not like them, because they really bring out something about you that allows you

in some way to fulfill a curriculum. That's what a Temperament is.

We're going to end with that. Tomorrow when we meet we'll look at
some of the clinical applications of the Luo Channels.

II. Clinical Applications of Luo Passage Vessels: Overview

Again, the general premise of when you should use the Luo Channels
would be where you have an Internal condition. Where the Internal condition is
beginning to produce Heat, Rebellious Qi or, in many cases, the involvement of
Blood, which then produces an Emotional response. That's when you should
first and foremost, in my opinion, think of the Luo Channels.
One can contend that if you look at the different Merdians of
Acupuncture, that each one of them, by themselves, can be seen and perceived as
adequately efficient in treating all diseases. That means you don't really need to
know the Luo Channels to do what you do right now, based on what you know.
In other words, you can be very comfortable with the Primary Merdians, and do
quite well in your practice. Just as you can be quite comfortable, if you're
looking at just the Sinew Merdians, knowing the Sinew Releases that we covered,
and be able to treat everything and anything just as well, per se. Eight Extra
Channels: if you just did Eight Extra Channel treatments you should be able to
do quite well, again, just with that particular system. What you need to be
reminded of, however, is that what you're looking at when you choose a
particular Meridian system, what you're doing is you are saying that you are
focusing your intentions on the Level that you believe you should start treating
the person from. That's what you're really stating.
If you believe that illnesses for everyone are really due to the fact that
their ability to eliminate, their ability to detoxify, their ability to sweat, to vomit,
to purge, is inadequate. Then what you really are saying is that the root of all
diseases is due to the inability to properly eliminate something back out to the
Exterior. In that sense, then the External Merdians would be the most important
Merdians that are going to be the root of your practice. The External Merdians
would be the Sinew Merdians. There's a style of Oriental Medicine called the
School of Attacking and Purging, Gong Xko Pai. The School of Attacking and
Purging basically takes that premise, that the root of all diseases is the fact that
you cannot adequately release something to the Exterior, and as a result of that,
that's why things move into the Interior.
Likewise, if you are coming from the perspective that you believe the root
of all conditions is due to Internal pathology, then the Luo Channels are going to
be of greater interest to you.

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 One can say that what you're really looking at is, not the fact that the
person is innocent of their illness, that already everything that happens in life is
already built in. The minor details, the greater details, they're all part of the doth
of life itself. If that's your premise, then all you're really doing is helping to ease
the person through their so-called evolution of life. In that context, you'll be
looking at the Eight Extraordinary Vessels. Eight Extraordinary Vessels basically
say that life is pre-given, and all you're really doing is coming to understand that
aspect of your life. What a person who's doing an Eight Extra Channel treatment
is doing is fine-tuning you to be more conscious of the life that you're going to
take responsibility for. That's what an Eight Extra Channel practitioner
essentially is doing.
You can see, again, it represents the Level you arc really coming from.
Many clinicians will assume that it is natural to have disease, that if s an intrinsic
aspect, that illness is going to be a part of life. Then if s not up to us really to
eradicate the illness, but rather to help us come to understand why we become
ill. Once we come to understand that, perhaps that becomes the liberation itself.
Remember, the key of healing is to try to free the person back to their state of
awareness, by which they can grow from. That so-called awareness does not
necessarily have to be very pleasurable. It does not necessarily have to be
symptom free. It sometimes requires us to go through so-called healing crises,
where we will become a little bit more intense in our suffering, in our pain,
before we can have the insights that come from that suffering. Now this is not to
say that you need to experience suffering to experience pleasure, or that you
have to go through agony and pain to get to the other side. But it is,
nevertheless, to say that sometimes those sufferings are a necessity by which we
can grow.

You look at the Lw Channels, and if you were to ask yourself, how can I
make use of it clinically? What I recommend, and I do this for all my classes, is
that if you're going to study something new, or something that you don't really
use in your practice, I highly encourage you, if you really want to at least gain
some ownership of the ideas, to spend a month or so just doing Lvo Channels,
just looking at all of your clients coming in, and coming to understand that all of
their issues maybe can be put under the focus of Luo Channels. What I very
commonly do is take the book by Giovami Maccioda, The Practice of Chinese
Medicine, and read randomly, just pick up any case, and we'll read the case, and
depending on what we are studying, what we would do then is apply what
we're studying and come up with the analysis and the diagnosis/ as well as the
treatment based on,let's say in this case, the Luo Channels. So you can take any
case and come up with a Luo Channel explanation of why the person has the
condition that he or she has. So i f s not just something that is Internal, if s that
your focus (perspective) is coming from the Interior.

Obviously, if s not as concise, i f s not as accurate if you have an

Exogenous condition. The Luo Channels basically say that you have a condition

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that's in the Interior. Its cause, its etiology, the pathogenesis could be External,
Climatic, environmental, ecological. Maybe even if one looked at Pestilent Qi,
that Ming dynasty jargon, that it is a viral type of thing, a bacterial, Pestilent Qt.
Or it can be an Internal Pathogenic Factor, which again would be things
according to the Chinese, Internal Pathogenic Factors are things that we allow in
our lives. We make choices about them. They're not something that just happen
to us. We're not just innocent victims. Internal, you make choices about.
External you don't have a choice. Cold, you can't change the weather. Thafs the
way it is. Pollution, you might be able to change that, but obviously it's going to
take quite a lot of work. That's an environmental. But Emotions, you can change
your Emotions, they're saying. You can choose not to be Angry. You can choose
not to be Sad. You can choose not to be upset. You can change your lifestyle.
You can choose to be a moral person. You can choose to be an immoral person,
You make that choice. It might not be the choice of the majority, but
nevertheless, you are given the opportunity to make that choice.

What's crucial to Chinese medicine is, what you are seeking in the client
is, their ability to have freedom to make those choices. You could be in the most
devastating situation that you have in your life, but nevertheless, you have the
freedom to change the mindset if you choose to. You could be in the worst
scenario. You could be in jail, lose your so-called freedom of speech, maybe your
freedom of having the ability to interact with people. You might be isolated. But
you nevertheless will still have freedom of thought. You nevertheless will be
able to choose whatever it is that you think. You can think that you're in a lousy
situation and be miserable in jail. But you can also look at that as an opportunity
by which you can change your thoughts. Very often, the contention among
philosophers has been that many people are not really aware that they have this
freedom of thought, and as a result, they demand freedom of speech. As
freedom of speech becomes more of an excuse, then you can't really have
freedom of thought, so you demand that you're able to at least talk about it.

This is a very important aspect, that if you look at something that is

Internal, they're talking about choices that we make about our lives, and the
obligations and the consequences that come from those choices. When you look
at the Interior, you're looking at an axis by which a Pathogenic Factor moves into
the Interior, and that's the chest. CV-17 is the axis of Qi. The general premise
among many clinicians is that CV-17 is very, very important in how it decides to
move something. Does it move up? Does it move down? Emotions are the
movement of Qi. All Emotions do something to Qi in terms of going up, going
down. You just learned it in terms of its somatic, in terms of its physical
manifestations. That's determined by the chest.

But we also know that if you really get into the Interior, that's the
abdomen, and in particular the Fu Organs. If you're looking at the Luo Channels
and the ideas that evolved from the Luo Channels, which developed during the
Ban dynasty, the primary concern was Wind and Cold. The Su Wen focuses

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primarily on Wind and Cold. It does not focus on all of the Climatic Factors.
While we can say that there are Six Excesses in Chinese medicine, referring to the
Six Climatic Factors, the focus in the Classical era was primarily on Wind. Wind
was an invitation to change* Wind brings about change. Wind is about creating
new beginnings, Wood. Cold is a ht this Yin Factor that is hesitant when we
are confronted with change. There is hesitation. As we begin to become hesitant
to change, as we become Han Cold, it eventually enters the body. And the body
gets upset that you're not changing. The Yang Qt is being challenged when the
Wei Qi is not changing. When Wei Qi can't change, it means that it's going to
deal with something Deeper than Wei Qi,or the root of Wei Qi, which is Y a w Qi.
If something challenges the Yang Qi when it goes into the Interior, how
does the body respond? T h e Yang Qi produces a lot of Heat Heat is a
physiological response. The body becomes hflamed. The body becomes
swollen. The body tries to elid t Heat, because Heat rises upward to try to move
the things back out to the Exterior, to move things back out to the area of the four
limbs, the area of the head and the face. That would be the External anatomy. So
when we look at this process by which the body attempts to do thisJwe can look
at it from the (perspective of) the Primary Merdians. You can look at the Antique
Points, the progression of things moving in,and then how the body attempts to
move it back out when it goes into the Primary Merdians. What is being
suggested is that i f s going to try to move it back out as it begins to move in, back
out to the L w Channels.

The Luo Channels now become the Collateral that extends out of the
Primary Merdiansras an attempt to move things back out Again, where does
something move from the External to the Internal within the context of the
Antique Points? It occurs at the Shu Stream Points. Shu Stream represents the
axis between External and Internal. And notice the Luo Points are always
proximal to the Shu Stream Points. They're not distal to the Shu Stream. I f s
almost like when something moves from the Exterior to the Interior, the Primary
Channel says, "Wait a minute, 1can't allow this to stay Deep. I can't allow it to
go into the bowelsJinto the abdomen, into theHeSea Points. What am I going to
do? I'm going to bring it to the Luo and ask the LKO,the Collaterals, to move it
back out, to make it become visible, to bring it back out to the Exterior." So that
means that after passing through the Interior at the Shu Stream Point, which
happen to be Source Points for the Yin Channels, and we know that the Source
Point occurs right after the Shu Stream for the Ymg Channelsrand after that
comes the Luo Points. The Lw Points now are going to move it back out to the
Exterior. Thafs why Luo Points have to be proximal to the Shu Stream. They
cannot be distal to the 5hu Stream. The Luo Pointst intent is to bring Blood, to
bring something that's already part of the Internal axis, or part of the Internal
physiology, which is Ying Qi or Blood or Fluids, and it moves it back out to the
Exterior. If it moves it back out in the fonn of Blood, there is visibility. If it
moves it back out in the form of Fluids, there is no visibility, but what you have

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is a nodule, what you have is Phlegm, what you have is Dampness moving out to
the Exterior.
In that process, what you're seeing is, when you're looking at the context
of the Merdians, that as you have a Pathogenic Factor entering either into the
Primary Merdians, and then the Primary Merdians move it back out through the
Luo, there are two options that it has. The first and most common option is that it
removes it back out to the Luo, that if s going to travel first and foremost through
the Longitudinal Luo. They're saying that the reason why is as it tries to move it
back out, if s not trying to move it into the Yin Yang pair, because it only begins
to move to the Yin Yang pair when it fails to adequately get rid of something.
You simply don't have enough energy to get rid of it, at which point if s going to
be taxing on its Yin Yang pair.
Notice, we know that if the Longitudinal Luo can't deal with this, another
point is that it can move it right back to the Primary Merdians. In which case, the
body will now absorb that Pathogenic Factor at the Source Point, which again is
an attempt by which the Longitudinal Lw, the Luo Point is trying to move it back
out to the Primary Merdians. Now '"back out" means if s going to try to remove
it back out distally, away from the Luu. And where it can go, into the Primary
Channels, away from the Luo, distal to the Luo Point, is the Source Point. Again,
Source Points are distal to the Luo Point. So you see it as almost like a cyclical
process.
We know that when it goes to the Source Point, what it does is absorb the
Pathogenic Factor. The Source Point contains it now by using its Jing,its Essence,
where Fluids and Blood fail to create the visibility, or at least to keep the
condition on the Exterior, but not necessarily resolving i t If it fails to do so, it
moves it back to the Interior, in which case it can go to its Yin Yang pair,
Transverse Luo, or it can go into the deeper Level in the Primary Channels, which
is going into the Source Points themselves, where it gets contained by something
much deeper than Fluids and Blood, and that's ling Essence. Source Points
contain Essence. So even if you look at the sequencing, let's assume that indeed
the Luo Channels are not independent Channels. No Channels are really
independent, but let's say that they're not by themselves, separate from the other
Merdians, and let's assume that the Luo Channels indeed are an attempt by
which the body is moving Pathogenic Factors from the Primary Channels away
from the Primary Channels, away from the Interior back out to the Exterior.

We know that if something goes into the Interior, the physiological

response to anything that moves into the Interior, from a Classical point of view,
is Heat. I say that because some of us would say Heat is bad. That's the reason
why I say that. From a Classical point of view, Heat is always good. Heat is the
denominator of Yang Qi, responding to the Insufficiency of Wei Qi. Heat tries to
move things back out. So in the Interior, Heat is created, and as the Heat is
created, it moves it back out to the Exterior.

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 Now if the Lno Channels are an extension of the Primary Channels, they'll
follow the sequence of thePrimafy Chamieis. W e know the sequence of the
Rrimary Channels from the Lungs,Large Intestine, Stomach, Spleen, all the way
down until ending with Liver. And of coursewith the Luos we know that there
are more than just that After the Liver there's the Great Luo and there's also Ken
and DM Luo, or YCT Qiao and Ymg Qiao. Consider the trajectories. As things are
moving back out to the Exterior, the trajectories demonstrate that The signs and
symptoms in many ways also demonstratethat WeTl see that in a Kttle bit But
the idea here, is that as it moves it back out to the Exterior, it means this in an
attempt from the Lungs to move things that are in the axis of moving from the
Interior back out to the Exterior, so it has to come out through the chest/ because
that's the axis. LU-7 as a trajectory of the Longitudinal Lw represents something
from the chest, PC-8, LU-10,Heat thafs in the chest trying to come out via LU-7.
It's a t*cctory that moves distally. If s moving away. So LU-7, as a sequence,
already demonstrates that the body is taymg to move it back out to the Exterior.
Then if you move into Large Intestine trajectory, it's not able to move
things out It's failed in doing so. We have an Internal condition^but mind you
if s not an External condition. If s an Internal conditiontrying to come out
Large Intestine as it tries to move things out goes where? To the face. That's
another External axis. I'm trying to open from the chest, go into the face, and in
particular, Large Intestine goes into the area of the oral cavity as well as the ears.
That's the trajectory, a lot of times this idea that if s moving into the face. Now at
the face, or in particular at the gums,PathogenicFactors can very often deposit
themselves into the extension of Yuan Qi in the mouthy which is represented
through your teeth. Yourteeth are a major holding area for Pathogenic Factors,
slow Pathogenic Factors. Pathogenicfactors that you have not resolved, which
develop into cavities, decay in the teeth. The teeth are a major area of Latency
where the body holds onto Pathogenic Factors. The fact that the Large Intestine
Luo Channel deals a lot with teeth problems in addition to the aspect of chewing,
and so froth/ that again tells you of an attempt to try to move thingsback out, so
it doesn't stay in the region of the chest
Stomachfurthers that understandingand says, Well, I'm going to try to
further move it bade out away from the face, away from the gums, higher, more
Ymg, to the top of the head." As it moves to the head and it fails to Expel it, here
it goes across the head and it begins to deposit down into the throat Thafs why
it goes to opposite side and begins to deposit into the throat, another major area
of holding that would take place, Stomach Fluids that become Stagnant Hind is
a way to get rid of Pathogenic Factors. Sweat is a product of Stomach Fluid
Your tearsare a product of Stomach Bind. Stomach Fluid produces the Pure
Ymg of the Stomach. This is the Fluid that goes to the Sensory Organs. If that
Fluid is not able to Expel a Pathogenic Factor, it gets lodged in the regionof the
throat. You get a thyroid problem. You get swollen lymph nodes. You get
tonsillitis. You might get chronic tonsillitis because you never fully eradicated a
Pathogenic Factor that is lingering in the body.

With the Stomach, things are starting to affect the throat, and by the time
you get into Small Intestine, if s no longer just the head. If s starting to affect the
upper limbs, while with the Stomach you can look at the lower limbs already,
but now you have the upper limbs that are being affected. If s going from the
head, and anatomically if s going all the way back down.

With the Small Intestine, if you're looking at the upper limbs, which is
part of their trajectory, remember, Small Intestine ends at LI-15. It can't go
beyond that. If s lost the integrity to move anything back up and out. Large
Intestine had the ability to move things up. Small Intestine can only keep it here.
With the Triple Heater, if s worse. It moves it here, and then moves it into the
chest. Things are going Deeper into your body, as we look at just the Yang
Channels. But at Small Intestine, it can definitelyhave an affect on the Heart.
Remember, this is the continuum.

The Heart basically says that if s in the chest. That's the trajectory. It goes
into the chest But like the Stomach, it tries to move it back up to the throat.
Heart Channel, HT-5, goes into the chest and tries to move it back up to the
throat, tries in some cases to move it back out to the eyes. The Heart, again is an
attempt to move things out. The Heart is where Zong Qi, Chest Qi, Ancestral Qi
becomes very, very strong in terms of its attempt to move things back out. And
remember, one of the major uses of HT-5, within the context of TCM, is where
you might use HT-5 to Tomfy Heart Yang. If s about moving the Qi of the Heart.
You don't use HT-5 for Tonification of Heart Yin. Even though if you Disperse it,
it can also dear Heat, but people rarely think of using HT-5 to dear Heat. HT-5
is used a lot to bring the Yang Qi back up, to invigorate the Yang of the chest.

By the time you get to the Bladder, and the Bladder in terms of its
Longitudinal Luo, its trajectory is taken over. Bladder's not going to be able to go
up to the head. And we know that Gall Bladder's not going to be able to go up to
the head. So the Bladder and Gall Bladder can't have the integrity of Releasing
things back out to the Exterior, from a Luo Point of view. So Bladder is taken
over by Kidney. And where does Kidney go? Kidney goes into your chest. The
same area, but unlike the Heart which still attempts to move it back out to the
Exterior, the Kidneys can't do so. The Kidneys move it into the chest, and now
from the chest it says if s going to affect the lumbar spine. If s going to affect the
root of Yang Qi, Ming Men. If s going to affect the basis by which you can start
moving things out. So you're going to start to have signs and symptoms of not
only QI Deficiency, but more commonly Yang Deficiency can also be seen in that
particular end, because now the body's lost its ability (to move things out).

By the time you get into Pericardium and Triple Heater, it stays localized
in the chest. Triple Heater goes into the chest. Again, later editions or
commentaries bring the Triple Heater's Longitudinal h into the Middle Burner,
but Classicallyf if you read the Ling Shu, it goes to the chest. Pericardium goes to
the chest, and it stays there. Things are now locked into the Interior. You can't
get it out

And by the time you get to Gall Bladder and Liver, if s now going to affect
the abdomen. That's the movement, the sequence ofthe Primary Channels,
where you're seeing how the body, through the Longitudinal Luo, through its
trajectory, is trying to move things back out. As it begins to fail to move things
back out, almost as a sequencing, if s going to stay lodged in the chest. As it
stays lodged in the chest, it's going to get lodged in the abdomen- Whaf s
lodging the Pathogenic Factor, as it gets worse, is Blood and Essence. Wmg
Qing- en basically believed that the root of all diseases is in the Blood. He's the
one who developed the formula that "returns half back to the body" to get rid of
the Blood Stagnation in the head. Generally we use it for strokes. But that
formula, used in a small dosage, actually Releases the Luo Channels that involve,
that are trying to go to the head. He has the formula for "Opening up the Blood
Mansion". The Blood Mansion formula basically was a formula to open up the
chest. In particular opening up theGreat Luo of thespleen. He has formulas
that deal with Blood Stagnation that is below the diaphragm, below the Ge,
below the chest. Namely, that would be looking at it in the relationshipto
Kidneys Luo. And he has the formula that gets rid of Blood Stagnation that's in
the lower abdomen While we might typically use it today, within the context of
how you study the formula in TCM, for Blood Stagnation, for fibroids, for heart
disease, things relating to cardiovascular and gynecological conditions, those
same formulas basically say that if you move Blood, you move Qi. You don't
necessarily have to think of it as just a Blood condition. Once you move Blood,
Qi automatically has to move with the Blood.
The context here is that as a sequence, you can see they are all in ways
communicating with each other. The Stomach Meridian sets the pace. It goes all
the way into the head. Large Intestine communicates with the Stomach
Meridian. If you look at Small Intestine, it communicates with the Large
Intestine Luo Channel at LI-15. So there is a connection. If s not like the Primary
Channels where one Meridian ends, and the other Meridian begins. But in this
context you see the connection by their trajectories and how they're moving.

