nine palaces, it is always fifteen

Positioning begins with King Wen’s eight trigrams, dividing east, west, south, and north. If we use the He Tu (River Chart) to position — the hardest part of the Yi Jing is the images (xiang), and the numbers (shu):

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the numbers there is balance — we call it "nine at the head, one at the feet, three on the left, seven on the right, two and four as the shoulders, six and eight as the feet." When you position it, adding horizontally is fifteen, adding vertically is fifteen, adding diagonally is still fifteen! However you add, it is fifteen. Why? — This is how you find its balance — the balance of yin and yang. So this world must have both male and female; yin and yang must be balanced — that is the first point.

Then he speaks of the Number of the Great Expansion (da yan zhi shu): its base begins here, extending outward in units of five, of four, of nine — it can extend to infinity, wrapping up the entire cosmos. Returning to the most basic, simplifying it — just these nine numbers, and the nine numbers create the balance.

One stroke is yang, two segments are yin: the male is yang, the female is yin

How is yin-yang drawn? Doctor Ni Haixia draws it live for everyone:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: One stroke is a single line — this we call yang; the female is two segments — this we call yin. Yang is relatively firm, so it is one line running through; yin is relatively yielding — it can compromise, it can negotiate, and in the middle there is a place of separation. Some people say this is male and this is female, and explain it with Western symbols — however you explain it, it doesn’t matter!

Why do the lines of a hexagram grow from the bottom up?

Next is a rule of the Yi Jing — a hexagram has three lines, built from the bottom up:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Why from the bottom up? Because the Chinese conception is: heaven, earth, and human — the human is sandwiched between heaven and earth. A person is born not by heaven alone — heaven generates, but earth must also complete it and bring it to fruition. So the lines of a hexagram always go from the bottom upward!

Of the three lines, the first is called the first line (chu yao), the second is the second line (er yao), and the third is the third line (san yao). The first yang is born at the winter solstice. Doctor Ni Haixia then fits "a family" into the hexagrams:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When a man and woman marry, in the Chinese medical view, Qian is Heaven and Kun is Earth — these two, Qian and Kun, are the parents. Only because of these two parents do children come into being. When the first child appears, if the first line is a yin line, then Xun is designated the eldest daughter — the first daughter. By the same rule: if the second line is yin, that is the second daughter — on the trigram this is Li; Li is hollow in the middle, its center is empty; if the third line becomes yin, that is the third daughter — this is Dui.

For the boys it is reversed: if the first line is yang, that is the eldest son — the Zhen trigram; if the second line is yang, that is the second son — the Kan trigram; if the third line is yang, that is the youngest son — the Gen trigram.

The nine palaces of a family: who should sleep in which direction?

Now set the trigrams down in the human world, divided into nine palaces:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The northwest is Qian, Heaven, the father. The southwest is Kun, Earth, the mother. Due east — where the sun begins to rise, the first place of yang — is called the eldest son, the Zhen trigram; the southeast is the eldest daughter, the Xun trigram; due south is the second daughter, the Li trigram; the west is the youngest daughter, the Dui trigram; the north is the second son, the Kan trigram; the northeast is the youngest son, the Gen trigram.

This is the arrangement of the Later Heaven trigrams. Doctor Ni Haixia says: why speak of ruler and minister, father and son? Because for a family to be harmonious, there must be order of seniority — your name is father, your name is mother, your name is son, your name is daughter — all ranked, with order in the titles.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In today’s world, whether Europeans, Americans, mainlanders, or Chinese — every family, whatever language you use, the names are the same and the order is the same. The original purpose of fixing these names was so that elder brothers would be kind and younger brothers respectful, fathers kind and sons filial, husband and wife treating each other with respect — harmony in the family brings prosperity in everything!

But here is the problem: once the names are set, people do not sleep according to the southeast-northwest positions — everyone sleeps in the wrong places — the family has its form, but has lost its position, and has no spirit.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The Huang Di Nei Jing speaks of form and spirit! Astronomy and geography speak of form; human affairs also speak of form. Now in every family, everyone has a "heart" — this is my father, this is my mother, this is my eldest brother — it is all inside, but the "spirit" is lacking! Because they sleep in the wrong places.

The follow-up visit: the eldest son sleeping in the west becomes "Gui Mei"

The patient in case one was cured, and Doctor Ni Haixia (the physician in the story) went to his home to look — the whole art of positioning came into play:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: What did we find? His parents sat in their proper positions. But their eldest son was living in the west! Your name is eldest son — that is the Zhen trigram, you should live in the east; the west you live in is the Dui trigram, the position of the youngest daughter. These two together make the Gui Mei (Marrying Maiden) hexagram — according to the interpretation of the Yi Jing, it is two males and two females walking side by side — men walking with men, women walking with women!

And indeed, the son turned out to be gay. Doctor Ni Haixia said: move the eldest son back to the East Palace — we have the saying "the crown prince of the East Palace"!