Q. Did you talk about Spleen? You went from Stomach to Small Intestine.
A. Spleen is where already there are going to be signs and symptoms of
things affecting the Intestines. In other words, by the time you have things that
are no longer able to stay on the head, and it begins to travel down into the
throat. In fact the symptoms of the Stomach's Luo includes the Four Great Signs
and Symptoms of the S h q Han Lun tradition, the Y a q Ming syndrome,in
terms of its Merdians, includes high fever#sweating, thirst,and the personhas in

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general a Flooding Pulse. The Stomach treats all that. ST-40 treats all of those
symptoms.
But they're saying that if s starting to move into the throat. That means
that if it moves into the throat, you don't have Yang Ming in the Merdians any
longer. Things are not just moving up. They're also settling down. As they
settle down, what you have are the Four Great Symptoms of Yang Ming in the
Bowels: abdominal fullness, abdominal distention, abdominal hardness and
infrequency of bowel movements. For the Four Great Symptoms, if you were
studying the Shang Han Lun tradition, you know that you would be using
something like the Major Ordering the Qi Decoction, or the White Tiger for the
Yang Ming in the Merdians. That would be the Herbal perspective.
The fact is that the Spleen is not going to Spleen. Where's it going? Into
Yang Ming, into the bowels. So the Longitudinal Luo of Spleen has the symptoms
of abdominal distention, abdominal fullness, and when if s Empty, drum-like
distention, signs and symptoms that one can say would be Yang Ming of the
Bowels. You have the Internalization of Heat. If you're looking at it from the
context of the time the Luo Channels were being developed, the same theory is
going to influence Zhang Zhong-jing in his development of the Shang Han Lun
tradition. Zlung Zhong-jing is interested in what? Wind and Cold. He's not
interested in Heat. Heat is a progression that manifests as a response to Wind
and Cold.
Likewise, if you look at that context, it would explain why Chapter 56 of
the Su Wen, when they talked about the Luo, they're talking about something
moving into Yang Ming, into the Interior, and the body's attempt to move it back
out to the Exterior. With the Luo Channels, they don't begin, as in other chapters,
saying that the beginning of the disease starts at Tai Yang, zonally speaking.
They say with the Luo Channels, its beginning is at Yang Ming. If s in the
Interior. And the attempt to move it back out to the Exterior from Yang Ming
goes to Shao Yang to Tai Yang. If it fails to move it back out to the Exterior,
during that time it can be entering, by the Transverse Luo, into the Interior
already.
Yang Ming > Shao Yang > Tai Yang
U / ST TH / GB SI / BL
v v v
"Zonal"
v v v
Tai Yin < ]ue Yin < Shao Yin

So at that juncture, it can start moving into Tai Yin, Jne Yin, and Shuo Yin.
Likewise, at the same time, they're saying that by the time it moves into Tai Yang
and if s not able to eradicate that, it goes deeper. And it goes from Tai Yang to

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Luo Point of the Kidneys, it's also going to give you a lot of other signs and
symptoms. Signs and symptoms that will tell you that there's an I n t d i z a t i o n
of Heat consuming the Qi of the Kidneys and affecting the Kidneys/ so that the
Kidneys are trying to move it back out via the Luo. So the Luo Point is going to
treat a lot of signs and symptoms that involve what happens when Heat gets to
that particular Organ. When you look up Large Intestine and it says dry moutht
dry lips/ dry throatt fever; you would almost already know that because those
are signs and symptoms of Xnternal Heat that has gone into Yang Ming. When
you look at Stomach/ it's going to say/ fever, thirst/ profuse sweating. Those are
signs and symptoms of Yang Ming that ST40 is going to treat. So when you look
at that/ what you're seeing is this context of/ "Wellr as I treat thist what arn I
going to do? How am I going to get rid of this?" Sho Yung: key symptoms that
you see for S h o Yangr or Triple Heater and Gall Bladder/ are sweating. Sweating
is where Ying Qi tries to go all the way out to the Wei Level to flush out the
Pathogenic Factor. Sho Yang major symptoms for TH-5 and Gall Bladder, is
sweating. The difference is that with Gall Bladderrbecause it's in the last part of
that sequencing, is now starting to affect the joints. Not the major joints, but it's
going to start to cause achiness and sensitivity in the joints. Triple Heater would
not have that sign and symptom in its Luo Point identification.
Then we go into Small Intestine and Bladder. That means it's further
trying to move it out. The further we move it out, the further we move it up to
the head/ the further we move it into the Sensory Orgm, the other Sensory
Organsf outside of where the Stomach goes into the lips and the nose. Here
Small Intestine and Bladder are going to include the eyes. It's going to include
the ears. The pmon has an ear infection. The person has conjunctivitis. There
are allergies that are taking place. This is an attempt to try to move it back out-
A common example of where all three of these Channels are involved would be
if someone has allergic rhinitis. It would be if someone has chronic sinusitis!
chronic conjunctivitis. In other wordst when you look at ENTt e m / eyesr nose
and throat conditionsfyou're looking at the Luo Channels at its Fullest dynamics.
That's the L w Channels that are doing that. The fact that it's chronic means that
you have a lingering Pathogenic Factor that the body is not able to adequately
get rid of. That lingering Pathogenic Factor c d d be seasonal. You simply don't
have enough Wd Qi during the spring to deal with the pollen/ the ragweed or
what have you. As a result you always develop hay fever. You have allergic
rhinitis d m g the spring. Not everyone gets it. So it's not that you're an
innocent victim. Ifs really saying that somehow your body has the inability to
deal and to tolerate/ to get rid of the Pathogenic Factor.
It can be something that comes into your gutl into y o u abdomen. In other
wordsr rather than External Factors, Wei Qi/ ClimaticFactors/ seasonal/ it could
be digestive. You eat something. You went to a Chinese restaurant and they put
a lot of MSG in the food. Your lips get dry. Your mouth gets dry. Yang Ming is
happenhg. You get flushed. All of that is happening. You might start to break
out in a sweat. You have those severe migraines that come out, or severe
here can eat everything and anything because of ethnic adaptation. Some of us'
because we grew up in a culture where we ate a lot of certain kinds of foods, the
body' through Jing' through genetics' begins to adapt to those kinds of food. For
example' Oriental people generally cannot handle dairy products unless they're
from the north' because the Chinese population does not eat cheese. They
generally do not drink milk. When they start drinking milk,they're going to get
an allergic reaction to it. In Scandinavian countries, that's no problem. They're
not going to get phlegmatic with that. But the people from Scandinavian
countries might have a lot more problems if they consume a lot of grains, which
the Oriental people consume a lot of. So if you eat a lot of rice' you might notice
that you get really mummyf because ethnically you're not prepared for those
kinds of dietary regimes, per se. Those problems are called Self-poisoning. It
means the body simply does not have a preference for that It could be!
Elemental. You could be a Wood type. As a Wood type there are certain types of
things that might not be good for you. So if you are a Wood type of person, you
might tend not to want to eat too many spices. When you eat too much spice'
you can't fall asleep. When you eat too much spice' you might tend to break out
in a rash' at least if you pay attention to what you eat. Some of us simply eat and
we don't pay any attention to what we eat.

Food can be toxic itself. That means the food has been processed. The
food has something that has been done to it. If you do something to the food'
you're making it potentially become toxic. Maybe it's additives. Maybe it's
pestiades. Maybe it's denatured. For example' in my opinion decaffeinated
coffee is worse than caffeinated coffee' because if you have to do something to
the coffee itself' it means you're doing something that's taking away its nature.
That's going to make it very' very difficult.

If you look at food combinations, certain foods are innocentJbut if you

combine them with something else' they become potentially not very good. That
was one of the ways they used to get rid of the emperors. If they didn't like the
emperor, they would just give him two dishes that you h o w are going to cause
a lot of problems. The single dishes are not poisonousf but if you put the two
together, it's going to be toxic for the body over time. That's also the reason why
the emperors always switched dishes. They would eat the same things over and
over again. That's also a way to help prevent poison@ from food combinations.
Certain food combinationst for example, a very popular food in the American
diet' and again I'm not saying that this food is toxic' but because over lime
adaptation will take place' you adapt to the fact that you love to eat beef and
onions together' hamburgers' the good old hamburger. But when you eat a lot of
onions and beef' it causes greater fermentation' which means that you have a
greater likelihood of developing a terrain that would be very receptive to having
worms. That comes directly from Sun Si Miao. Sun Si M k o says that if you eat
beef and onions you're going to have worms. That would be an example of two
things that are relatively innocent. If you eat beef by itself, it's OK; if you eat
onion by itself, it's OK.

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aNew &gland School of Acupmciure &Jeffrey C-Ynen 2004
 Grantedrtaking away the vegetarian argumentfbut let's say if you just did
that you're gohg to be OK. But if you eat the two things together, it's toxic.
That's means you're mating an i n f l m a t o r y condition in your M y . And
you're going to see that when you start creating an inflammatory condition in
your M y , and the gut becomes inflmd bemuse the only way to bum it up is
to @um a lot of Heat You start to take the T m s and the Rohids to help
neutrdize that stomach heartbum, thataudity h y m r s t o m a d ~Youmight just
drink something sweet to numb itt to d a m p it up. The M y is not that dumb
in the sense that the body will d m by to neutralize the aad, just like you take
T m and Rolaids, which is dcium. What is the b d y going to do? The M y is
going to calcify ibelf from the joints, to move that d c i u m into the stomach to
neutralize the acid in your stoma& You can see where Stomach Fire b e g h to
affect the four limbs, leading to Bi Obstmctim, in the fom of rheumatoid
arthritisywhich is an ~ a m n a t m ycondition- me body is duhg it as a response
to something that you are uncomuously ing&ing into your M y in the form of
food. You'll see that later on when we talk about the apphmtion to the beatment
of GI disorders with the Luo Channels,

Q- Whm you gave the example about &mic ~~a tim in the h w d s ,
Cr~hds,IBS, your symptoms am&g the Luu Points don't look . .. I mem it
seems Iike it should be in Yuq Mingy but are thae the Yang Ming Luo Points that
you would use?
A No. If it's an idlammatmy bowel, member what brings the Heat, and
keeps the Heat trapped in the Ebwels is the Spleen Lm Chamel. S p l m L m
O m e l goes to the Stma& and into the Intestines. Here what I was trying to
do in giving you this ~ d e r s ~ d ihs, fg a those of you who have mad Rcystm
Lods book, (to see that) thm are the symptoms that he placed in the section m
Transverse LUD. What I'm trying to do is get y m to u n d ~ what ~ ~those
d
symptoms were in the context of that &amion that we hadyh a t if you have
something that @ins to IntmaIizefyou have Yang M i q - You mn 1wk atr
when it gas into Yang Ming, you're gohg to have these as the signs and
symptoms that are itemized: the fwer with sweat, epigastric distentio~F'hlegm,
pain along the pathway. Thme are simply sigm and symptomsythat we have in
t e r m of the Shmg f i n Lun tradition, of Ymg Ming syndrome. The other s i p
and symptom that he's presenting in that context, with JAtge htetine1Triple
Heater, Small htestin~,Gall Bladder, and Bladder, notice again, even though 1
put it in this context, what you have is a situation that would make better sense,
if he did it with the Su Wm. It would have made it easier for pmpk to
understand. H e didn't do it in that context. He just listed in m e m l m ... what
he did wasr if y QU Imk at it from Ynng Ming to Shao Yang, it's trying to move
things m L So S b Yang in tqmg to move things out is going to manif&
through sweating. Triple Heater &ests h u g h sweating. Again, he
Memtiatim in the signs and symptomt and Ym not h s h g dl the signs and
symptoms because it's just really thex that are the major ones that will allow
you to understand. With Gall Bladder, there's going to be achiness of the joints,
with Triple Heater, pain along the pathway, pain along the pathway of Triple
Heater's Luo, even though he's classifying it as a Transverse Luo idea. The reason
why he's saying if s a Transverse Luo is because he's saying that if this Heat is so
intense that eventually the Heat is going to go to its Yin Yang pair, if s going to
affect the Yin Meridian that is associated with these Yang Merdians. Thafs why I
said that, if if s so intense, if s going to move into the Yin Yang pair, and that you
have in this context, from the Yang to the Yin. So if s almost like from Zonal to
Elemental.
You might wonder why are we looking at the Arm Channels first, and not
the Leg Channels first. Remember, if you look at the idea of Wei Qi, Wei Qi
moves into the Interior via the Sinew Merdians, and if you look at just the Yang
Sinews, the Sinew Merdians begin with the Leg Channels, and then they go to
the Arm Channels. So likewise, if you're going from the Interior back out, if s
going to start from the Arm Channels back out to the Leg Channels. And thafs
why we're looking at why Large Intestine first, before you get into Stomach, the
Leg Channel, why Triple Heater first, before you get to Gall Bladder, why Small
Intestine before you get to Bladder. We're looking at the movement as
something that is Internal, going back out, just as we're looking at Yang Ming
trying to go back out to Shao Yang, going back out to Tai Yang.
By the time you look at the signs and symptoms that are being itemized,
in a way to try to help you understand these signs and symptoms, what you're
looking at is: the beginning, Yang Ming, Stomach/ Large Intestine, Triple
Heater/Gall Bladder, Small Intestine/Bladder. Notice when you get into Tai
Yang, you are all looking at the Sensory Organs. And I added the little symptom
there of hemorrhoids in the Bladder, because if s telling you that the Bowels are
going to start to get Blood occluded. If you have hemorrhoids on the outside,
that means you have Blood occluding inside your body already. You have an
inflammatory condition somewhere in your gut already. You don't have to say,
'Oh if s Sinking Spleen Qi",necessarily. Generally there's a certain amount of
Heat that's building up inside the Bowels, inside the Intestines. We can make the
relationship to the Spleen because the Spleen goes to the Intestines and the
Stomach via the Luo Channels.
By the time this begins to take place, what you begin to see is this cascade
of events that is going to take place. The Heart still makes the connection with
the eyes, and the reason why is that the Heart, keep in mind, was kind of like a
sore thumb that was sticking out for the acupuncturists of the ancient times. The
idea that there were five Zang and six Fu, and now we add the sixth Zang to
make that a balanced concept. Remember the earliest Acupuncture text talks
only about eleven Merdians. There are not twelve. So a lot of things that related
directly to the Heart, really were Pericardium symptoms. The Heart still was
something beyond the reach, very often said, of one's external manipulation. So
at most, what they gave to the Heart was simply along the Luo Channels, yellow

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0 New England School of Acupuncture &Jeffrey C. Yuen 2004
eyes. Your eyes became jaundiced. You have pain along the pathway. Again,
the Ling S h gave us that. That Heart Meridiem in general is just going to be pain
along its pathway.

Pericardium is chest It moves into the chest, heart pain, depression^hot

palms. Again, that could be a sign that we see as part of the Longitudinal Lw of
the Lungs, circulatory problems. If you look at this context of Jue Yin you also
begin to see the reason why I'm itemizing this is: to show you the progression
from the chest going down to the lower region- Spleen really is the one that
takes on a lot of the chest symptoms. Spleen also takes on symptoms that appear
to relate to the Heart: the tongue pain, stiffness of the body, frequent bowel
movements. Frequent bowel movements are an attempt by the body to get rid of
Heat. Ifs a response pattern. I f s not because you have Spleen Qi Deficiency,
which we might think of today when someone has frequent bowel movements.
It means, look at the signs and symptoms as physiology, not necessarily as
pathology.
Liver is interesting because when you read the signs and symptoms for
the LR-5, for the Transverse Luo, what Royston Low has assimilated in his book:
nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, Diaphragmatic Constriction, loose stools,
incontinence or anuria. Those are not the typical signs that we think of for the
liver. You might say Diaphragmatic Constriction, but most of the time when
you see the rest of those signs, you think of Stomach and Spleen- Liver is dealing
with Stomach and Spleen signs and symptoms in this particular case. If s not
dealing with .. . remember Liver will also deal with the abnormal sexual
arousal, the stuff that we associate with the Fullness and Emptiness of the Liver's
Lw.
Kidneys are where you have Yang Deficiency: coldness and numbness of
the legs' cockcrow diarrhea with undigested food. There's a certaindegree of
depression, introversion. The person is very withdrawn. You can even get
Running Piglet Qi.
So this concept is being itemized for (he Transverse Luo, but remember,
the Chinese did not have that separationbetween the two. TransverseLuo
simply means that if something has gone into the Interior, it has the capability of
moving to its Yin Yang pair, at any time during its struggle with the Pathogenic
Factor. So that when something moves into the Lw, it can go to the Transverse
any time, or it can go to the Primary via the Source Point. But the first
component is that Ym going to deal with it through the Longitudinal Luo. So
again, it can move to the Primary.

A very big question that was asked yesterday: what if you saw Broken
Blood Vessels in the lateral aspect of your External malleolus? Obviously we're
looking at the Bladder area, but the Bladder Luo Channel does not travel into the
lateral mdeolus. It doesn't travel there. That means for these Broken Blood

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Vessels to manifest on the lateral malleolus, it would have gone from the Luo of
the Bladder into the Primary Meridian of the Bladder, because it can do that. It
can go from the Lw into the Primary Meridian, and when it goes to the Primary,
it deposits itself at the Source Point The Luo Vessels start to show up around the
Source area of the Bladder Channel, and then they can diffuse themselves into
that lower area. So it doesn't have to be above BL-58, which (connects with its
Yin Yang pair by) going across the leg into KI4. It can manifest anywhere along
the Primary Meridian, most commonly along the area of the Source Points. You
very commonly see people with Broken Blood Vessels around LR-3. So
obviously you tend to say thafs not a Liver's Luo, because Liver's Luo begins at
LR-5. But it can deposit from the Luo of the Liver into the Source of the Liver,
and from there the Luo Vessel starts to disseminate from the Source Point. Some
people contend that instead of depositing into the Primary Meridian that if s
directly associated with, that it would go to its Yin Yang pair. That would be the
Transverse Luo idea. But it can do both. It does not have to go to the Transverse
Luo to do that. That means the option I have with BL-58 is that I can create
Broken Blood Vessels in the Bladder. I can create Broken Blood Vessels at the
Kidney area, at KI4, both possible translocations. And even though if s at KI-4,
it can be the Bladder's Lw.It doesn't have to be the Kidneys' Luo for that matter,
especially if you see Broken Blood Vessels also on the lateral aspect. Then you
know that the Bladder must be really Full because if s both places. OK?

Q. So the Transverse scenario happens after the Longitudinal? Or not

necessarily?
A. Not necessarily. In other words, let's say the body does not have enough
Blood. So there's not Blood enough to move it, or enough Fluids to move it
anywhere, then it will just go right into the Jing Level. In which case, it can go
directly into the Primary Channels into the Source. TransverseLuo would mean
that I don't have enough Blood or Fluid in this Meridian, maybe my Yin Yang
pair has some. So it will go to the Transverse Luo.

Q. And this is after the Sinew Merdians have been by-passed ?

A. Remember the idea here is that things that deal with the Luo Channels
could be an External Pathogenic Factor, which would mean that if s bypassing
the Sinew, but it doesn't have to be a Sinew Meridian, it could be an Internal
Pa thogenic Factor. So the Sinew isn't even concerned about it because it is not its
terrain, so to speak. This means, the fact that it went from the External to the
Internal would mean that there's an underlying Wei Qi Deficiency.

Q. When they use the Luo Point for External conditions, like traditionally in
TCM...
A. Right, LU-7or LI-4, which would be seen as a Source Lw treatment for an
External condition.

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@ New Ensland School of Acuouncture &Jeffrey C. Yuen 2004
Q. Right. And that's the Longitudinal Luo theory?
A. No that's the Transverse Lw,really. Remember they're not Bleeding those
Points. They're just Needling LU-7, so they're looking at it as a Longitudinal Luo;
they are Releasing things from the chest. One might contend however, that they
might be moving things into the chest.

Q. Well, that's the question that I have. It seems to me that if s more likely
that you're going to drive it deeper unless you truly release the Heat
A. I wouldn't necessarily say that's the case. I don't want to think that TCM
is not aware of that.