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When your position changes, his thinking changes! Before, he loved men — looking at men was right, and women all seemed wrong. Now that he lives in this strange new place — three months later, he no longer loves men! This boy will go back to liking girls. This is where the spirit of the positioning of heaven and earth resides! This is science. The Westerners, to persuade everyone, say that they are the scientific ones — you are not science at all; you are only technology — you are technology, not science! The Chinese are the scientists; our philosophy is where true science lies.

The father moves into the fire position, and the mother is pressed under the earth-fire

Looking further into this family — the wife’s side also has its hexagrams:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: His name is father, his position is northwest. But he was not living in the northwest — he had moved to due south. The northwest is Heaven, Qian is Heaven — heaven living in the fire position is the Tian Huo Tong Ren (Heaven-Fire Fellowship) hexagram. So the father lives in "great harmony under heaven" — his career goes very smoothly, everything is good. But the mother is different — mother is Kun, Earth; she had moved into the second daughter’s position — fire below the earth, fire burning beneath the earth — in the Yi Jing this is the Ming Yi hexagram. The Ming Yi hexagram means hidden injury, hidden calamity!

Doctor Ni Haixia takes the opportunity to explain where the 64 hexagrams come from: a person has 8 positions where one can live; 8 people living in 8 different positions produce 8 different images — 8 times 8, 64 hexagrams — that is how the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing come about.

The eldest daughter moves into father’s northwest corner: Feng Tian Xiao Xu

Then look at this family’s eldest daughter — one look and you are startled: she was living in the northwest corner, in her father’s position!

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: What is the definition of an eldest daughter? An unmarried eldest daughter in the family is called the eldest daughter. Once you marry and your title is fixed, you are called wife, and are no longer ranked among eldest, second, and youngest daughters — at that point the second daughter moves up to fill the position. The position does not move; the person’s name changes and the outer form keeps changing, so the spirit must change with it — but the fixed position of heaven and earth does not move. What happens when the eldest daughter lives in the father’s position? The eldest daughter is Xun, Wind; the northwest is Qian, Heaven — the Feng Tian Xiao Xu (Wind-Heaven Small Accumulation) hexagram appears. Is the greatest position in the whole family Qian, Heaven? This position is three yang united — the Yi Jing says "three yang arrive alone," three yang arrive together! The Qian trigram is originally a three-yang trigram, the highest trigram. As a result, this girl, unmarried, moved into her father’s position — everyone in the family, whoever they are, has to listen to her!

So this girl is: form and name not matching (xing ming bu fu). In form she is only 20, an eldest daughter; in spirit she occupies the position of a 40- or 50-year-old father.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So at 20 her thinking is very mature, and she is experienced in handling things. When she goes out she doesn’t wear skirts — she likes to wear trousers — that is masculine! She is very fierce in personality and refuses to marry — she feels that a 20-year-old me, a 30-year-old boy chasing me is too young, too childish; I like people of 40 or 50 — and those are all married people! When her father heard this he said: "Sir, you are absolutely right! This daughter of mine — no matter what boyfriend I introduce, she won’t have him; the people she likes are already married!" Doctor Ni Haixia said: it is all your fault, the naming. The father said: "Since it is all my fault, then let us switch positions and return to our places! The eldest son returns to his position, the parents return to theirs." When heaven and earth come back and positioning is restored — each rests in his own place, each obtains his own position, order of seniority is restored, and the true spirit begins to emerge! When we position, it is not like the real-estate companies outside — big room for the son and daughter, small room for mom and dad — that is form! We only care about southeast and northwest; even the kitchen and the toilet, you have to live into them.

The uncooperative patient: I cured your constipation — must I also wipe your behind?

Doctor Ni Haixia says: if you want a gay man to return to normal and love women from now on, you have to sleep in the right direction. But some patients refuse at once: "Oh, not now — that is our dining room!" Doctor Ni Haixia complains:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: I cured your constipation, and you won’t listen to me — do I have to wipe your behind as well? Is there such a thing in this world? That is why he has this problem — indecisiveness! The Huang Di Nei Jing speaks of the gallbladder (dan), doesn’t it? Hesitation, indecision, suspicion. This is what positions you. Once positioned: the father lives in his place, and even his anger disappears; every child positioned properly changes within one season — the daughter becomes sweet and coy, playing coy with her father; the son’s yang energy rises, and from then on he no longer likes wearing women’s clothes. The mother’s body also gets better — then look at the mother’s body again: yang deficiency, yin deficiency, all can be rescued.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So the bodily, the spiritual, and the actual interpersonal relationships — all rescued together — this is the way of medicine! Otherwise it is useless — today you cure his son of the mad running about; after a while the constipation returns and he goes mad running about again. There is no soup that, once drunk, changes a person’s thinking; and there is no soup that, once drunk, makes a gay man not gay anymore, right?