Q. I mean the practitioner, not TCM.

A. First of all, when LU-7 is Needled in an Exogenous case, if s Needled
Superficially. So they're not doing the Needling technique that is endemic to a
LU-7. If it's a LMOPoint, it has to have Needling (at the) Superficial and Moderate
Level relative to that Point. So if you're doing Superficial Needling, all you're
doing is stimulating Wei Qi. If you get it into the moderate Level, which means
that you're doing it as a Luo Point, at that point which would be relatively Yin,
you Needle into the moderate Level, and then you do strong stimulation in the
moderate Level at LU-7. The skin around LU-7 is going to feel very cool. That's
Yin. You pull that when that gets cool; you lift it up to the surface. Now you're
using LU-7 to dear Heat. LU-7 could be used to get rid of Wind-Cold.
Superficial, strong stimulation, Lifting and Thrusting, what have you, until the
area warms up. You're actually touching the area that you're Needling. It
warms up, Yang. Now that Yang energy is moved into the Deep Level to get rid
of the Cold that might be moving Deeper. Unfortunately, a lot of times when we
learn Acupuncture in general, they just give you the Points. They don't give you
the technique to do on the Point. Technique is just as important as the Point
itself. Just knowing the Point, and what Point to use, you might not be able to do
much unless you know what technique you need to do to that Point. And then
of course, the actual location of the Point by itself can be problematic. Some
traditions will locate them a little differently than others. But this would be the
idea they call the Fire and Mountain technique, or the Cooling technique. If s
relative to where the Point is located. U4 is a Source Point. This is important,
because a lot of times when you are doing De Qi sensation, which is very popular
especially for U-4, they might not be as interested in doing De Qi on LU-7, even
though it will respond very rapidly generally. But if they're looking at De Q in i
LI-4, very commonly for them to get the De Qi usually if s relatively Deep. Some
people will actually locate U-4 by the elevation here. Some people locate it very
dose to the bone. If you're Needling Deep, or if you're locating it dose to the
bone, what you are doing is using the Source Qi to absorb the Pathogenic Factor.
The Source Qi is holding it. It's almost like using Acupuncture as a form of

KB
@ New England School of Acupuncture & Jeffrey C. Yuen 2004
antibiotics. You are suppressing it. I'm going to hold onto it. You're not going
to be symptomatic. And that means that over time if s going to be problematic.
Or if you're using TH-5, which is a Luo Point, very popular for an Exogenous
condition in TCM because they see it as the External Gate, to bring something
back out to the Exterior, you better use it with a Needling technique to bring it
out as an External Gate. That means you have to Needle superficially and you're
trying to get strong stimulation. When the stimulation is created, you release the
Needle. And that's very, very important.

Q. You used the example of the Kidney and the Bladder, for example when
the Bladder had too much stuff, it either went into the Primary Meridian or into
the Transverse Luo of the Kidney. Would it ever go into the Primary Meridian of
the Kidney?

A. Well when it goes into the Kidneys' Luo ...

Q. It goes into the Kidneys' Luo, but it wouldn't go into the Primary
Meridian?
A. It can go into the Primary Meridian of the Kidneys through the Source
Point. Remember, that's what I said yesterday. There are still, even today,
people who practice Luo Channels, who are somewhat uncomfortable with
exactly where the Yin Yang pair connects. Some people say if s connecting with
the Luo. Some people would say it connects with the Source. And then within
the Longitudinal Luo, the idea is that does it, when it reaches the point that it is
indeed so weak that if s not able to deal with this, does it go to here or does it go
here? My suggestion is that we don't have to be so fixated as to where exactly it
needs to go. We can assume that it can go to both places.
It gives us greater flexibility as to how we acknowledge that every one of
us, unfortunately, is not the same. To try to dogmatize Chinese medicine would
be a mistake. Chinese medicine is not doctrines that we need to follow. They
basically say that these are the hypotheses. Unfortunately, with Chinese
medicine, it's not a unified system. Science is unified. Science means that the
past and the future is all going to be the same. That's why we think of it as a
science. If s a unified theory that basically comes from the idea that we think that
we can in some ways unify everything, that everything in life makes sense.
Thafs science. I mean Einstein himself died trying to develop a unified theory.
If s not going to happen. You can't unify everything in life. Chinese medicine is
saying that there is no such thing as a unified theory. If s what perspective
you're coming from that makes it what it is. Even science is based on
hypotheses. If s the perspective. Say I want this particular hypothesis, and out
of that I'm going to get these results. If s still a paradigm; if s a perspective. And
some people will even challenge that perspective.

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@ New England School of Acupuncture &JeffreyC. Yuen 2004
Q. About treatment: back to that example where you were saying you might
see Broken Blood Vessels around the lateral malleolus. If you're to do Plum
Blossoming or the Bleeding, do you go back BL-58? Or, if there are no Blood
Vessels at BL-58, what are bleeding? The malleolus or the Luo?
A. Let's say you have Broken Blood Vessels around the External malleolus,
around the area of, let's say BL-60. You would see that those Broken Blood
Vessels are coming from, most likely, the Bladder's Luo entering the Primary
Channel. The Primary Channel brought it to the Source Point and the Source
Point at BL-64 began to diffuse it into the adjacent area. So what you need to
treat is where if s coming from, which is BL-58. You do need to treat by Plum
Blossoming BL-58. In addition you treat where it's gone into, which are those
areas, like say around BL-60. The fact that it went into the Source Point, you
have to Harmonize by Tonification of the Source Point, in this case BL-64, which
is Needled and not Plum Blossomed. It might be treated with Moxibustion.

Q. Yesterday you seemed to be talking more about Emotions. Are you going
to cover Emotions as a Pernicious influence and what would be the path that
those Blockages would take? Would they be any different in that way, or would
you look at them the same way.
A. You would look at it the same way. What you're doing with the
Emotions is you're taking the Emotions and you're defining them in context, like
the particular configurations that we saw yesterday. Each one of them would
represent a Longitudinal Luo. The Luo is saying that I'm providing you with the
Blood. This Blood allows you to perceive, to experience the world. That's the
first unit. And then as you begin to store that Blood, as you begin to hold onto
the Blood, which means you have now a recollection of experiences, out of that
recollection comes repetition, comes the ability to be able to see something and
right away understand it, because you have a background that you can rely
upon. But then at the same time, it says something about soda1 skills. If you
have someone who comes in, you can look at Broken Blood Vessels, seeing the
visibility, or palpating for nodules in the body. Where those Broken Blood
Vessels or nodules are located can suggest the physical signs, but they can also
suggest to you that these are the issues that that person really has in their lives
that they might need to be working with. It really depends a lot on the clinician.
If you're coming from the perspective that you really want to explore the human
psyche, and that idea of Bleeding, bringing out the bad Blood of that experience
that promoted that particular pathology of human psyche, you're going to be
relying on this model, rather than the more somatic or physical signs and
symptoms. I wanted to focus more on the Emotions yesterday because I feel that
many people often mistakenly think that Chinese medicine doesn't have
Emotional treatments. But they do have a lot of Emotional treatments. If s just
the context of Acupuncture and how if s being presented. If s being presented
under the influence of Confuaanism, which is going to tailor it down, as does
Communism, definitely. Look at the committees developing TCM. You don't

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0 New England School of Acupuncture &Jeffrey C. Yuen 2004
want Chinese people to read about things that deal with Emotional stuff,
especially in the Communist regime. Suppression of that is going to be even
more predominant So with that, you're going to have even greater elimination
of things that deal with Emotional discrepancies. TCM doesn't have it because of
the philosophy and the politics, so to speak,that are going to encourage one
Dungover the other.

Q. Jeffrey, since we're back with the Emotions, could you elaborate, when
you said that you wouldn't cure psychological conditions with Acupuncture?
A. Oh. Thafs the law; fhafs the legalities. I was teasing. Because I teach a
lot of this in California,and I'm always being told by the Acupuncture
Committee, the board that approves the CEUs, that I should tell the audience
that within the scope of Acupuncture practice, it does not include the treatment
of psychological disorders. I was just teasing everyone. I'm quite sure that if s
probably in the law of Massachusetts as well, that if you have a psychological
client, you should refer them to see a psychiatrist Obviously, it's unfounded,
because Chinese medicine never saw a separationbetween the body, the mind,
and the Spmt in the first place, anyway.
Q. Yesterday you were talking about being careful that you don't bring out
too much of what someone is holding as Latent, not Bleeding too much. What
happens if you do? What if you bring up too much Blood? Are you realty
pushing someone too hard by doing that?
A. Right You can definitely push someone's buttons, or push someone'sL w
Point to the limit What you need to do when you have, lefs say, a situation
wheie you're very excited. You've learned this material; you want to go back
and with everyone you're really consciously looking at Broken Blood Vessels. I
see some here. I see some there. And you start bleeding away at these. You are
enamraging a lot of EmotionalRehses, Emotional responses. If they find that
if s overwhelming/ generally if B because the Source Qthe i, ConstitutionalQi is
not ready for that So if you have that kind of situation, as soon as you go back
into workmg on building the Soiirre QY ,ffn Qt', then e v e r y t h i n g stabilizes. The
iu
best way of doing that is actually by, if they do have such an Emotional response,
going directly to the k g Vessel. The Ctong will balance that off, because
Chong IS Ywm Q*. C h g is the Sea of Blood. C h g allows you to start to
Harmonize and Bank. What I mean by going to the CTiong Vessel, I mean
Needling SP-4, the Opening Point of the Chmg Vessel. I mean Needling
primarily the first trajectory of the Chong, the tmjectory that has ffT-30, and the
traj'ectory KI-11, K3-16.I'm fust picking major landmark Paints, next to the navel,
next to the pubic bcme,next to the lower border of the ribcage, KI-21. That
would be often very stabilizing for someone who has a tremendous Emotional
response.
Q. Yesterday, I don't know if this is going into what you're going to do
today, but yesterday you mentioned that if the Luo is Empty then you're going to
balance with Moxa. Do you do Moxa on the Luo or on the Source?
A. You do Moxa on the Luo after you Plum Blossom it. If s kind of like two
techniques. You Plum Blossom or Bleed the Point, and then you're going to
Moxa the area. So when you Moxa the area, in the old days they actually did
Scar Moxa, because what you're doing when you're doing Scar Moxa is you're
getting the area to pucker up, really. You bum something. If s traumatized; it
squeezes together. If it squeezes together, it holds the Qi there for a long time.
If s like an intradermal Needle would be almost like doing Moxibustion.

Q. And at the Source, you're Tomfymg just with the Needle?

A. Right. If you're having an Empty condition in a Lw Point where you're
going to Plum Blossom and then follow by Moxa, when you get to the Source
Point you don't do Tonification on that Point, because you've already Tonified
the Luo. So when you Tonify the Luo, what you're doing to the Source, you're
just Opening it. It's more of an Even technique to help balance it off.

Q. In the example of Scarring the Luo Point, would you then, if you weren't
inclined to Scar someone, would you Heat it to a point where the same dynamic
occurs, where the skin puckers, instead of heating it mildly, which would, of
course create the opposite effect.
A. Right. Each time the person has to jump, there's a cringing in that very
microcosmic area that you're looking at. That is a Tonifying technique.

Q. So you bring it to a sting, for example. Bring the intensity of the Heat to a
mild sting. Even if you're not going to Scar the Point, you want to bring the
intensity of the Heat up to a level where the person is . . .
A. Right, bring the Heat to the level where they get jumpy. You know how
they say that Moxibustion, when you blow on the cones, is Dispersing, because
when you're blowing on it, you're really never allowing the Heat to be so
intense, so if s really Dispersing. Some people who, lefs say they're Blood
Deficient, and you are concerned about Bleeding the area, but you want to work
on the Luo Point, so you want to go into that Luo Point, but you want to create
the same idea of a puckering. You can Needle it instead of Bleeding it, and get
that Point to pucker up against the Needle. Now again, that does not mean you
go thrusting and twirling until you get all the muscle fibers to squeeze the
Needle. If s a very slow technique, because slow is very often Tonifying. Slow
technique, the hand is raised above the skin, and you're doing this until the "fish
bites". That's the puckering technique. That would also hold if you're dealing
with an Empty condition of the Lw, without Bleeding it.

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Q. A question about muscular-skeletal stuff: yesterday you were saying if
someone has a pain somewhere and you can't really trace it to, let's say, some
sort of a Bi Syndrome or Blood Stagnation, so you suspect if s a L w Channel
problem. For instance, if the pain is along a certain Meridian pathway, would
you, I guess first look for Broken Blood Vessels or something around that Luo
Point? But if there wasn't any such thing, would you automatically treat the Luo
Point of that Channel, or would you, if you're suspecting that it might be more of
a mental-Emotional thing, or what you just consider the different
(developmental)stages? Would you try to get a feeling for where in those
different stages that person might be stuck and then treat that Lw? For instance,
if someone has a pain along the Small Intestine Meridian, and you can't
determine what caused that pain, are you going to automatically go to the Small
Intestine and treat that Luo, or are you going to look elsewhere, based on the sort
of Emotion, psychological (symptoms)?
A. If s one of the topics that we're going to be looking at, but in general if
you're looking at someone where they have psychosomatic pain, that means they
essentially have the idea of over-responsibility. They just can't bear the weight of
all of these things that they have to do. They have been Atlas for too long, lifting
and supporting a family, supporting employees, and all that. The shoulders are
starting to feel the bulk of that weight, and they develop pain along, let's say, SI-
12, in that area, a very common area, along the traps. That would be the Ah shi
area. That person comes to you to get treated and you do your evaluation. Does
it seem to get worse with certain weather? When you put heat on it? Whatever.
And they say no to all those questions. In TCM you're forced to say Qi and
Blood Stagnation, usually. You know if s Bi Syndrome, but they say when you
can't come up with a Climatic Factor the easiest way out is to simply call it Qi
and Blood Stagnation. That's going to be the TCM diagnosis. But the problem is
that this was not due to an accident So if s not necessarily occluded. I don't
really have any discoloration in the area. You might palpate and there's not even
a nodule in the area. There aren't any trigger points in the area. So what you
might then suspect is that the pain in that area is due to Emotions that are
holding on to it.
Then you look at, what are the Emotions that bring energy upward.
Maybe they're really Angry at the fact that they have to support all these people.
Maybe if s Anger, because Anger Ascends Qi. Maybe they're Anxious about
getting all their bills paid, in terms of all the responsibility. Anxiety is a Yang
Emotion. It also Scatters and can manifest in the shoulder region. Now again,
that would be the more simplistic way, that these are Emotions that are Yang.
Wood and Fire are Yang Earth could be Yin or Yang. Pensiveness can have a
situation where it can go down, it can also go up. But at the same time, we know
that you can have the Ke cycle. Maybe what they're really feeling is Depressed,
that they're not doing the things they really want to do in life, and they're doing
all these other things because they're doing it for other people and not for
themselves. That Depression manifests in the form of Metal. And yet Metal is

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being Controlled by Fire. As a result of that Fire moving the Metal, the Grief is
held in the shoulders. If s a Control Cycle. Thafs the part that you have to
discern; what Emotion do you think is being held in this area? And a lot of
times you really have to do an intake on that person's lifestyle. And this is where
you do get into the psychological aspect. So if you suspect that indeed this Grief
that is really being held here because this person is not chasing his or her dreams,
then you're going to look at the Yang Meridian's Luo that represents Grief, which
in this case is Metal, Large Intestine. So you now go to LI-6 and you Plum
Blossom LI-6 to see if you can bring some of that Grief out of the person, at the
same time treating the area that is Ah Shi. The area that's Ah Shi is treated with
Sinew Meridian treatment, because even though if s Emotional, if s being
manifested through a Tendinomuscular presentation.

Q. And the reason for using the Yaw, Large Intestine instead of Lung in that
case?
A. Because, remember Lungs deal with what Level you think if s at. You
might not necessarily know what Level if s at, because they don't want to talk
about it. They don't want to talk about their Frustrations; they don't want to talk
about their Depression. You can't assume that if s just being Repressed. It could
be that I am aware that I'm Depressed, but Mommy told me never to talk about
my Depression with others. In that case it simply is a condition, where at least to
the clinician you're not talking about that. So just doing the Yang will allow
some movement to come out and the person might, on the table, start crying.
They might notice that once they cry, there's a tremendous Release that came
from the shoulder region. We'll actually go into the detail of how to treat that.

Q. Jeffrey, you were talking a few minutes ago that if you're doing a Luo
treatment and the person has a strong Emotional discharge, what you do is turn
around and Tonify Yuan Source. Are you saying that if the person's having a
strong Emotional discharge that this is something you would want to modify
rather than to go ahead and let them have that strong Emotional discharge?
A. If they find that the Emotional discharge is overwhelming. You can have
a strong Emotional discharge and find it very cathartic, very Releasing. But if the
day after the treatment, they say, "During the whole week I was just crying. I
couldn't do anything. If s really disturbing my life." Then you need to give
them the integrity to continue on. And that's when you're building the Source
Qi-

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 A. Cardiovascular Conditions
(Based on the Teachings of Wang Qing-ren)
1. Trajectory Perspective

Let's begin with some of the applications. The first application is the
application for cardiovascular conditions. This is based primarily on the
teachings of Wang Qing-yen. Wang Qing-yen was a somewhat notable clinician
who lived at the end of the 18* century into the 19th century. He's noted for
writing a very famous book, Corrections on the Errors Committed by Phvsiaans,
or, bv Practitioners. He basically believed that our understanding of the Internal
Organs was not very accurate, because we did not do very much dissection. We
did not open up the body. So Wang Qing-ren did a lot of open-chest dissections.
He looked at the aorta and the vena cava. He saw these as major Blood Vessels,
as we would expect. He looked at them in particular as they relate not only to
the context of the circulatory system, but to the Blood Vessels and how they have
a direct correlation to the classification that they belong under, which is the
Curious Organs. He saw the relationship between the Heart, or the Blood
Vessels and the Brain. He noticed that people who had certain degrees of
atrophy in the brain demonstrated similar types of inconsistencies in the heart.
He's very notable for that, and he essentially began to look at Chinese
Acupuncture in relationship to the Luo Channels, because he knew the Luo
Channels dealt with Blood. He began to explore the Luo Channels relationship to
Blood in terms of an anatomical connection that he was seeing begin to evolve.
He goes back to the Ling Shu. He says the Ling Shu was the correct trajectory, the
fact that the Ling Shu begins at the chest. He saw that basically the Lung
trajectory was about the movement of oxygen, or you would call it Zong Qi into
the Heart, into the chest, the idea that LU-7 represents the Luo Point, something
from the Exterior, air, coming into the Interior, and then affecting, causing the
piston, the Fire that moves the Lungs and moves the Heart, as represented by
LU-10 and PC-8, or the thenar eminence and the center of the palms. So, in his
own primitive way, he saw this as the idea of the body's cardiovascularsystem.
Keep in mind the Jesuits were already coming into China at this time, so I'm
quite sure he had access to anatomical textbooks that were coming from the
European countries. He was probably using some of those textbooks as he did
the dissection. And he is making correlations between the Luo Channels as a
primitive understanding of the blood vessel system. And like the idea of the
blood vessel system, he saw the Blood Vessel system as a dosed system.
Something that went from the chest out to the four limbs and then returned back
to the chest, like a closed loop system.

Here again, if you look at the context of the Ling Shu, it begins with the
Lungs and the Heart and the Pericardium. This was just a reminder of the
trajectory. From HT-5, we know it goes to the chest, goes to the tongue, goes to
the eyes. PC-6 goes to CV-17. Again, he makes a very strong differentiation
between Heart and Pericardiurn. He says that the Heart Luo Channel, not the

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Organ, was responsible for Blood, as it comes into the chest and as it begins to
move out of the chest. So if s responsible for circulation of Blood as it goes
outward, surface peripheral circulation. Whereas, Pericardium on the other
hand, was responsible for Blood as it enters the chest, more systemic circulation:
things that are happening internally inside the body. Thafs the first basic
differentiation he makes, between External and Internal circulation. He says that
by using the trajectories. Furthermore, he looks at the signs and symptoms of a
lot of these things. If you look at the Heart, if you look at the Pericardium, both
deal with chest pain. We talked about that, in that the Heart deals more with
that stuffiness, all the way to angina. Remember Heart can deal with pain that
radiates down its trajectory, with its capability to affect the tongue and to affect
the neck, the loss of speech. The rigidity of the neck, we saw with Pericardium.
The loss of speech in terms of its Emptiness, that we saw with the Heart's Luo:
the Heart's Luo as it brings Blood into the tongue. The tongue obviously is seen
as an extension of the Heart But keep in mind that the Hearts Luo also goes to
the eyes. Very often he makes the correlation that if the Heart is not able to
control through circulatory processes, if s going to deprive the brain of Blood,
and then you can easily have a stroke. You have Wind, in TCM we would think
of it as Wind due to, maybe, Blood Deficiency. Or you can have this constant
stress on the Heart, Fullness of the Heart, causing hypertension, causing this
tremendous heartbeat, with that tremendous pressure going into the brain,
causing, potentially, a stroke, in which case you can have the loss of speech as a
result of that. So he makes these correlations between the Blood and the Brain, in
particular. Then later on you'll see he's making correlations with the Uterus,
because those are the Curious Organs. Remember the Curious Organs include
the Brain, the Spine, the Gall Bladder, and the Uterus. They include the Blood
Vessels and the Bone Marrow. So Blood Vessels are included in that, the fact that
the Blood Vessels are the link between these (Curious)Organs, that are
considered very important for survival aspects. Uterus for the survival of the
species, the Brain for the survival of your Shen, or your so-called intelligence, or
the insanity aspect, to make sure that you're not insane, in this life.
HT-5deals more with surface circulation; let's say if someone had
problems with Coldness in the Four Limbs, if someone has a lot of pressure
rising to the upper ... again, if s just a differentiation. Obviously someone can
have peripheral problems due to system problems. But this is just a
differentiation of where to go first. So if your hands are cold, if you have
Raynaud's, if you had, let's say phlebitis, if you have hypertension, if your face is
very ruddy and flushed all the time, things that involve surface, where the
surface seems to have an increase or decrease in circulatory function, you would
look at HT-5as the principal Point. Again, he looks at the Luo Channels, and the
only Luo Channels that go into the Heart, are the Heart and Pericardium, so they
must be the most important because they connect directly to the Heart, which
deals with the movement of Blood, so that these two must be the Master Points
of the cardiovascular system, as we might even contend from a western medical
perspective. The idea is that you have an aspect of the Heart that's going to deal

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with the Surface, and an aspect that deals more with Internal. PC-6 deals more
with Internal circulation. If you have an actual heart condition, if you have
mitral valve prolapse, you have congestive heart failure. . .
(break in the recording)
. . .internally that's showing up. Then you would think of PC-6.
He describes how the Merdians begin, or at least are associated with the
Yin Arm Channels that go to the chest, and from there it moves to the Yam Arm
and Leg Channels. It goes to the four limbs. That representation we see
definitely if you look at the context of the four limbs, Triple Heater, Large
Intestine and Small Intestine. He changes the order slightly. He puts Triple
Heater in front of Large Intestine and Small Intestine. In the Ling Shu they have
Small Intestine, Large Intestine and Triple Heater. In other words, how do we
make the Luo Channels connect at the chest? Well, Triple Heater connects
directly with the chest. That's the trajectory that connects with the chest So he's
trying to develop a continuum in this very primitive way with the Luo Channels.
Then we know that Large Intestine connects with the face, so from the chest to
the face and then to the arms, to the limbs, because remember, the Heart only
went up the throat, and internally it goes to the eyes. You want to be able to
bring that Blood to the face.
Let's say I have poor circulation on the face, which obviously is rare
because we know that all the Yang Merdians go to the face. That's why the face
never gets cold, literally speaking. But let's say you have poor circulation going
to the face, causing numbness. In TCM you might think of that as Wind, or in
particular Wind-Phlegm. But he could easily argue that, "No that's just poor
circulation. The Luo Channels are not bringing it to the face." In which case, we
would say it's surface circulation that we're interested in, HT-5 would be the
major so-called Opening Point. And the Point that you want to bring things into
the face would be, at least first, would be Large Intestine. Large Intestine brings
things to the face. So U-6 would also be part of your treatment to bring
circulation into the face.
Or let's say you don't have much circulation in your arms. Your hands
are cold. The major one that goes . . .all of them start in the arms, but the major
one that seems to be localized in the arms is Small Intestine. Small Intestine just
goes to ll-15. It stays there. If s localized predominately in the arms. So let's say
you have cold hands all the time, then you might consider, "OK this is surface
circulation. Let me look at HT-5 to affect the surface circulation, and let me add
into it SI-7, since that is going to affect the upper limbs." And again, if there is
Coldness, they would say you might have bluish L w Channels. So he would
say, "Obviously what you have is Blood that is going to be bluish, deprivation of
oxygen", as we would say. "There's deprivation of Qi. Not enough life force."
So he might look for areas that are bluish, or he would Bleed these Points to get

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blue Blood, or to get occluded Blood coming out of the area. In his writings he
says that a lot of times, you have upon Bleeding darkish Blood coming out. This
would be an example of how you would treat someone who might have cold
hands and feet, based on the cardiovascular model, based on the Luo Channels.

TH-5 goes from the shoulders into the breast, as we mentioned yesterday,
into the center of the chest Some people add CV-12. LJ-6 goes to U-15, into the
face, in particular into the area of the jaw, into the area of the nose, into the area
of the mouth. So, lefs say if you have TMJ, lockjaw. You can easily argue that
there's not enough circulation going into this area of the jaw, causing the area to
become frozen, causing the area to become cold. So if s locked. If s painful.
Cold causes pain. A lot of times, when they put warm compresses on the TMJ, it
feels better. So you might say that if s cardiovascular. Again, you start out with
HT-5, because if s going to the surface; if s going to the upper, outer aspect of the
body. Then you add to it, U-6, since it goes into that particular area. That would
be the treatment. It would be seen as Cold. You're looking along the trajectory
of LI-6 for any bluish spider veins along the way.

Lastly, at least in this context, SI-7just goes to LI-15, which means SI-7 just
deals with circulation, or primarily deals with circulation of the upper limbs.
Triple Heater makes the connection with the chest. Large Intestine makes the
connection with the face. Small Intestine makes the connection with the upper
limbs. With HT-5, they are involved with peripheral circulation to the head, the
face and the four limbs, bringing oxygen, or bringing Blood in particular, into
these areas of the body.

At the same time, these are also areas of the body that define where Blood
Stasis or Blood Deficiency can be held. What I mean by that is, it is his
conclusion that very often you can get areas that are occluded in these major
areas of the body. The U-15 region he says is an area where you can get
Stagnationpreventing circulation from going into the face, preventing circulation
from going into the chest That means if you were looking at the return of Blood
back to the chest, LI-15 is a major Meeting Point of the three Yang Luo Channels
of the arm. Blood can very often get occluded, and if Blood gets occluded here,
you have Excess Blood on the Exterior, Deficient Blood in the Interior.

Remember, Wang Qing-ren is also influenced by the tradition that was

developing, or being highlighted at that time, gynecology. Gynecology develops
into a very specialized field in the Qmg dynasty. It starts out in the Ming, but
really develops in the Qing dynasty. One reason is, keep in mind that by the time
you get into the Song dynasty, there's the separation of the sexes. If you were a
medical practitioner, most likely you were male, even though there were female
practitioners as well, and if you were to see a woman client, you would not be
able to palpate, to touch the woman's body. You often could only take their
Pulses, and in some cases, if the woman was of nobility, you might not even be
able to see their face. They might just be sitting behind a sedan chair, extending

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their hands out from a curtain. In some cases, the husband would describe to
you what the wife was going through, or the maid, if you came from a noble
family. They might be relaying the messages back to the husband because of the
embarrassment of talking about some of her issues. Then it would be related
back to the physician. Once you start talking to one person and that goes to
another person, we all know the problem with that is the symptoms change by
the time it gets to the physician. This is also the time period of that famous story
where the physician would tie a cord to the woman's wrist, and then takes the
Pulse from the cord. I think if you tried that, you would find that if s not feasible
to be able to do that, but nevertheless that story circulates.
What I'm saying is that during the Qing dynasty, because of this inability
to do a lot of palpation, they're going to have to really develop ways of treating
gynecological problems in the absence of some of the previous techniques that
we had. Looking at the tongue, you might not be able to do that. And again,
Tongue Diagnosis really developed with the Wen Bing School. Even though in
TCM you might make a big thing out of it, Classically you don't have too many
people talk about the tongue. Shang Han Lun doesn't talk about the tongue.
They don't give you anything about the tongue. Gynecology is developing
extremely well during his time. And remember, one of the theories of
gynecology is Sheng Hua; you cannot generate Blood unless you move Blood; you
cannot Move Blood unless you also Nourish Blood. The idea here is that if you
have Blood Stasis, you can also have Blood Deficiency. Thafs where that idea
comes from. So what I'm saying is that when it defines the region of Blood Stasis
and Deficiency, some of these regions are very important to treat if we're going
to help to Nourish or Move Blood. Included in that would be LI-15, and ST-5 is
going to be a major area that you need to look at. And we might also be looking
at the region of the neck; ST-12 would be an area that you might be looking a t
These are major areas that are going to be useful for Regulating Blood. In fact if
you look in modem textbooks, when you look at the arm Points, there are not too
many Points that will have the word He Harmonize, Qi and Blood. LI-15
Harmonizes Qz and Blood. A lot of Acupuncture Points on the four limbs do not
do that Some of the exceptions would be the Points that were very popular, that
by the time they used it so much they got it to do everything they wanted it to
do, like ST-36.
(break in the recording)

A; Someone asked about the Source Point for the Great Luo of the Spleen.
That would be SP-3
And someone asked about the Needling technique when using LU-7 and
U-4 when used in TCM for the treatment of an External Pathogenic Factor. The
question raised the issue of how you distinguish between Yin and Yang in this

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A. No. (The use of) weight simply means that you're seeing the condition
that you're treating as a condition of Excess. The weight means you're Reduang.
Keeping the wrist up (off) means you're Tonifying. In other words you can have
Heat that's due to Deficiency, you can have Empty Heat; or you can have Heat
that's due to an Excess.

Q. What if you have Supefiaal Wind Cold? You don't want to be driving
that Deeper. You don't want to use the Warming method and drive it Deeper.
So you just do it at the Surface and leave it there?
A. Right. It might be something of that sort.

Q. This idea is that the Points that you select anatomically, will also tell you
the depth of insertion that you can go into, at least with the Antique Points. Jing
Well Points, Ying Spring Points, Shu Stream Points are going to be Needled
relatively Superficially to the Moderate Level in the case of the Shu Stream. He
Sea Points you can Needle much more Deeply because they happen to be Deeper
anatomically as well as energetically.
The other question was about what other Points can you use with Lm
Points. Remember, Luo Points represent External to Internal. So the most
common Point in terms of Antique Points that represents External to Internal is
the Shu Stream Point. The Shu Stream Points represent Exterior/Interior. Luo
Points represent Exterior/Interior. They both have the same connotation. The
difference of course is that the Shu-Stream Point does not connect with the Yin
Yarzg pair. The Luo Point conneds with the Yirz Yang pair. That's the difference
between these two Points. The Lw Point connects Deeper, and that's why they
happen to be located more proximal to the Shu Stream Point, and not distal to the
Shu Steam, because they're going Deeper by connecting with Yin Yang pair. That
means that if you're looking at Point combinations, it's not uncommon that we'll
see that if you're trying to bring something from the Interior back to the Exterior,
for which you're using the Luo Point, it very often can be combined with the Shu-
Stream Point. Now remember the Shu Strem Point happens to also be the
Source Point on the Yin Merdians. Hem is where intentionality makes a big
difference. Am I using it as a Source Point? Or am I using it as a Shu Stream
Point? Source Points on the Yang Merdians is not as big of a deal, because they
have their own so-called Source Point. But if you're using it as a Source Point,
remember what you're thinking of with Source Points is either that it's being
used to absorb the Pathogenic Factor, to bring it into a Point so that it's
asymptomatic, or you're trying to Build the Source Point to give the body the
integrity by supporting Yuan Source Qi, to support the Exterior and the Interior
as it goes out to the Luo. That intentionality is going to make a big difference as
to how youfre going to Needle the Source Point.

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 As the condition is coming out, as it comes out from the Interior to the
Exterior, it manifests in the form of Heat. As it's mming out, it manifests in the
f o m of Heat. You can also combine Luo Points, during the time let's say the
peBon has a healing crisis, an inflammatory response, with Ying Spring Points.
The Ying Spring Points are going to now address the inflammatory aspect. As
something that's coming from the Interior back out to the Exterior. That's not
uncommon. A lot of times you see L w Points combined with Ying S p ~ Points. g
Now these are all Points that are located distally, and of course if you'm
following the concept that was introduced by the Ling Shu that an inferior
physician only uses the four limbs, and you don't want to be considered an
inferior physiaan, you can't just use the Points on the hands and the legs. At
least the Ling Shu would tell us that can't you just do that. You have to combine
them with Points that are on the central axis of the body, and the Points that are
on the central axis of the body that represent the same concept as the Shu Points,
are the Shu Points on the chest and the Shu Points on the back That means you
combine them with Bladder Shu Points on the back, or you combine them with
Kidney Shu Points along the h n t . That would be how you are able to do Local
and Distal, and satisfy the criteria that was outlined by the Ling Shu that you just
can't use the four limbs, or the Four Gates as they'd call it.
That would be basic Point combinations. Luo Points can be combined
with %urce Points. Luo Points can be combined with Points along their
trajectory, as we would expect. So LI-15,ST-5 would be some of the Points we
could see- CV-17 would be a Point that we might combine them with- Those are
just Points along the trajectory- You can combine them with the Antique Points,
which would be Ying-Spring during the time that something is mming out, or if
you want to promote things to come out, the Luo Point is further enhanced when
combined with a Shu Stream Point, based on the concept of Shu Stream Point, not
as the Source Point. And lastly, Shu Points that are on the chest and Shu Points
that are along the back, the Bladder Shu and the Kidney Shu Points that are on
the chest cavity. OK? Those are the Point combinations that we would see
without distracting the treatment into other Merdians. I'm not necessarily saying
that you cannot, but then if you do do that, just keep in mind that you have two
Merdians, or two messages that are taking place in the body. And be reminded,
Classical Acupuncture does not like to use more than three Merdians at one time.
If you start using a bunch of Channel Points at one time, they would say that
could potentially move the Pathogenic Factor Deeper, or translocate or
Transverse the Pathogenic Factor to other Merdians, so that even though there's
relief, it's relief because it's gone somewhere else, that's all. So we need to at
least follow the examples that are given, if we're going to say that wefredoing
Classical Acupuncture.

We looked at the relationship of the Heart to the four limbs. We talked

about this idea of the concept that if you have Blood Stasis, you can often have
Blood Deficiency. Now we can look at the continuation of this idea with the Gall
Bladder, Bladder and Stomach.

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 For the Gall Bladder we see the trajectory moving into the Chon& its
relationship to Blood. Wang Qing-rm basically defines (33-37 as a major Point
that's going to have an affect on the aorta and the vma cava, because of its
relationship to the Gung Mai at the dorsum of the foot. BL-58, remember, is
going to follow the Kidney's Lm Meridian. From the Kidneysfit's going to go
into the base of the ribcage and then from there into the lumbar spine. ST40
travels up into the region of the head before Descending down to the throat. The
inference that he is making here is that when you're looking at the correlations,
first the Yin Channels of the arms go into the chest. The Yang Channels (of the
arm) begin to move it up into the face and into the throat Then what you have is
that it begins to circulate to the leg Channels. That circulation is represented by
Gall Bladder. That circulation is represented by Bladder, and then from the legs
it has to return things back into the chest, so you have the venous circulation
coming back up. He's basically arguing for ST-40, as a major Point to excite the
Qz to move the B l d back into the region of the chest, into the region of the
brain. So it (the Stomach Luo) goes not only into the chestf but it goes all the way
into the head, and from there it travels back down the opposite side into the
throat. Gall Bladder and Bladder Luo Merdians essentially Descend, while
Stomach travels up to the head to the other side. The lower limbs and the head
are affected by the Yang Leg Lm Merdians. Here in particular we're looking at
someone who he sees as having a stroke, having something that relates to the
head, but where instead of affecting speechf affecting the upper limbs,it affects
the half of the body. Again, the Stomach goes from one side and it ends at the
opposite side. So if you had a stroke and you become hemiplegic, paralyzed on
one side of the body, that would be seen as an imbalance as reflected by the
Stomach's Lw Meridian, since the Stomach brings Blood from one side to the
opposite side.
You can also have conditions that relate to the lower limbs. Mkybe youfre
having a situation of weakness of the lower limbs. You could be someone who
has multiple sclerosis, MSf where you start to lose circulation in the lower limbs
first. That might be seen as here you have a situation of the lower limbs, so
you're thinkkg maybe it's Bladder, maybe it's Gall Bladder. Both of them affect
the lower limbs. Gall Bladder's signs and symptom along the longitudinal Luo,
rememberfinclude paralysis and defiuenaes of the lower limbs. So Gall Bladder
is going to be used, and because you're interested in peripheral circulation, HT-5
is the Opening Point HT-5 with GB-37 for someone who has lack of circulation
in the lower limbs.If someone had a stroke, or let's say someone had a spinal
injury. A spinal injury generally will cause paraplegia rather thanhdplegia.
So if someone has had spinal injuriesf you might look at the Leg Luo Merdians
and bring that circulation back down into the lower limbs. Here is another
example wheref for someone who hasf let's say, damage to the spine causing
lower limb effectsfyou could look at the relationship with Kidneys, because
Kidneys go to the lumbar region, and how the Kidneys Luo is affected, or is
affectingthe Bladder's Luo. BL-58, again, goes to the lower limbs by going into

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KI-4. That's a direct connection there. So if you're seeing that as indeed a spinal
issue, rather than an autoimmune aspect perhapsf with MS, and you see indeed
there is a spinal issue that's cawing the paralysis of the lower limbs, then you
might be using HT-5, again to promote peripheral circulation, BL-58 and KI-4.
So that would be another example of dealing with this.
The lower limb and the head can be affected by the Yang Leg Luo
Merdiam pertaining to other conditionsf which refers to Zhong Feng. By the time
of Wang Qing-yen, already Zhong Feng means that you can have a stroke.
Previous to that Zhung Fag simply did not necessarily mean that y m had a
strokei per se.
With paralysis, Gall Bladder' you can have Fluid retention in the s k d .
You can have meningitis. You can have cranial and vertex headaches that seem
to be very, very sharp. Someone could be having mini-strokes (TIAS)for that
matter, relating to the Bladder, shce the symptoms of the Bladder's Luo includes
things that relate to the head. Here you're extending this and sayI "Well if it's
Bladder' these are very serious conditions of the head that relate to Blood flow
going to the head, and atrophy. One of the symptoms of Stomach's Luo, in terms
of Emptiness of the Stomach's Luo, is having atrophy of the lower limbs as well.
But in relationship to the Stomach, there is a Brain relationshipI the relationship
between the Sensory motor tracks. The Spine' a Curious Organ, the Brain and
the Blood Vessels, are going to be adamantly defended as part of the idea of the
Luu Channels. What he's really suggesting is that you can't look at the Blood
Vessels without looking at the other Curious Organs.
9 - 4 0 is intimately related to Blood issues affecting the Shen' the Spirit, as
we see wtih mania. As the Stomach Meridian brings the circulation back to the
chest' ifs going to at least assist the atio ion of things back to the chest byI
lasfiy, the Leg Yin Lm Merdians. Again' in the Ling Shu, it ends w i Spleen, ~
Kidney and Liver. Spleen brings it back into the region of the abdomen. It
doesn't really make a direct connection to the chest- Kidney, again, doesn't really
make a direct connection to the chest; it comes to the outskirts, to the outskirts of
that landmark that you call the ribcage, thoraac cavity. Then Liver brings it into
the Level of ling, to the genitalia. Genitalia are also part of the Curious Organs.
When you say the UterusI what you're really hoking at is the whole genitalia.
It's not just the female organ we're looking at. It includes the male organs as
well.
I n t d Blood Stasis in the abdominal cavity, with sharp pains and
swelling, definitely can be seen as a sign of the Spleen, let's say if someone has
Blood Stasis in the pelvic region, such as a tumor, a fibroidf ovarian cyst. Men
who have hernia or prostatitis, per se, can be seen as a restriction of Blood going
into these areas. That can be seen as a Kidney and Liver's Luo issue. Hers
essentially describing to you a progression. One can look at this progression in
t e r n of how he might have developed these Blood formulas for moving

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Stagnationin the head, in the chest, in the lower abdomen, and in the diaphragm
region. He's famous for these Herbal formulas.
2. Effect Over the Curious Organs
As a corollary to his findings, is the effect over the Curious Organs, which
include the Blood Vessels. If Luo Channels are indeed Blood Vessels, they're
going to have an effect on the Brain and the Spine. We definitely saw that in his
description, the strokes, the sensory motor track that the Spine represents. Gall
Bladder, you'll see that more so later on when we look at GI problems. But we
do know Gall Bladder's relationship to occluded Blood. The fact that you have a
sluggish Gall Bladder, (trying to supply)bile which is a detergent for fat. Fat
accumulates in your arteries. Fat accumulates in the Blood Vessels; you have
arteriosclerosis. That can be seen as faulty Gall Bladder, and a lot of people have
sluggish Gall Bladders. There is also the effect on the Uterus, the effect on the
genitalia, which again would be part of the Curious Organs. Subsequently, if s
effect on the Marrow, and then on the Bone. So he sees that there is a direct
correlation between how Blood is going to affect the Curious Organs, and
importantly, if you look at any cardiovascular condition, any condition that
involves Blood Vessels, you should consider the relationship that these other
Curious Organs might have to the particular condition that you might be
treating.
Let's say someone comes in, and they're coming in because they have a
heart condition. This person might also have a history, not only of
arteriosclerosis, but they might have a history of gallstones. They might also
have a history of fibroids in their uterus. They might also have a history of
spondylitis, or they have scoliosis of the spine. This can all be part of the same
history of how the heart condition is really a manifestation of different things
that have occurred in the Curious Organs, manifesting through the Blood
Vessels, for which the person is coming to see you. That person who has
arteriosclerosis, who has a murmur in their heart, might be coming for the
fibroid instead, but there is that history that shows that there are other Curious
Organs that are involved. That person might be coming because they have
gallstones. But at the same time, they write down on their intake that they have
heart murmurs. They write down on their intake that they also have a fibroid,
but they're coming to you to be treated for the gallstones. They're all inter-
related is what this particular statement argues. They're not separate events.
They all are related by the Curious Organs, and the Curious Organs are
Organs that relate to the Constitutional Level, because you can definitely see the
Eight Extra Channels are going to be really these Organs. Remember the word
"Extraordinary" (Qi -$- ) that we have adapted in the West is the same word for
"Curious". They are not different words, they're the same word. Look at Du
Mai's relationship to the Spine and the Brain, Ren Men's relationship to the
Uterus, Chong Mai's relationship to the Blood Vessels, structure, Bone, Yin Qiao,

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and Yang Qiao's relationship to the structure of the body, the Bone aspect, Yin
Wei's and Yang Wei's relationship to the different mediums, in particular Jing and
Blood.