Case two: girls living in the wrong positions — the one in men’s clothes, the one who bites

By the same principle, a girl who does not live in a girl’s position but in a son’s position will also be "form and spirit not matching." Doctor Ni Haixia first tells of the eldest daughter:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The eldest daughter is Xun, Wind; she lives in the eldest son’s position — Xun living in Zhen’s position: Xun is wind, Zhen is thunder — that is the Feng Lei Yi (Wind-Thunder Benefit) hexagram! This eldest daughter moved in, and every day she comes out wearing jeans. Her father takes her out to buy clothes, and everything she picks is boys’ clothing! Once a person registers his position, the image appears. Then the second daughter: the second daughter is Li, Fire; when positioning, the eldest daughter’s, the eldest son’s position is Zhen, Thunder. When fire and thunder appear together, that is our Shi Ke hexagram — "Shi Ke" means to bite! You go visit his home; you sit down as you enter; the second daughter runs out — ever since she was little, whenever she sees a guest she bites him! Strange, why does she bite people? — That is it: the Shi Ke hexagram!

Doctor Ni Haixia says: is there a soup that, once drunk, stops a person biting? There is no such soup! So you have to change her position. Fortunately the father in the story trusted Chinese medicine deeply; he came for advice and did as told — daughter, son, parents — everyone was repositioned.

Case three: to have a boy or a girl, just sleep in the right direction?

Unexpectedly, the father came back to consult again: "My son married, wanting to carry on the family line, but all the children born are daughters. My second daughter married — strange — all her children are sons. And my second son’s wife — neither boys nor girls can be conceived. Can you help?"

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: You might say this man is truly annoying — we are physicians; what does it have to do with us? Boys or girls, and he comes to us? But the way of medicine can be handed down — of course it can be solved! Once you position heaven and earth, divide the things in half: note carefully, above are the eldest daughter, the second daughter, the mother; below are the eldest son, the second son — all male. So if you are married, and the couple’s bed lies with the head toward the south, all the children born are girls; if the head is toward the north, all the children born are boys!

There is an exception — the principle that extreme yang generates yin: the northeast is entirely the positions of males; with the bed arranged that way, the children born are all boys. The one exception: if your bed head leans against the east wall — when you press against the east wall, extreme yang generates yin, and you will have daughters.

Then infertility: they rented a house — the bedroom in the northwest, with three bedrooms — toilet, kitchen, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, toilet, living room — the East Palace and the southeast were entirely empty!

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So they moved in, and neither boys nor girls were born! Because solitary yin does not generate and single yang does not grow — it was all empty. If you do not understand the principle of positioning heaven and earth, and the couple cannot conceive, you go to the Western hospital for tests and do artificial insemination — they check the husband, normal; the wife, normal; but after all that effort the pregnancy ends in miscarriage — because you have no "palace" (gong)!

Doctor Ni Haixia explains: what we call the "palace" refers to the bedroom. The bedroom is the deep, hidden, storing place — without a palace, no children are born.

Closing: only when these nine chapters are restored can the way of medicine be handed down

Doctor Ni Haixia brings this lecture back to its starting point: later we will also position the "disaster stars" — that is the emotions. Originally, without positioning, there were so many problems; once positioned — the illness disappears, the anger disappears, the daughter is like a daughter, the son is like a son, the mother’s health improves — body, spirit, and human relationships rescued together: this is the way of medicine that can be handed down through the ages.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So the Huang Di Nei Jing speaks of form and spirit; the Yi Jing speaks of the positioning of heaven and earth — form and spirit both complete, each in its own place: this is the true science. The way of medicine must know astronomy above, geography below, and human affairs in between; only then can it be handed down long to later generations, and be treasured.

What to take away

• The way of medicine covers far more than formulas. Doctor Ni Haixia reminds us that people fall ill not only from wind and cold, six-channel transmission, or the emotions — some die of grief, some of terror, some from laughing to death in joy, and some from accidents. A medicine that can be handed down must extend to body, mind, and relationships alike.
• Positioning (ding wei) is the "spirit" of a family. The Huang Di Nei Jing speaks of form and spirit: the family has its form — father, mother, sons, and daughters — but if people sleep in the wrong directions, the spirit is lost. Restoring each person to his or her own place (father in the northwest, mother in the southwest, eldest son in the east, and so on) is the classical prescription for everything from a son’s nightly frenzy to a daughter’s refusal to marry.
• Extreme yang generates yin. In the bed-direction method, sleeping with the head to the south is said to favor daughters, to the north sons — with the single exception of leaning against the east wall, where "extreme yang generates yin" and daughters result.
• Form and name must match. The girl who lives in her father’s corner behaves like a fifty-year-old man; the second daughter in the eldest son’s position bites guests. Change the position, and the behavior follows — this, Doctor Ni Haixia insists, is the science of the classical Chinese worldview: substance (ti) and function (yong), form and spirit, each in its own place.

Compiled from Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji (Human Records) Huang Di Nei Jing lecture series (Lecture 76), presented by Doctor Luo Dalun.