We see that there is indeed an Eight Extra Channel connection, but how
can you get into Eight Extra Channels? Well, in the old days you wouldn't be
able to do so. In his time, you already have the Opening Points, so Wang Qzng-
ren is obviously not intimated by Eight Extra Channels. But what he's arguing is
maybe, the best way is the intermediary way, because what lies betweenJing and
Wei Qi is Blood. By working on the Blood, you could treat all Levels of the body.
This is his contention, that all diseases are rooted in Blood disorders. If you treat
the Blood disorders, you're going to be able to help Nourish, or help in some
ways, to eradicate chronic degenerative diseases. That's the current premise that
is taken in China today. If you look at geriatrics, you are primarily looking at
diseases where we might think,"Oh, this is a Jing Deficiency, or maybe, there's
aging, we have to look at Jing, or look at Kidney Yin or Yanf." Currently in
China, most of the people who are well known in treating elderly conditions, and
you might have seen the book that has been translated by Blue Poppy Press
dealing with geriatrics, treats geriatrics by treating Blood Stasis. To them it's a
Blood Stasis issue, because that's what geriatric conditions are. They're
conditions usually of the Spine. Geriatric conditions are usually about the Brain.
Geriatric conditions are usually about the Uterus, unless you had a complete
hysterectomy, but if s about menopause. You're looking at symptoms where
geriatric conditions are Curious Organ conditions, cardiovascular, skeletal. You
have osteoporosis. You have arthritis. You have Alzheimer's, Brain: Curious
Organs. How do you get to that? By treating the Blood Vessels.

The involvement of Essence, Curious Organs, supports why one can also
say that there are Luo Merdians for the CV and the GV, because if CV and GV
represent the Curious Organs, and indeed you can see CV, Ren, Uterus, and GV,
Spine, Brain, you can see why there must be a connection with the Luo Merdians,
and he argues this is why the ancient clinicians were so wise to show us that
there are Ren and Du Luo as well, to show us that there is a connectionbetween
Blood and the Brain and the Spine. He obviously, through his dissections,
attempts to demonstrate that.

3. Relationship to the Blood Zang

There's also the relationship that he talks about regarding the Great Luo of
the Spleen. Remember the statement earlier in the Ling Shu that says the Great
Luo controls all of the Luos, and he tackles that issue. The Great Luo, he says,
basically SP-21 is responsible for the production and the management of Blood,
which the Spleen we know does do. The Spleen produces the Red Substance that
it gets from the Stomach, and Ascends that Red Substance into the Heart. If s
basically making this trajectory, from SP-21, it goes into HT-1, to the Heart, and
from HT-1 that Blood gets stored in LR-13, Liver, Spleen, the Mu Point for the

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Spleen. Spleen with the assistance of the Liver is responsible for Storing Blood.
Not only does the liver Store Blood, the Spleen also Banks the Blood. So Spleen
is also responsible for Storing Blood. A lot of times when we have
hemorrhaging, we don't blame it on the Liver; we blame it on the Spleen.
There is the idea of that axis along the side of your body, HT-1, SP-21, LR-
13, that he feels is crucially responsible for the production of Blood. If someone
is anemic, remember you might be anemic because you have Blood Stasis. If s
not just purely anemic. You always have both. That's the gynecology
discussion. If you're going to treat someone who is anemic, you treat SP-21, HT-
1,LR-13, in that order. So now production of Blood, the Great L w of the Spleen
controls all Luo Channels, and makes sure that all the L w Channels are moving
this Blood. It moves it into the Heart, I mean it goes to the Heart, which then
moves it, HT-1. From there we try to get it to be Stored and Banked at LR-13,
which also is the Influential Point for the Zmg Organs. So this idea that the
Spleen is responsible for the initial production of Blood, and he also contends
that when the Spleen is taxed, when the Spleen finds that it has a hard time
producing Blood, what if s going to produce, or what it develops when if s taxed,
when if s Deficient in TCM language, is Dampness, Phlegm. The Spleen from a
Western point of view is a lymph organ. If s a lymph organ that very often gets
swollen when the body has difficulty in manufacturing different aspects of
Blood, be it platelets for the dotting, per se, be it the lymphocytes, the leucocytes,
what have you. So the Spleen becomes very Damp. The Spleen becomes very
swollen. SP-21 releases swelling in the Spleen.
Then it moves into the Heart, the final production of Blood and the
subsequent circulation that's represented by HT-1, and the Liver, its Storage,
with its Banking as represented by LR-13. So there is the Great Luo of the Spleen
and Stomach, because he also adds in the Stomach. Remember in the Ling Shu
they do talk about the Great Luo of the Stomach. He says the Great Luo of the
Stomach basically is the heartbeat. That's why if s on the left side. The Great Luo
of the Spleen and the Great Luo of Stomach deal with the management of Blood:
how it gets produced, how it gets stored, how it gets moved. That's all part of
the Great Luo of the Spleen.

4. Basic Protocol for Longitudinal Luo Channels

in Cardiovascular Conditions
Now I want to summarize his treatments, the basic protocol. Basic means
you can always add more Points to it. We mentioned already some of the Points
that you can add to the treatment: Ying Spring Points, Shu Stream Points, and
again if s not just for his treatment, it can be for any Luo Channel treatment. But
basically if you're going to use this treatment, remember you have to be cautious
in any treatment that involves moving Blood: during pregnancy, if someone is
very elderly, or if someone is having Deficient Blood or Deficient Yin, you need
to Harmonize. Thafs often part of the strategy anyway.

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 So the first thing you need to do is evaluate if the condition deals with
peripheral, surface circulation, or is it a systemic circulation issue, or a
combination of both. That means, for lack of better words, your "Opening
Points", you begin with these Points: HT-5, Surface; PC-6, Internal circulation. If
there's a fibroid, the Blood is occluded, you might say, "Oh, thafs an Internal
condition, let me use PC-6."
Q. You Bleed those?
A. You Bleed those, right. And you know, it might be a Deficiency, in which
case if it is a Deficiency, follow by Moxibustion.
You then examine the trajectory of the site of manifestation for Luo
Vessels. That means, in the absence of signs and symptoms, that means if you're
not aware of the signs and symptoms. A lot of times if s given to you, like, "I
have poor circulation in my hands," in which case you're going to think of Small
Intestine. "I have poor circulation in my face." Maybe youfre interested in
getting a face lift, then you look at Large Intestine. Or maybe you're getting a
face lift because you're aging. Then you might think of Stomach,because of the
relationship to the aging process. In any case, you can also look at the trajectory
of the site of manifestation. What I mean by that is, "Yeah, I do see a lot of
Broken Blood Vessels," let's say around BL-58. Maybe the person is starting to
get weakness in the lower limbs. That has a lower back connection to it. Bladder
and Kidney:so you see that already. You say, "OK, this is definitely surface. I'm
going to use HT-5 and I'm going to Bleed these Broken Blood Vessels that I do
see." I may ask some questions relating to Kidney, relating to Bladder. I may
ask them if they are constipated? I may ask them if they are having difficulty in
urination. I may ask them if they're having low back pains, or genital pains? I
might ask them Bladder symptoms. Is there some type of nasal issue? Do you
have sinus congestion? Do you have chronic sinusitis? Do you have allergies?
Do you have conditions that relate to headaches? These are the symptoms that
come from the Bladder and Kidney Luo Merdians. Whenyou see the Luo
presentation, you can ask questions that relate to the trajectory.
What you do is you Bleed accordingly, unless the individual is Deficient,
who then needs to be Tonified for Blood. In his model, you don't need to Tomfy
Blood by going to the Source Point. You can Tonify Blood by Tonifying the Luo
Vessel itself. 07-35,because it is the Luo for the Ken, can bring Yin,can bring
Blood out, or bring Yin from the Ying Level to support Blood if the person is
Blood Deficient. In which case, 0 - 1 5is not necessarily Bled; if s simply
Needled, or in some cases you might do Moxibustion on that Point, but generally
if s Needling that's done to 07-15. Someone can also be Deficient in Blood
because they have Yang Deficiency, Yang Deficiency or Qz Deficiency in the
Spleen. Spleen is not Holding the Blood. If Spleen is not Holding the Blood, then
you can also Tonify directly by going to DU-1.He's not as interested in the
Source Points. He's using just Luo Points as a way of helping to deal with all of

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these things. You could treat the Luo Meridian, as I said earlier, based on the
associated site. That means if you see that there's these Broken Blood Vessels,
and you see this with HIV,a lot of Broken Blood Vessels in the rib cage, so that's
a site of manifestation. We know that the rib cage area is being visited by a
number of Luo Channels. So you have to discern which L w Channel. You can
discern by looking for other areas that might have Broken Blood Vessels. You
might see it around KI4. For someone who has HIV, that's common. So you
know that if s Kidney Luo Channel that's moving to the rib cage, showing all
these little Broken Blood Vessels, spider veins that is, in this area. That would be
one way of reducing the HIV load, the toxic load, because the Blood is holding
on to the Pestilent Qi. By doing that, you're reducing the viral load in someone
who has HIV. That would be an example of how you apply this based on the site
of the manif station.

Q. I don't have much experience doing anything with GV-1.

A. Well, I don't know how I can help you with that. (laughter). OK. Let's
say you don't want to do any Needling on GV-1. You can open up Du Mai, if
you want, SI-3 can help you then. Your intention is important. You say, "Well,
I'll Needle any Point," because remember GV-1 has a trajectory that goes along
the spine. You might then decide to Needle Points along the spine as a way to
help you get into, or affect GV-1. Some of these Points, some of us might be a
little bit hesitant to Needle, or in some cases Plum Blossom. (laughter).
There are also Pulses for the Luo Channels, but that's not the scope of this
class because you have to really know Pulses for the other Channels to
understand Pulses for the Luo Channels. In general, the Luo Channel Pulses
would be moderate Pulses. They're not going to be on the Superficial Level. You
might be interested in Superficial Pulses, as an expression of something that's
coming out from the Interior, in terms of the Moderate Level. But generally
speaking, Luo Vessel Pulses would be Pulses that are felt on the Moderate Level.
What you're looking for are the Pulses that indicate conditions involving some
type of holding. Stagnation. It might be Tight. It might be Wiry. These might be
dues that this is indeed a Luo Channel problem. It doesn't have to be just the
idea of, "Oh, if s Tight and Wiry because of liver, or because of pain," even
though these can be symptoms of the Luo Channels. Or maybe there's Phlegm,
again signs and symptoms related to the Luo. In other words, a Wiry Pulse that
is associated with the Liver can very often be seen as a Luo Meridian problem.
The three symptoms, Constrained Liver Qi, pain and Phlegm, that are often
associated with Wiry Pulses are symptoms related to Luo Channels. But you can
have a Choppy Pulse, indicative of maybe Blood Deficiency due to Blood
Stagnation. That can be where you might be looking at Luo Channels.
Keep in mind the idea here is, once you begin to understand a Meridian
system, it doesn't matter what Pulses you have. You'll be able to look at those
Pulses as they correlate bade to the system that you practice. That's why, if you

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really want just Pulses that will give you dues that, "Oh,indeed, I could use the
I&" it will be usually Wiry, Tight, or Beady, for lack of better words. You can
have a Pulse that is indicative ofsome type of Heat or Cold affecting Blood: a
Hasty Pulse, a Knotted Pulse,an Intermittent Pulse, a Scattered Pulse. You can
have the Choppy Pulse. All of these can be Pulses to show you that there is
indeed something relating to L w Channels. That can come with the
temperature. Is it rapid? Is it slow? That would just indicate what it is in terms
of Cold or Hot. Fach one of those things can cause Blood Stasis. Each one of
those things can cause Blood Deficiency.

Pulses can also help you to discern which of the Lm Channels you going
to be working with. Using the Pulses require that if you're taking the Pulse, the
quality that you feel on the Moderate Level, upon the release of the pressure of
the fingers, you feel the same quality on the Superficial Level, which means that
that would be more related to the Yany Luo Channels. If you find it just on the
Moderate Level, and when you release you don't feel much on the Superficial
Level, most likely if s related to the Yin Luo Channels. That would be one way,
the most simple way, 1 can describe the LM Channel Pulses so that you can use
Luo Channels in your practice, or you can look at that in that context
I f s not uncommon that many people have a Tight, if not a Wiry Pulse,
and when I say a Wiry Pulse (demonstrateswith rolled-up paper). If s very
important that you really be able to differentiate a Tight Pulse and a Thin Pulse,
because a lot of people would think of a Tight Pulse sometimes as a Thin Pulse#a
Thin Pulse as a Tight Pulse. Thin, remember, is a relative concept Some of us
might simply have Thin Pulses that arc normal Pulses. Just like you might have
a Thin tongue, and that's normal foryou. I can't say, "Oh, you're Blood
Deficient" What is defined as a ThinPulseis that, it's basically saying that at
one time, that radial artery that you are pushing your finger on, was like this.
And then over time, there's less Blood moving through it, so it got smaller and
smaller and smaller, so it looked like this. But the original shape that this Pulse
had, the body wants to return back to. The inside of that Pulse is going to feel
like it wants to expand, to dilate, to return back to its normal fm. That's a Thin
Pulse. When you feel internal dilation, it wants to internally expand, what you
feel is the sides.

When you feel the sides of that, what you're feeling is a Thin Pulse, unlike
a Tight Pulse, which you're also going to feel on the sides, but the sides are going
to want to squeeze it That's Tight, If I squeeze it long enough, i f s going to
bring the upper part of this into a very Choppy mode, Tight, and Choppy.
That's why you very often find them together: Tight, squeeze, Choppy. It hits
my finger in a very fine point That's a Choppy Pulse. A Wiry, or Taut Pulse,
means the whole circumference ofthis feels like, you can't feel anything, and
indeed inside might be even hollow. You won't know that because all it shows is
something holding. Thafs the Pulses that you'll see by which you can say, "Oh,
gee, 1 have a Luo Channel problem." If s important that you're able to

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differentiate those kinds of Pulses. If you don't, then you're going to mistakenly,
or inadvertently, do something different.

Q. The Wiry Pulse you said was characterized by what?

A. The whole circumference of that radial artery feels tight. It means if you
went and you rolled around the Pulse like this, and you feel it tight in all areas.
You can't seem to escape that tight quality. So that's the rolling aspect.

Q. And then when you said with the Tight you'd get the Choppy. When you
said "up", did you mean toward the Cun position, or Superf~tially?
A. In other words, Tight, very often, is trying to hold on to something. What
I'm trying to hold onto, maybe, is Blood, maybe pathology, too, but generally
this is Wiry. When if s Tight, when I squeeze, I can be squeezing and the energy
goes to the top (SuperficalLevel), that would be Choppy. I can squeeze and I
don't feel anything at the top; everything drops down. That would be
considered a Sinking or an Empty Pulse. It means, what I'm holding, I losing. I
can't seem to hold onto it. If s being lost. If s dropping. Or what I'm holding is
coming up to the Surface; if s Choppy. That would be this quality of being
Choppy and being Empty.
Q. inaudible.
A. No. You feel in the radial artery that there's a quality like something is
squeezing it. As it squeezes, you feel something Tight, going like this. Then
when you feel it going like this (fine edge pointing to the Surface),you feel this, a
very fine point, Choppy. Or you feel this; it squeezes and it goes down this way.
It dips down, the Empty quality. With the Empty Pulse, we often think of maybe
Qz in TCM, but it doesn't necessarily have to be Qi. It can just simply mean that
we have leakage of Qi, which you can say is Qi Deficiency, but it can be leaking.
I tried to hold onto it and it leaked out. That's where, if you're doing
Acupuncture, Astringing, getting the Needle to pucker up, is very important in
whatever Points that you're using to Tonify that which you think of as Deficient,
or in this case, really leakage of Qi. So if if s like this, and it leaks, this is someone
who may sweat very profusely. They have leakage of Qi. They may have
wheezing. This is Qi leaking out. They might say, "Every time I defecate, I feel
exhausted": leakage of Qi.
The other aspect to consider is, irrespective of whether you're using
Stomach already or not, the Stomach is what connects to the Brain. You can see
here he argues why ST-40 is very good for a Disturbance of Shen, because of the
connection to the Brain. He also argues that because he saw that these people
who had these brain conditions, brain atrophy, were the same ones who had the
hemiplegia, and all that, so ST-40, which goes to the Brain deals also with

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Phlegm, that might go to the Brain and cause the person to become herniplegic
Wind Phlegm.
He would say, if thafs the case, you need to add to it Bl-58, but if it's just
Phlegm, ST-40. The reason for Wind-Phlegm is because we know that even
though the Bladder's Luo Channel does not go to the Brain by its trajectory, if s
signs and symptoms, as he said earlier, include serious conditions that are
affecting the head. Wind Phlegm tends to go to the head. Then you add BL-58 to
your treatment.
It might be someone who has weakness of the lower limbs due to damage
or injury to the lower back, spine. So you're thinking of KI-4,and at the same
time, this injury to the lower back is causing the person to have these shakes that
are taking place on the head. Now they have Parkinson's Disease, or something
of that sort. That will be where BL-58 becomes a very important Point. If we're
seeing most of these manifest Externally, your Opening Point would be PIT-5.
You would see this as a connection of the lower limbs with lower back
relationship. Already you're using KI-4 and BL-58. BL-58 by itself will also
address the Wind Phlegm that's causing the head to constantly shake. That
would be an example of this idea for Parkinson's Disease.
Then the dosing Point: if you started out the treatment with HT-5, which
is Surface, you're moving the Blood to the Surface, Lungs, remember, brings
things back out. Then it ends with LU-7. If you started the treatment with PC-6,
which is more about Blood going in, -37 moves Blood into the Chong Vessel,
as defined by ST-42, and this relationship between GB-37and the vena cava and
the aorta. So if you started out with PC-6, you end with GB-37. This would be
the cardiovascular treatment, a very basic protocol that comes from, and is
influenced by Wang Qing-yen.
If you use his formulas, his Herbal formulas, these would be the
Acupuncture equivalents to some of his Herbal strategies.
Now I have to say that he comes from a tradition where he was both an
Herbalist as well as an acupuncturist, so if s not going to be where he just used
one in the absence of the other. That's not to say that you're not going to get the
same efficacy without Herbs. It's just that he comes from a tradition where
you're going to use both.

Q. Is that last concluding Point Needled, or Bled also?

A. The Closing Point? The dosing Points are also generally Bled. AU L w
Points are Bled. You're reducing any congestion of the Blood in the body.
Remember, hers living at a time where those practitioners of the West were
practicing Bloodletting, too. If s not like he's doing something that seems so odd
to other people. Remember, in the lgthcentury, in America, they were still

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Bloodletting, too. If s just that they were getting pints of blood, not just drops of
Blood.

Q. What are the Kidney Shu Points? You mentioned the Kidney Shu Points
on the front. Are these Points that relate to the back Shu Points?
A. Yes, they are. Essentially you're looking at the series of Points that
emanate up this way along the Kidney Meridian on the chest. What you have in
the Kidney Meridian is the Points that are half an inch away from the anterior
midline. Then you have the extension of the Points from the anterior midline,
which are one and a half Cun away. Even though we call it two inches away
from the anterior midline, keep in mind if s one and a half Cun away from your
original Kidney Meridian, same as the Bladder Shu Points, which on the back are
one and a half Cun away from Du Mai. These Points are mentioned in the Su
Wen. In the Su Wen, I don't know what chapter number now, but either Chapter
59 or 58, around there. There's a chapter that gives you the Points of
Acupuncture, and they say that when you get to the chest, there are the Shu
Points of the Kidneys that are on the chest. They're very specific. They mention
the word Shu, on the chest. And those Shu Points, KI-22, KI-23, KI-24, KI-25, and
KI-26 are associated, because they are Yin, not like the back which is Yang, these
Shu Points only relate to the Yin Organs with the Zang Organs. Again, the idea
of Shu Points: Shu means transport, to move. Intrinsic in movement is conflict.
Once you decide that you want to do something, you have a choice about what it
is that you want to do. Should I go left? Should I go right? So this conflict that
we have with the Shu Points is represented by the Ke cycle, the Control Cycle.
The conflict lies between the World and the Self. The World, as the Exterior is
represented by Metal, the Lungs; the Interior is represented by Water, the Self.
So you have this External conflict, and you have this Internal conflict, with
regard to what it is that you really want out of your life. Water is Controlled by
Earth. Earth is Controlled by Wood. Metal is Controlled by Fire, and we know
what lies in that which divides it, which is the diaphragm, between External and
Internal. KL-26 is going to affect the Lungs. KI-25 is going to affect the Heart-
Pericardium. KI-27 is going to affect the liver. KI-23 will affect the Spleen. KI-
22 will affect the Kidneys. And interestingly enough, KI-27 is the Point that is
considered the Master Point for Transportation, because the name of the Point is
called the Abode of Transportation. Thafs KI-27, the Master Point that moves
everything. Notice that this correspondence is the same as the Back Shu Points:
BL-23, and BL-22, BL-20 and BL-21, BL-18 and 19, Water, Earth, Wood. Metal is
BL-13. BL-14, and BL-15 is Fire. What is it divided by? The diaphragm, BL-17.
Now some of you might say, "What happened to all the Bowels.?" The Bowels,
remember, are the ones, at least Small Intestine, if you're looking at Large
Intestine and Bladder, are those lower Shu Points that we see in the back. These
are responsible for getting rid of things that you can't Transport They're
considered not as important, and that's why when we want to use these Shu
Points, they're not really that powerful. As a result, we have added to these

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Lower He Sea Points, because the others simply are not strong enough to move
things. That's where you get ST-37, ST-39, for wing to move the Lower He Sea.
That's what the Shu Points along the chest represent. If s the axis of KI-22,
KI-23, KI-24, KI-25and KI-26. That means that, if I decided that I want to use
LU-7,I want to just use that as a Luo Point and Plum Blossom the Point, let's say
if s an Excess condition, and then you decided, at this point things are already
coming out, I can combine it with Ying Spring Points. In this case, the Ying
Spring Point for the Lung Meridian would be LU-10. I might decide, "Well, I'm
reminded by the Classical training that I can't just use Points on the hands, so I'm
going to use the Lungs. The Lung Point would be KI-26. Or if you decide you
want to use the back, you use BL-13. That would be your Local and Distal
treatment of the condition. And you also add the Shu Stream Point. That would
be seen as this treatment. You can see why this series of Points were not talked
about too much in Classical Acupuncture, mainly because of the location. They
were afraid that if you did not know how to Needle there, you were going to
puncture the lungs. These were considered Points that you really have to
become experienced before you learn how to Needle. They rarely talked about
the Shu Points of the chest because of that. They thought, well you have all this
musculature along the back, the paravertebral muscles protecting the Bladder
Shu Points, if s easier to get people to Needle that instead of Needling Points on
the ribcage. That's the reason why they're not often talked about.

B. Musculo-Skeletal Conditions
1. Due to Trauma with Discoloration
What I'd like to do is to look at musculoskeletal conditions, where the
inference by which the Luo Channels are involved suggest that there are issues
pertaining to Blood, which can come from a physical injury, or it can be a result
of some type of Emotional trauma, where there is pain, but the pain itself is not
associated with any previous injuries that might have occurred in the person.
When you look at the context of musculoskeletal conditions, what you're
seeing is the idea of first trauma. "Trauma" means that basically the person can
anticipate the fact that they're going to get hurt. That might occur, let's say, in a
sporting event While it could be unanticipated, what we're looking at is the
readiness of Wei Qz, if Wei Qz is going to anticipate that something is going to
happen. Let's say, you see something, and you know that you're going to have
an impact right away. That's going to have, instinctually, a response of Wei Qi.
That means that if I'm going to hit this table, Wei Qz is going to be in my hands,
because if s ready. It knows that you're going to be hitting something likely to
be hard, that you might have an injury that's going to result from that impact.

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 Likewise, I could have fallen down accidentally, when I did not anticipate
I was going to get hurt, and as a result Wei Qi is not going to readily respond to
the condition. Once an injury has occurred, the body's response, first and
foremost, is to bring Yaw Qi, Wei Qz into the area, inflammation, regardless of
whether Wei Qi was prepared or not. This is really a statement of how much Wei
Qi is going to be there. But Wei Qi, nevertheless, is eventually going to have to
respond to the injury. So what Wei Qi does, by its nature,is that if s going to
bring Yang energy, Wei energy, so the area becomes inflamed. Thafs the general
context.
You have an impact. The impact is responded to by Wei Qi,and at the
same time, Ying Qi may also respond to the situation, especially if Wei Qi was not
prepared. That means there was Insufficiency of Wei Qi. You fell accidentally.
So Wei Qi quickly comes to the Surface, and Ying Qz, knowing that there is not
enough Wei Qi on the Surface, is going to bring itself outward, to the Surface as
well. So not only is there an inflammation, but there's also swelling that occurs
in the area of the injury. So, remember, when you look at musculoskeletal
conditions, you're looking at the context that's known as Die Da (&^r ). Die
means to fall, Da means to strike. The difference between the two is that when
you fall, if s accidental, but when you strike, it's intentional. There's a certain
readiness of Wei Qi. And if Wei Qi is there, the body's response is much quicker.
If Wei Qi is not there, you might not feel the pain right away. You may have
experienced that. You bump into something, and you don't feel it. Later on, you
feel a discomfort there. It seems like there's a delayed response, and then you
realize, "Yeah, I did bump into that table earlier, didn't I." And that's because
Wei Qi was not ready for that impact. So the response is much less.

But a lot of times when Ying Qz responds, that's when Blood also goes to
the area. That's why you usually don't get black and blue right away. Black and
blue comes later on, after the injury. So the context that we're looking at, a
condition that involves Blood, is where Blood is moving to the area. Then our
intentionality, or our treatment strategy during the initial phase of the injury, is
to bring Blood to the area, to speed up the healing. Consequently, as Blood has
already moved to the area, and the Blood is ready to try to eliminate, the Blood is
trying to drain, the Blood is trying to deal with the Pathogenic Factor, at that
point we want to Invigorate the Blood, away from the area, in general distally, so
that it helps to enhance the healing of the injury. That's the musculoskeletal
presentation.
If s important to note that we're looking at a condition, which generally is
due to physical trauma, not due to Climatic Factors. With Climatic Factors, Wei
Qi responds to the Climatic Factor, and within the Level of how Wei Qi is
responding, Wei Qi might have an underlying Deficiency. An underlying
Deficiency of Wei Qi allows the Climatic Factor to be trapped within the Sinew
area, in which case you have a Bi Obstruction Syndrome. Within the context of
TCM, what is the etiology of a Climatic Bi Syndrome? Exposure to Climatic

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Factors with underlying Qi Deficiency. So even though they're not describing it
as Wei Qi, indeed it is Wei Qz Deficiency. Wei Qi is Insufficient. If s not able to
respond to Wind. If s not able to respond to the Dampness. If s not able to
adequately respond to the Cold. So it struggles with it, and that particular
condition gets trapped in the Sinew Meridian, in which case you have, based on
the nature, a Wind Bi, a Cold Bi, or a Damp Bi. Generally there's a combination
of all three. If s just that one predominates, which then determines Needling
technique at the Ah Shi Points. If if s Wind Bi, you generally Needle the Point,
get the stimulation that you need in terms of Reduction in most cases, and then
the Needle gets withdrawn right away. It doesn't stay in the area of Ah Shi Point.
I f if s Dampness, you Needle followed with Moxibustion on top of the Needle, to
dry up the Dampness. If if s Cold, you do direct Moxa, or indirect Moxa, to
warm the area of the Ah Shi. That's how you treat Climatic Bi Obstruction
Syndrome. And at the same time, you Tonify that which allowed it to come in,
which is Deficiency of Wei Qz. In particular, that Deficiency of Wei Qi, one can
say, is under the auspices of the Lungs and the Liver, that trinity that we
described yesterday with Wei Qi being under the Lungs and liver, Ying Qi being
under the Spleen, the Pericardium and the Heart, and the Yuan Qz Level under
the auspices of the Kidneys and Triple Heater.
At the same time, if s important to note that when you have an
inflammation, the Wei Qi that responds is what's causing the inflammation.
Thafs Yang Qi. So the Chinese, in general, are against the idea of using ice, are
against the idea of using some type of Cold remedy that you apply over the area
that's swollen. Remember, if s inflamed because the body is trying to heal it. If s
swollen to try to localize it, so that you're not going to use it. That's why if s
painful. It does not want you to continue to use that area, so there's that
uncornfortability that you're having a hard time with, that you might want to
neutralize. You apply ice on the area, and what does it do to the Yang? The ice
forces the Yang Qi to retreat Inward, and as the Wet Qi retreats Inward, the
swelling goes down. You feel better. What it really does is numb the area.
That's why you feel better. So what you're doing is forcing the condition to go
Deeper into the body. Very often, these are the people who are athletes. They
have a number of muscular injuries initially, and because they inadvertently
apply ice packs to the area, eventually they get rheumatism. Those areas now
begin to respond to what you have done to it by applying water and ice,
especially when the weather gets damp and cold. You have induced into a
condition that had only Qi and Blood Stagnation, Climatic Factors (Damp and
Cold) in your attempt to try to produce some form of comfort.
What you want to do is stimulate the Wei Qi to enhance the healing, so the
swelling will reduce as the healing Factor is getting rid of the Pathogenic Factor,
in this case the injury. If any of you study Die Da medicine, the way they talk
about that in Tui No and massage is they apply liniments. Usually if s an alcohol
liniment that is applied for physical injury, mainly because alcohol Invigorates
Blood. Alcohol also Disperses Wind. And it depends on what Herbs that are

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used in the liniment. Most commonly they are Herbs that Invigorate Blood.
That's why you generally see Carthamus Hung Hua. You see things like the
resins that are in most of the Die Da liniments that they sell, or that people have
as part of family reaps. The idea of it is that they always start in the area of the
Ah Shi, rubbing the liniment on in very small circles. Then it becomes very big
circles, and then it comes back to very small circles. So if s almost like, here's
where the energy is coming in, Wei Qi is coming in. Lefs Diffuse it, big circles.
Let's bring it back. Let's Diffuse i t Let's bring it back. Let's Diffuse it. And a lot
of times when you apply these liniments, that's when the swelling will actually
reduce. It has nothing to do with the application of Cold. In fact, if you go to a
Die Da practitioner, usually if s quite painful. They really rub into there and try
to get things to move, to make sure that the Sinews become smooth, to make sure
that the Blood is Invigorated.
What we're looking at in terms of Acupuncture is, if someone came in and
we don't do Die Da medicine, or massage, and we don' t use liniments,
Acupuncture can also help, first, during the acute phase, by bringing Blood to
the area, and during the healing phase, by moving Blood away from the area,
moving it in a way that is going to help to Disperse, to help Drain that site of
injury. Thafs what this first aspect is about. Let's say if s due to trauma, with
discoloration. I banged myself. If you hit yourself, the first thing that appears is
always redness. Wei Qi is responding. If I keep on doing this over and over
again, eventually Blood is going to come here. It's going to get black and blue,
because Blood is going to say, "Wait a minute, this Wei Qz is being stimulated,
but this person isn't stopping. They're not stopping the impact; they're not
stopping the injury." So Blood is going to come and this area is going to get
black and blue: repeated injury. Or, in some cases, we see it slowly. First you
hurt yourself, and the area is inflamed, is red. Later on the Blood comes to
support the Wei Qi. So then you get black and blue. Lefs say if you banged
yourself this morning, you might get black and blue later on. The quicker you
get the black and blue, means the healthier you are. If it takes three days for you
to get black and blue, that means your Wei Qi, your Ying Qz in terms of
supporting Wei Qi, is relatively Deficient. You have to wait to assimilate, to
gather up enough Blood to go to the Surfaceto heal that area. And that's why
those are the individuals who are usually much slower healing.
As part of physical injuries, it can also be bums. When you bum yourself,
the first thing that happens is the area gets very red, and then the Ying Qz comes.
Then the area blisters. Then the bubble comes. Thafs the blistering, thafs the
Fluid now that's coming to, again, localize the Heat, and keep it from spreading.
Thafs what if s trying to do, localize the bums. So while you might put an ice
pack on it to help it heal, in terms of comfort, that ice is eventually going to force
that bum, that trauma to go Deeper into the body. And where it goes Deeper, is
into the Yuan Level. It goes into the Bones. So now you have Heat in the Bones.
You might get Hot Bi, as a result of inadvertently treating someone who has a
physical injury with swelling.

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 So the treatment here includes two parts. There's the Tendinomuscular
aspect of it, and there's also the Luo Meridian aspect. The Tendinomuscular, or
the Sinew Meridian aspect of it is that this is the site of the injury, and even
though this is the site of the injury, it could have occurred because of certain
movements of the body at the time of impact. That means, if I bang into this
table, if I bang this way I'm going to get black and blue, but I can also be banging
into the table sideways. I'm still going to get Ah Shi in this area, but notice the
rotation of my body as I hit into the table. I could be banging into the table
straight I could be bending my knees as I bang into the table. I could be locking
my knees as I bang into the table, as I try to stop right at the time I hit the area.
All of those different Sinew Merdians, again, based on the different kinds of
movement, are addressing that. So while this is the Ah Shi, you still have to
evaluate what movement seems to cause the pain to be greater in its intensity.
That's very important. Those of you who have been to the Sinew Meridian class
will know that idea. We talked about this. If you're looking at a Sinew Meridian
treatment, it essentially involves the Ah Shi, where the pain is, and the evaluation
of the movement that elicits pain. The movement that elicits pain tells you which
Sinew Meridian is Stagnant. That's why if s painful. And then you add the Jing
Well Point (as indicated by the movement evaluation), sinceJing Well Points are
the beginning of the Sinew Merdians, and Jing Well Points also deal with Wei Qi.
This would be the general Sinew Meridian treatment if you're looking at Sinew
Merdians. That's how you treat that.
Let's say you have pain in your biceps. This pain, when you can identify
where the pain is located, then that would give you the Ah Shi Point. Let's say
the pain I have is around LU-3. You might say, "OK, the pain is on LU-3. How
is the pain in terms of the weather? Does the weather seem to affect this pain?"
"Oh, yes, when if s Damp I notice that I feel this area, definitely much more
heavy, much more uncomfortable." So you know that when you Needle this Ah
Shi Point in the area of LU-3, that you're going to be Needling with Moxa on top
of the Needle. That's how you treat Damp Bi Obstruction Syndrome. ButIjust
because if s located in the area of LU-3 does not mean that if s in the Lung
Meridian. Sinew Merdians area very broad. Sinew Merdians Transverse across
each other. They don't travel where one Meridian ends the other one begins.
They go across. So you can have a bunch of Merdians affecting each other from
the Yin side, as well as from the Yang side.
So you say, "Well, gee, this pain that you have, I know that it gets worse
when the weather's damp, but does it get worse when you bring your arms up?
No, this is OK. Does it get worse when you rotate your arm?" "Oh, yeah, I feel
it right now." So rotating, you can see that obviously can cause tension to build
up in the biceps. "Well, gee, if it bothers you like that, let's bend your elbows
and now rotate your arm. See if that hurts." "No, that's OK This is OK, but
this, yeah, that's when it hurts the most," (with the arm out straight). That
means that this pain that's at LU-3 Ah Shi has been Transversed there by Shao

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Yaw, as shown in the evaluation, by Triple Heater. The root cause of it is that
there's an injury in Triple Heater's Sinew Meridian. And the Sinew Meridian of
Triple Heater decided it doesn't want to create the pain in the Sinew Meridian of
Triple Heater so it referred the pain, by Transversing it across, to LU-3. So that
means that if you treat this region, you have to also treat TH-1. If you don't treat
TH-1, all you're doing is Releasing the pain, but the pain can still go and travel to
other Sinew Merdians, until you're ready to Drain it out
That would be where Ah Shi, LU-3; evaluation of movement, in this case
Shao Yang movement, rotational movement with the elbow extended, is Triple
Heater, rotational movement with your knees locked is Gall Bladder. Shao Yang
is rotational movements. Movements that involve the elbows extended, Yang,
that involve bringing the arm straight up or straight out, would be Tai Yang, but
rotational movements would be Shao Yaw. And lastly, as we said with tile
elbows extended, any pain that's elicited upon holding onto something is
considered Yang Ming. That s a Sinew Meridian treatment. So if I find that when
I hold this cup, that I have to hold this cup like this, because if I were to extend
my arm it would be really painful where the Ah Shi is, that's a Yang Ming pain
that the person is describing. That means your JmgWell Point is going to be LI-1.
If I'm saying that, "Yes, when I stand still, with my knees straight, and there's
pain in my lower limbs," that would be Yang Ming of the legs, which in this case
you would be Needling ST-45. Even though the Ah Shz might be, let's say
around the area of GB-34, the Stomach (Sinew) Meridian can Tranverse itself into
Gall Bladder- It can Transverse itself into Bladder. So this is the idea that Ah Shi
Points can be referred pain. It does not have to be related directly to the
Meridian that it happens to be located on, especially muscular conditions.
Muscular conditions, even though you might think of it as Primary Channels,
which you remember, do involve the External, but the Sinew Merdians are going
to be more concise in their ability to treat muscular conditions in the absence of
skeletal involvement. If if s also skeletal, that's when the Divergent Channels
come in. So are we clear about that? Tai Yang, extension; Shao Yang, rotation;
Yang Ming,holding onto the weight with the arms and the legs extended. Tai
Yin, retraction, my elbows are coming in; my knees are coming in, Tai Yin.
Rotation of the arms or the legs upon the retraction of the knees or the elbows
would be Shao Yin. Jue Yin is paralysis, atrophy of the muscles. The muscles
can't do anything. That would be Jue Yin.
So if I say I have sciatica, and you ask me, "Well, when does it seem to get
worse?" "Well, when I walk around if s OK, but when I start to sit, that's when I
feel the sciatic nerve being impinged upon, and I get that radiating pain."
Sitting, retraction, would be Tai Yin. 'Well, no, when I sit it's OK, but what I
notice is that as soon as I rotate the trunk of my body upon sitting, I feel it." That
would be Shao Yin. It means regardless of where the Ah Shi Point is, so let's say
the Ah Shi Point is GB-30, BL-35, in that area, and maybe some of the Bladder
Points, those will simply be Ah Shi Points. And again if you say, "Oh, yeah, it
seems to improve with Heat," or "it seems to get worse with damp", or

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whatever, then it just tells you what is the Needling technique at the Ah Shi
Points. But once you evaluate, you know where if s coming from. You know the
origin of where if s coming from, in which case you have to treat the ling Well
Point.
Lastly, what you have to add to it, in some cases, like the case here,
because I hit myself, that's Sinew, but now the trauma is very Deep. Wei Qi is
not really there, but Blood is coming to it. Now the Luo Channels are going to be
involved. Ying Qi is going to come to support Wei Qi, so that's why you need to
do the Sinew Merdians as well as the Luo Merdians for traumas that are due to
physical injury, not due to Climatic Factors. This is why you Needle the Luo
Point that relates to the affected Sinew Meridian, toward the site of the condition,
and generally the Needling you're doing is Tonifying, because you want to bring
Blood. So you're Needling the Luo Point as it relates to the site, the Ah Shi, of the
affected Sinew Meridian. Let's use my example of LU-3, that's the Ah Shi, so if s
in the Lung (Meridian). So the Luo component, even though the Luo Channel (of
the Lung) moves distally, you're going to go to LU-7, and you're going to Plum
Blossom. You're going to go like this (toward the Ah Shi), Plum Blossom, or you
Needle, because you could also be thinking here that we're not really letting
something out of the Luo, we're using the Luo to support, in this case, the Sinew
Merdians. So you can be Needling LU-7 toward LU-3. If s always Needled
toward the Ah Shi, not based on the trajectory of the Primary Merdians, but if s
toward the site of the condition, the Ah Shi. And you Regulate the Blood with
the Point above the He Sea Point, unless the Point that is above the He-Sea Point
is the actual site of the injury, followed with the treatment for Sinew Merdians.

In general, in terms of Acupuncture, any Point that lies above the He Sea
Point, proximal to the He Sea Point, generally has a Regulating affect on Blood in
that particular Channel. The best example of that is SP-10. SP-10 is one Point
proximal to the He Sea Point of the Spleen, SP-9. The name of SP-10 is Xue Hai,
The Sea of Blood. But again, if you look at LU4, that's going to have a
Regulating affect on Blood. Modern textbooks may not have all of that, but if
you look at the old textbooks, whenever you look at any Point that's one Point
proximal to the He Sea, if s going to say "Regulates Blood" in that Channel. So if
this is where the Ah Shi is, and we want to bring Blood to this area, the Luo Point
that relates to the Ah Shi is being used to treat that. The Point above the He Sea
Point is being used to bring Blood into the area. In the case of LU-3, it would be
LU4, because LU-5 would be the He Sea Point. One Point proximal to the He Sea
Point would be LU4, so that is being used, and the technique that you use on the
Point that is proximal to the He Sea Point is Even technique. Unless the area is
the actual site of the injury, in which case you don't need to do it. You're just
going to treat that as the Ah Shi.
Follow that with the treatment for Sinew Meridian. So first you're
bringing Blood to the area. You did the Luo. You did the Point proximal to the
Ah Shi. Now you look at the Ah Shi, LU-3. You Needle that Lefs say it's a

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Damp Bi. When you Needle it, put Moxa on top of the Needle. You did the
evaluation earlier, and you noticed that it was pain that was elicited upon the
extension of my arms when I did rotational movement, which means Shao Yang.
You go to TH-1, and you Needle that Point. That would be a Luo Meridian
treatment that is supporting the Sinew Meridian treatment for a physical injury.
Keep that in mind; this is not a treatment for a Climatic Bi condition. For
Climatic Bi, just the Tendinomuscular Channels by themselves would be more
than adequate, unless if s chronic.
If it's chronic, it means that somehow when you first got it, you treated it
incorrectly. You forced the Pathogenic Factor to go Deeper, so it lingers in the
body. As a result you get chronic conditions in that area. You get chronic
muscular Bi. You have rheumatism in the area. Then the Sinew Merdians are
not going to be helpful, outside of it being acute pain relief. You're going to have
to look at, "Well, gee, if if s chronic, maybe you put an ice pack on it. You made
it worse, maybe if s gone into your Bones." Now maybe we have to do
Divergent Merdians to really get rid of it. Maybe we have to do Cupping.
Maybe if s gone really Deep into their Blood system. We might have to do
Cupping in the area to pull it back out, to get rid of it. That's the first phase,
upon acute injury.
Then as the area begins to heal, that means if the area is already black and
blue, trying to heal, Ying Qi is already going to the area. Again, that occurs in the
second phase of a physical injury. The third phase would be recuperation from
that. We don't necessarily need to treat that. If you do treat that, at best what
you'd use during that time are plasters, to try to insulate the area, moisten the
area, but at the same time plasters that continue to invigorate Qi and Blood to the
area.
As it's healing, now what you want to do is move the Blood away from
the area, to help bring it back out, to help bring out the Pathogenic Factor that
has entered. So when you Needle the Luo Point, this is where Plum Blossom is
indeed very, very important. Or if not, you have to do a strong Dispersal
technique at the Luo Point of the affected Sinew Meridian, of the affected site,
away from the site of the condition. So lefs say in the case of a black and blue
around, let's say LU-3, and let's say it was because someone Needled LU-3 and
inadvertently caused a hematoma there. When you left the treatment room it
seemed OK, and many of us have made those mistakes, then later on it shows
black and blue. Ying Qi went there because you traumatized that Point
inadvertently. Now you see that, and what you want to do is move the Blood
and get rid of any Pathogenic Factors that might be held there. So LU-7is
Needled away from this area. If you're Plum Blossoming, you're going this way,
away from the area. If you're Needling you're going to be Needling away from
the area. In some cases you might even want to try to get Blood out of there, or
you might Lance the Point And as you're Needling away from the area, you're
also going into the area that is one Point proximal to the He Sea Point, above the

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He Sea Point, which now, because you're moving Blood away, you also need to
Tonify the Blood: Move Blood, Tomfy the Blood. Earlier we were Tomfying,
Moving the Blood and Harmonizing the Blood by Even technique on the Point
proximal to the He Sea Point. In this case, we're Moving Blood. We also want to
Nourish Blood. So the Point thafs proximal to the He Sea Point, you now Tonify
that Point. So with LU-4 you would Tonify the Point.
And, again, you would follow it with a Sinew Meridian treatment. That
means, as in our example, we have done movement evaluations already. This is
the Ah Shi, LU-3, and now I'm going to add to it TH-1. That would be the
context by which you are now treating a Tendinomuscular condition due to a
physical injury. That means the person's going to say they just got the injury. So
they're not going to know if it gets worse with Dampness or Wind, or what have
you. They might tell you it might feel better with the application of something.
But a lot of times the application that they feel better with, regardless if if s Heat
or Cold, generally if s just because you're moving Wei Qi either out, Hot, or
moving Wei Qi in, Cold. That's all it is. So if s not really giving you a precise
measure of what the Climatic Factor may be. Are we dear about that?
Likewise, when you first got injured, the Wei Qi is there. That's why if s
much more painful to the touch. When Wei Qi is no longer there, and Blood is
there, it might not feel so painful, but rather a dull, achy pain. So it doesn't mean
necessarily that you have a Deficiency. You just have a Deficiency of Wei Qi
because now the Ying Qi is there dealing with it, but thafs not really conclusive
in order to say that this is a Qi Deficiency, or if if s painful upon palpation, that
this is an Excess. We're not looking at it in that context. That would be the first
and second treatment. And again, there is idea that for you to Generate Blood, to
Nourish Blood, you always have to Move Blood, fresh Blood to replace old
Blood. For Blood Stasis, Generate Blood to remove Blood Stasis. Do you have
any questions on this aspect of muscular treatment?

Q. When you talk about doing the Luo Point on the affected Sinew Meridian,
the affected Sinew Meridian is determined by the movement. Correct?
A. The affected (Meridian relates to) the Ah Shi. Because this is where the
pain is, you need to Move Blood to where the actual Ah Shi is. But where it
comes from, that's treated with the Jing Well Point.

Q. So in this scenario, would you not be using the Confluent Points?

A. You can use the Confluent Points. That's just an addition to the Sinew
Meridian. The fact that there are two Merdians involved, you might want to use
the Confluent Point. If s just that in my example, if s not a very good one,
because you have a Yin Channel and a Yang Channel involved. But lefs say if
you had both Yang Channels involved, lefs say my pain was in one of the Large

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Intestine Points, and if s more elicited upon rotation, then definitely the
Confluent Point is important.
For those of you who have never been exposed to the Sinew Channels, (I'll
address) what Sissy is asking here. The Sinew Merdians begin at a very small
area. That small area is called the Jing Well Point. Then it starts to become
broader, and broader. Lefs say this is another Jing Well Point. You can see it
becomes broader, and broader, like that. So there's a wide area that they can be
moving into. This is the idea that they Transverse. They go across each other.
Thafs why the Sinew Merdians don't go where those for the arms meet with
those for the legs. The Legs all go together first They all Transverse to each
other: Tai Yang to Shoo Yang to Yang Ming. So Bladder is going to affect Gall
Bladder. Gall Bladder is going to affect Stomach. By the time that all the Leg
Channels of the Yang are affected, then they can affect the Ann Channels. This
could be where you have something that's referred from the lower region into
the upper region. Lets say Tai Yang of the Legs, Bladder, has a lot of pain or
discomfort. Lefs say there's a lot of tension, unconscious tension in BL-40,
because unfortunately, when you walk, you always lock your knees and you're
not aware of it. You're putting a lot of unusual stress on that leg. What happens
over time is that the Bladder Leg Channel can affect Gall Bladder Channel. It
might mean that if I lock my knees, if s going to be very hard for me to rotate,
because when you rotate, the knees have to be bent slightly. There's a slight
bending. If you try to rotate your knees without bending, you're going to fall.
Anyone whose knees are locked, as soon as they make a quick turn,they're
going to have an acadent. They tend to be relatively clumsy. So we know that it
can affect the Gall Bladder, it can also affect the Stomach. But more long term,
that locked knee is going to affect the scapula, because if I lock my knees, notice
if s going to cause me to sway my back, paravertebrals muscles. If I sway my
back, over time if s going to push my scapula back. I'm going to start having a
lot of discomfort around my Small Intestine region. This is how the Leg
Channels now migrate to the Ann Channels. In terms of massage, we would call
that referred pain.
If if s long-term, what happens? Ying Qi is going to go to it. Ying Qi is
saying, "Well, you're expending all this Wei Qi, but you're not healing it. I'm
going to bring Ying Qt into it", and what you're going to get is a nodule. You're
going to get a trigger Point in those areas. That's Sinew Meridian that you're
looking at. But if s referred there from somewhere else, potentially. That's why
if s very important that even though this is the site of the manifestation, this is
where this area hurts; you have to do an evaluation. 'Does it seem to bother you
when you turn your arms?" So you might put pressure there and you rotate the
person's arms. "No, that's OK. " (Have them raise and extend the arm, straight
out.) "Oh, yeah that hurts a lot," Tai Yang. You know if s Tai Yang, and the fact
that if s chronic, most likely the arms and legs are affected. So not only SI-1, Tat
Yang,but also BL-67 would have to be used. This might be the Ah Shi, SI-12. It
just happens in that case we have both Tai Yang of the arms and the legs.

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 But a lot of times if s more common that it goes like this. If s almost like,
if you study the Sinew Merdians, the Bladder Meridian, as it goes to the back,
wraps around the knees. The Bladder Channel can go to Gall Bladder. The
Bladder Channel can go to Stomach. So what happens is you might find an Ah
Shi Point, let's say at ST-36. If s really sensitive there. But if s only sensitive
when I'm walking. If I stand still if s OK. If I rotate, it doesn't hurt, but when
I'm walking it hurts a lot: Tai Yang. Some of you might try to practice Tai Ji and
bend your knees while you walk, but you're going to look kind of odd, and
you're going to feel uncomfortable with everyone staring at you. Then you
might start to lock your knees back once again. In any case, the idea is that's BL-
67: Ah Shi, ling Well. And the fact that it went from Tai Yang to Yang Ming, as
you all know the Sinew Merdians have what they call the Confluent Points, the
Hui Points, where these Leg Channels of the Yang come together. For the Sinew
Merdians of the legs, it's SI-18, or in some traditions, ST-3. Basically if s the
cheekbones. Thafs what they're saying. Palpate the cheekbones, and find a
nodule, find an Ah Shi.
Some of us have chronic pain where you have Broken Blood Vessels here.
It means that not only is it chronic, Blood is keeping the Pathogenic Factor there,
Broken Blood Vessels. A lot of people have that at SI-18. With people that have
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you might see it. Then you need to treat the Luo
Channels as well, Bleeding those Luo Channels in that case.

Q. If you find a nodule, do you try to break it up? Do you try to Needle it?
A. Right. The common treatment for nodules was referred to as the Tortoise
Technique. It means you have almost like a web, like a spider, four Needles
around it. It depends on the size of the nodule, too, but four, or three Needles.
Four Needles around it, or two Needles as you say, and one Needle on top. Or
you can Needle and go in all directions to try to break it up. That would be the
same idea for doing this. You're trying to break it up from all directions. That
would be seen as a Tendinomuscular treatment, breaking it up. But just keep in
mind that breaking up the nodule without breaking up the "master site" is
almost like treating a wart. If you don't treat the mother wart, the warts that you
treat are not going to disappear. You have to get to the root of it. The root of it is
going to be the Jing Well Point that deals with the movement, because Wei Qz is
moving. What it's saying is I can't move this Point because Wei Qi is locked.
Thafs why you have pain there. So you have to treat by using the Jing Well
Point.

Q. Tat Yang, that is reaching? Is it as you reach out?

A. First extend the hand, and then you're moving. It could be moving this
way or that way, whatever. The arm is extended, away from my body. I can't
bring my arm toward my body, right? When it comes to my body, my elbow has
to bend. Thafs the only way it's going to get it toward my body. So if you have

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trouble combing your hair, that's Tai Yin, because if s coming toward my body.
If I want to reach over here I have to go Tai Yin, coming toward my body. I can't
come toward my body this way.

Q . . .Yang Ming (inaudible).

A. Yang Ming is when you stop, when I'm walking, Tai Yaw. When I turn,
that's Shao Yang. And then when I stop, that's Yang Ming. And as I stop and I go
inward, Tai Yin. As I hold this, I'mreaching out for it. When you reach out for
it, what happens to the scapula? The scapula has to release itself. That's the only
way you have forward extension. If I tense up my scapula, notice my arms can't
reach out that much. But as soon as I relax my scapula, it releases. And that
release is coming from the neck muscles. That's why the Sinew Meridian, for
Bladder, wraps around the shoulder girdle, like a shoulder strap. Basically
they're describing to you the nature of movement. When you walk and you
reach out for something, the shoulder, and then it goes into your head, and it
releases your head. If I pull my head back, the extension is further. If I went
here and I try to touch this, this is the extent of that. If I push my head back, and
you could say I might be rotating, too, that's again how it connects with Shao
Yang, to get me to have further reach.
It could be psychosomatic. I could be trying to reach, and reach for this
thing, but somehow I can't get to it. There's something I want so badly,
mentally, emotionally, and my body wants to reach for it, but I can't get to i t So
I have all these tensions building up along Tai Yang of the Small Intestine and
Bladder, if if s chronic. Which means that because if s chronic, Blood is involved.
Blood is there. You might notice that you get some discoloration in those areas,
but you never banged yourself there, unless you're the type that likes to hit
yourself. But rarely do people get black and blue in those areas. I f s because if s
being held by the Luo.
Q. How about going to the movement evaluation for the neck. With the
rotation of Shoo Yang, is it like this, and then . ..
A. That's Shao Yang. This is Tai Yang, forward. And then Yaw Ming would
be keeping the head straight. In other words, you can see why when you get
whiplash, that's Tai Yang. Very often the head rocks. And then at that point, you
want to freeze it, or maybe you anticipated. You actually saw the acadent
coming, so you're like this, Yang Ming. Very often when they get hit, it doesn't
show up as Tai Yang, because if s not the passenger in the back, who wasn't
aware that an accident was happening, and all of a sudden they feel this jolt
coming. If you anticipate it, your body is bracing. And a lot of times people who
have those accidents usually complain a lot about TMJ, because their jaw is
locking, everything is locking. If s all like this. So if anything, the pain is usually
around here, which appears to be Tai Yang Ah Shi Points, but they're not.
They're Yang Ming. That means treatment of U-1 is going to be important, in
addition to the Ah Shi Points. So evaluation is always very, very important.

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Q. What is the movement pattern for Jue Yin?
A. JwYin is paralysis, can't move at all, a total state of Yin, Absolute Yin. Jut?
Yin is paralysis, muscular paralysis.
Q. Is that also pain without movement? Perhaps there's not paralysis, but no
movement?
A. You're rigid, you can't move at all.
Q. Or someone might say that when they're still, perhaps they can move, but
when they're still they also have the pain during that time. They're not moving,
but they still have the pain. That's also Jue Yin?
A. Right.
Q. I just wanted to danfy these movements. When you go up like this and
out like this?
That's Tai Yang of the arms
Because you're extending?
Right. But the elbows are straight.
How about legs?
That would be Tai Yang of the legs.
If you're corning in, that would be Tai Yin?
Right.
And, Shao Yang is what?
Shao Yang is rotational movement.
Rotation, so same with the foot?
Right, with the elbows or the knees extended, in other words, Yang, the
limbs are extended; Yin, the limbs are retracted.
Q. And holding things?
A. With the arms extended, that would be Yang Ming. When the legs are
extended and you're holding your weight, would be Yang Ming. Yang Ming is
putting the brakes on the movement. When you stop, that's Yang Ming. When
you walk, that's Tai Yang.
Q. Any stopping or holding situation is Yang Ming?
A. Right. But you could be holding something with the elbows bent. That
would be Tai Yin.
Q. Or a combination?
A. No. As soon as it comes in, that's Tai Yin. Yin is able to hold. So Yang
Ming gets you into Yin. Yang Ming is holding, but with the arms extended. And

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then, you already have the Yin state, which Yang Ming is creating for you, then
you go into Tai Yin.

b. Due to Emotional Trauma

Let's look at Emotional trauma (from this perspective). Someone comes in
saying, '7 have pain in my shoulders, right here. If s always painful. If s always
tight. I try to loosen it up, and then it comes back." You basically do the same
thing. Here's the Ah Shi. Let's say the Ah Shi is SI-12, or GB-21, maybe a
combination of both. When if s Emotional trauma, that means you never got
hurt there. There's nothing to suspect that there is a Climatic Factor. The pain
doesn't seem to respond to temperature. The pain doesn't seem to respond to
weather. The pain was never due to any physical injury. It was not due to
misuse or disuse of the arms. So you follow the above protocol with the addition
of Bloodletting the Yang L w Passage Channel that you suspect relates to the
Emotional issue that's there.
So here that means, it's not going to be that precise in many cases. What
you can do is consider the location of the pain and if s relationship to the
directionality of the Emotions. What I mean by that is what I mentioned in
context to our discussion yesterday, that Emotions are a form of disposition.
Anger Ascends QL Joy, excitement, happiness Scatters Qi. Pensiveness,
obsession, sympathy, different words that were used in textbooks of the past,
Binds the Qi, makes the Qz get stuck. Grief, Sadness Descends Qi, or some books
would say Depletes Qi, because it brings everything down. Fear Suspends Qi. If
you add Worry and Fright, that would be the Seven Emotions. Worry is seen as
a configuration that includes the combination of Qz getting stuck (Binding the Qi)
and Qi going down (Descending). When you're worrying, you are holding on to
your breath. You are holding on to something. Until that actual event happens,
then the Worry either becomes fulfilled, and you collapse, Descension, or the
energy gets released. Fear is like Fright, but Fright is more acute. Fear is
something that is seen as something more chronic. Fright would be shock,
something very acute that Suspends, you don't know what to do. You're
paralyzed with Fear.
That gives you a sense of their disposition. They move somewhere.
While most modem textbooks describe the physical symptoms, keep in mind
that the Emotions have with them a physical accompaniment. What I mean by
physical accompaniment, is that the Emotions, remember, are not equated with
the area that holds onto the Emotions. So if s erroneous to say that Anger is held
in the upper part of the body. Anger likes to express itself in the upper part of
the body, but if s not an absolute that it has to go into your tension headaches,
that it has to go into your trapezius, that it has to go into your shoulders. If s
erroneous to say that if you get Joy or excitement, that excitement will cause
chest pains, that excitement will cause pain around the scapula, especially
between the scapula, even though we think of it as their predisposition to go to
those areas.

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 As we said earlier, you can have the Control Cycle interfering with the
expression of the Emotions. So you can't equate Emotions with muscular
armoring. The muscular armoring just accompanies the Emotion. If you get rid
of the Emotions, it doesn't mean that you necessarily get rid of the muscular
armoring. Likewise, if you get rid of the muscular armoring, you don't
necessarily get rid of the Emotions. Many of you have tension headaches. You
get a massage, and the tension headache is relieved, but it comes back another
day, maybe because you happen to be a very Angry person. And needless to
say, if you get rid of the Anger, it means that the muscular tension that
accompanies the Anger might no longer need to represent itself there any longer.
Now the pain disappears. So this is what I mean by that.
If s like, if you're walking down the street and a car comes racing at you.
In that moment of Fear, the car misses you, and the Fear goes away. But it takes
a while for the body to respond and catch up, and to feel, "Gee, I don't have to be
afraid now. I can relax now." The body might still be all shook up. Even though
the Emotion no longer is there anymore. The body and the Emotions are not
equated to each other. Get rid of one, the other doesn't have to necessarily leave
right away. So this is what I mean by that.
A person comes in, and the Ah Shi Point is SI-12, GB-21. You might say,
"OK, let me do an evaluation of this area, but I can't really get a sense of what
seems to cause discomfort." They don't even tell you movement seems to do
anything. I seems like the movements don't really seem to cause it to get worse.
So here, you might just do Ah Shi and Jing Well Points forboth Gall Bladder and
Small Intestine. Gall Bladder obviously is Stwo Yang, so on the arms you might
just decide to use TH-1, instead of going all the way down to GB-44. You might
see SI-12 as an Ah Shi, and at the same time treat this context where you're using
SI-1, so Jing Well with Ah Shi. The reason you're doing the Jing-Well where it
matches the Ah Shi, is that the movement is not giving you any findings.
You might at the same time, because you suspect that this is Emotional,
add to it the Luo treatment. Is this something that's just happening now? Most
likely by the time they come to see an acupuncturist, if s not something that's
happening now, it's something that's chronic. That means already Blood has
been held there. So you're going to look at the Luo Points, and you're going to
Plum Blossom the Luo Points away from the site. You want to bring this
Emotion, the Blood that's holding onto the pain, away from the area. So in this
case, since if s GB-21 and 9-12, you might say, "OK, since I did TH-1 and I did
SI-1, let me look at the Lw Channels, in this case, relative to the Ah Shi area. So
you can look at it based on the fact that Triple Heater will go to this area, because
it comes up into this region. You might look at Small Intestine. Small Intestine,
however, remember the Lw Channel doesn't really go beyond LI-15. So Triple
Heater becomes your major Luo Point. You Plum Blossom or you Needle TH-5,
away from the site. You go one Point proximal to TH-10, which is the He Sea
Point, and Needle that to Nourish the Blood as you Move Blood with the Luo
Point. That means you go to TH-11.

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 And because if s in the shoulder, you suspect this must be a Yang
Emotion. That's the easiest component. Maybe what they're holding in there is
the Anger. They can't release their Anger. The Anger is sublimated into the
traps, so you say, "OK,I suspect that Anger indeed is here. Let me go to GB-37,
the Y a w Luo that deals with that Emotion, and I'm going to Plum Blossom or
Bleed GB-37 and see if the Anger comes out of there. Now let's say if you Bleed
that, what you found instead was the person came back and says after you did
that, "I have all these memories coming out of how I felt that I was simply
responsible for so many people." That realization, responsible for many people,
does not necessarily mean Anger. It can mean the person has essentially an
Earth imbalance. Wood is trying to Control the Earth, their inability to nurture,
to be responsible for so many people, Earth. Perhaps what they really have
would be the idea of Pensiveness. They just have to think about all these
responsibilities, and then trying to accomplish all of that, the tension builds up
on the back. So now you would know that the true Emotion underneath that
was Pensiveness, which means now you would treat that by going to ST-40.
Bleed ST-40, and now, miraculously, that pain disappears from the traps. That
would be an example of Emotional pain.
Q. inaudible.
A. Intuition always helps. I'm saying that you can have an Emotion that is
really there, that is directly the Emotion. A lot of times, if if s chronic, you find
ways to try to masquerade that Emotion. Many Emotions can masquerade for
Fear. So a lot of times you might have Fear underneath all of that.

Q. I was wondering, in the example you had just given about using ST-40 to
treat the Pensiveness the person has, would you not use SP-4 instead?
A. No. The Emotions are treated by the Yang Lw Channels. The Level that
you think the Emotions are being held in (are treated by the Yin Luo Channels).
That means once you work, and you start getting the Pensiveness to come out,
you might say, "Well gee, the fact that this person was not able to be aware of
this, maybe this person has Repressed their tension from all of their
responsibilities of taking care of so many people for so long," that now, as you're
treating the Ah Shi, you also add to it KI-4 and TH-5. TH-5 you're already
treating anyway. That's why in many cases you're really going to be seeing
some of the deeper issues coming out. And the reason for KI-4 and TH-5 is
because that's the Level of denial, that's the Level of Repression. They were not
aware that this was so much of a problem. Then you can add to this the
(treatmentfrom the protocol for the) Emotional model that we mentioned.
Q. How often do you treat?
A. Remember with Luo Points, ideally you want to treat every other day.
Q. And that would be the same with the cardiovascular protocol?

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A. Cardiovascular protocol also. Now again, if s important that if the person
is Deficient that you Harmonize the Blood. That's an important thing.

C. Gastro-Intestinal Conditions

Let's move on to gastro-intestinal conditions, which is the last topic for

today. Again, the Ling Shu alluded to gastro-intestinal conditions. It talked a lot
about Rebellious Qz. It talked a lot about diagnosis of Heat in the Stomach, Cold
in the Stomach. So there's a lot of GI type of information. And again, the GI is
also represented by Yang Ming. Yang Ming seems to be the idea of the first stage,
or the first Level of Luo Channel imbalances.
1. Review of the Basis for Gastro-Intestinal Health
The first thing we need to do is a review of the basics of gastro-intestinal
health. Gastro-intestinal health really can be seen as three components. And
you'll see the Luo Channels' connection to it very quickly. Those three
components are the Intrinsic Factors. The Intrinsic Factors that we have in the
Stomach are gastric add; we would call that Stomach Fire. Not in the negative
sense, but that's the nature of the Stomach. I f s the most Ymg of the Fu Organs.
It has the most Fire among the Fu Organs, like the Heart, which is the most Yang
of the Zang Organs. And then the Stomach also Descends Qi. Descension of
Stomach Qi is peristaltic activity. That's an Intrinsic Factor that the Stomach, due
to the ring muscles, is going to have peristaltic activity from the esophagus, from
the Stomach, all the way to its Yang Ming pair, Large Intestine, to have
defecation. So that's the Descension of Stomach Qi. And then the last component
is the mucous membrane lining of the gut,which will be seen as Stomach Yin. So
those are the Intrinsic Factors from a Western point of view, as well as from a
Chinese point of view. You're looking at Western medical aspects of the
stomach. You're looking at peristalsis. You're looking at the component of the
add Levels in the stomach, and you're looking at the so-called integrity of the
mucous lining.
a. Food
Now before that, you also have the aspect of food. Remember, nutrition is
equal to food plus digestion. You can eat the best food in the world, but if you
have lousy digestion, you're still going to be somewhat unhealthy. And you can
have the worst food in the world, but if you have a very strong digestion, you
still could be, relatively speaking, healthy. So digestion is a very important
Factor. I think a lot of times we fail to recognize that. We only think of what is
really organic, what is really healthy. We eat that and we assume that we're
going to be healthy with that. But that's not always the case, because if your
digestion is poor, you can eat the best things and if s not going to do much for
your body.

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 The first thing we have to do when we look at gastro-intestinal health as
clinicians, even though we're learning about Luo Channels, we have to look at
what exactly they're eating, the macronutrients, per se. The macronutrients
means that as you ingest something, is this something that you're ingesting
going to be more taxing on Stomach Fire? Is this thing that you're ingesting
going to be more taxing on Spleen Yang? Is this thing that you are eating going
to be more taxing on Kidney Yang? Remember, when food enters the gut, the
Stomach begins to break down the food under the influence of the Spleen, under
the influence of the Kidneys. And then whatever the Stomach is not able to
digest, it goes to further digestion by entering into the Small Intestine,which
further Separates the Pure from the Impure. If s almost like you've got a second
chance. If your Stomach is bad or weak, your Small Intestine is going to help
you. And Small Intestine gets its Yang from its counterpart, Heart Yang. Heart
Yang supports Small Intestine. Just as Kidney Yang supports Spleen Yang to
support Stomach Yang. It is Heart Yang that supports Small Intestine's Yang.
That's why the Heart brings its Yang into the Small Intestine, and depending on
what exactly it is that you're eating, if it happens to be something that even the
Small Intestine can't digest, Small Intestine develops Full Heat in the Small
Intestine, and what you're going to have is a urinary tract infection. As the body
has difficulty getting rid of this food that you're eating, it becomes too acidic, and
now it goes into the Urinary Bladder. There's also another aspect about it as
well.
The macronutrients, from a Western point of view would be. are you
eating predominately protein, are you eating predominately carbohydrates, are
you eating predominately fat. Most foods have a combination of all three. If s
just what is more predominating in that food that you're eating. So the
macronutrients enter the stomach. Remember the stomach prioritizes amino
adds, protein. The stomach is interested in protein. If s interested in that which
is the building block of flesh, of muscles. That's what Spleen, or Stomach, Earth,
is interested in building, material substance. So the Stomach prioritizes protein.
Everything else is second, or everything else is considered secondary to the
Stomach. The idea of the Fit for Life Diet is where they try to encourage people
to eat single things, and not do combinations. What happens when you do
combinations is you're going to be slowing down the gut. Lefs say you had a
protein meal, and then you decided to add a piece of orange on top of that. The
Stomach says, "What is this orange doing here? If s slowing me down." If s
going to say, "Oh I have this sugar to deal with later on," which we know the
pancreas has to deal with, or the Spleen is going to have to deal with. So as soon
as you add something that's weakening Stomach Fire, by poor diet combinations,
you're going to cause an imbalance in the digestive system, even though the
orange might be healthy. That bean salad that you ate was pretty healthy. So
you have your protein coining in, and then you add in some fruit. Thafs going
to slow down your digestion. Thafs going to slow down transit time. Most
likely you're gassy not necessarily because of the beans, but because of the
combination of beans and the fruit that you had a little later on.

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 For the macronutrients, what we're looking at is Stomach, protein. Spleen
and pancreas relates to sugar, carbohydrates, and insulin. With the Spleen,
remember, if you put the Spleen under the context of the pancreas, which in
Chinese medicine is one unit, the pancreas secretes pancreatic enzymes.
Pancreatic enzymes are predominately protolytic enzymes. They also prioritize
in digesting protein, trying to help the Stomach to further digest protein.
Pancreas also deals with carbohydrates, insulin,sugar.
Let's say, after that, you decided to have something that's fatty. Gall
Bladder, remember, is the detergent for fat. Now Gall Bladder has to come in, or
at least has to deal with the bile that's going to deal with the fat. And anything
that you can't digest, remember Small Intestine is the Organ that digests all the
macronutrients. Small Intestine can digest protein, fat, as well as carbohydrates,
macronutrieftts.
Take this picture one stop further, from a Chinese point of view. What if s
saying is that if you eat carbohydrates, protein or fat, carbohydratesproduce
Dampness, at least the carbohydrates that most of us eat. Sugar produces
Dampness. Protein produces Heat. Fat produces Damp Heat. This is the kind of
terrain that we see in the Intestines based on what we eat It doesn't have to be a
negative terrain. But this is the kind of terrain we have. We have a Damp
environment and a Hot environment. Some areas tend to be Hotter. The
Stomach by its nature is aadic. Other areas tend to be damper. Other areas, like
for the pancreas to be relatively more functional, it needs an alkaline state. So
that's more of a Damp state.
What we also have here is the idea that when you eat these things, and
you eat too much, Excess, you're going to invite the counterpart to neutralize
that Excess. That means that if you eat a lot of Hot stuff, you might then start
craving a lot of Damp stuff. If you don't crave it in terms of diet, the body will
start to create Dampness as a response to Heat. likewise you can have Heat as a
response to Damp. When Dampness responds to Heat, its weight, the weight of
the Dampness, pushes the Heat down and it comes out in the form of dysentery.
It comes out through the Large Intestine. Now if you eat a lot of Damp foods,
which by nature are already heavy, if s going to settle down to the Lower
Burner. It means if s going to the Small Intestine. So what happens? The Heat
that the Heart generates responds to the Damp, and that comes out through the
Urinary Bladder. So if you have chronic urinary tract infection, what you really
have is a chronic Damp terrain, where Heat is always responding to the Damp,
the whole idea of candida, the whole idea of Dampness. They tell you to avoid
Damp types of things, because Heat is responding to it. So you just treat things
to get rid of both the Dampness and the Heat, (but) in most cases you don't even
do that. Antibiotics, remember, are Damp producing, and it neutralizes the
Heat. That means the symptoms are better. You're not getting the burning. But
then, a lot of people with cystitis get chronic cystitis. It comes back, because the
Heat has to respond to the Dampness that was produced by the antibiotics,
chronic urinary tract infections.

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 If s important that you realize that when Dampness responds to Heat, it
goes out through the Bowels of the Intestines. When Heat responds to Damp, it
goes out through the Urinary Bladder. Even Herbal medicine teaches you that.
When you have a urinary tract infection, while they might be giving you Herbs
that Clear Heat, most of those Herbs are classified as Herbs that Drain
Dampness, because if s Dampness that is really the root of the problem. So
you're not really interested in necessarily using Herbs that are Sweet, Bland and
Cold, because while it might Drain the Dampness, you don't want that Cold
aspect, because then you are neutralizing the Heat. Thafs why when people
start drinking Herbs that Gear the Heat, what that starts to do is makes you feel
really tired when you go to sleep, because you're also reducing Heart Yang.
When you wake up, you feel really exhausted, while the burning urination might
have gone away. You have damaged the Yang of the Heart. So it's very
important that you realize that this is a healing response that the body has.
If you like to do both, you just like to have Damp and Heat, or you have it
together a lot, then you're going to have a sluggishness in the Middle Burner,
Damp Heat in the Liver Gall Bladder. It stays there. You have cholecystitis.
Maybe the Heat decided, "Well, I am going to start compressing this Dampness,
since we have Damp Heat." So the Heat compresses the Dampness, and you
have Hot Phlegm. And that Hot Phlegm is not in you Lungs. If s in your Gall
Bladder; you have gallstones.
Maybe the Dampness decides to spread and weigh down the Heat. So
what happens is instead, you start to get this constant swelling in your Liver.
You get a sluggishness in your Gall Bladder. You get hepatitis, again, due to
dietary factors.
Luo Channels come into play because all of these can be described as
Rebellious Qi. The body is just Rebelling against what you're eating, rather than
saying that if s responding to what you're eating. That would be an example of
why the Luo Channels are very important.
So when you look at diet, you really need to be conscious of what it is that
you're eating. By looking at your diet, you know what environment you're
creating. Keep in mind, I'm only describing the acute response. Some of us here
might be eating this and the Large Intestine is constantly trying to get rid of
something, so you don't have to have dysentery. You can just have frequent
bowel movements. Or maybe you're constipated because ifs more lodged in the
Gall Bladder. Or maybe you tend to have frequent urination. It doesn't have to
be burning, because maybe by now the Yang of the Heart has been depleted a
little. This is where it becomes a chronic condition. These chronic conditions can
be ulcerative colitis, Crohn's Disease, chronic cystitis, chronic prostatitis. These
are things that affect the urinary tract and the intestinal tract, but if s rooted in
the Stomach, and of course within the food you eat.
And, again, remember with the food you eat, some people can eat all these
things and they don't get the problem, a lot of times because of ethnic
adaptation. What are the most common things that we become reactive to?
Dampness responding to Heat, Heat responding to Damp. The most common
things that we tend to be allergic to are not the proteins, because that's what the
body needs to build. If s usually the carbohydrates and the fats, lactose
intolerance, gluten intolerance, carbohydrates and fat. Those are the most
common things that the body really has a hard time dealing with. Remember, fat
and sugar are luxuries in our lives. Protein is what the body prioritizes.

b. Intrinsic Factors
Now we can get into the Intrinsic Factors. Once you understand some of
the Intrinic Factors, it makes it easier to understand the strategy of how you treat
gastro-intestinal problems with Luo Channels. So the Stomach Fire is gastric, or
hydrochloric add. We can see where our hydrochloric add is abused in some
ways, in modem society, because we like strong stimulants. We like the alcohol.
We like the caffeine. We like smoking. Some of us might like Hot and Spicy
foods. Chocolate we might like, fatty foods, dairy products. And maybe some of
us even have certain drugs that we are taking a lot of, which become stimulants.
That stimulates hydrochloric add. Like aspirin, we know, definitely stimulates
hydrochloric add. So what happens is we have Excessive Fire. We have a very
acidic terrain. And we all know that if someone has Excess Fire, if s often
complicated by Dampness, by alcoholic cirrhosis, the idea of Liver Qz Stagnation
that then Invades the Stomach. In other words, if you're an alcoholic, most likely
you already have Stomach Fire. You have a lot of Stomach Fire building up. A
lot of times people who do have ulcers in their stomach, tend to wake up around
the time of the Liver, between 1-3am in the morning. If you always wake up
around that time, most likely you have a tremendous amount of Stomach Fire,
and the Stomach Fire is being activated at the time of the liver, which makes you
want to wake up and start to snack at night. If you don't snack at night, most
likely you develop an ulcer, because you're not feeding the Fire. We also know
at the same time that if you have strong stomach add, that it can cause an
ulceration. How we would say that is Stomach Fire Consumes Spleen Qz. Spleen
Qi can no longer Bank the Blood, there's hemorrhaging. Bleeding occurs. You
have a bleeding ulcer. And remember, bleeding, weakening of the Spleen, very
often will cause, from a Western point of view as well as from a Chinese point of
view, a decrease in platelets, dotting factors, (that would be) stopping the
bleeding, hemorrhaging. Platelets basically are dotting factors. So if you have
low platelet counts, it might mean that you have, essentially, too much Stomach
Fire. So instead of trying to Nourish their Blood or Tonify their Spleen, what you
might need to do to increase the platelets is to Clear Stomach Fire. That's the
first aspect about gastric add.
You're going to notice that I'm talking a little bit more about Western
medicine because I was preparing this particular handout around the time I was
giving a talk at Mt. Sinai to their medical students about GI health from a
Chinese point of view, so it obviously needed to make a correlation with how
Western medicine looks at gastro-intestinal health.

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They're going to look back and say this is indeed why the Stomach is the root of
all chronic, degenerative, inflammatoq diseases. It's dl rooted in the gut.

Q. I wanted to ask you where fiber fits in- Isn't that a plant protein?
A. Well, remember, fiber a lot of times is used for bulk. It's used to help
induce peristalsis. By its weight you can have bulk fiber. You can have what's
considered a wet fiber. In those contexts, that's just really helping to Descend,
peristaltic activity. Fiber doesn't redly have an effect directly on Stomach Fire.
The intent of using fiber recognizes that the body doesn't digest it. It moves into
the Small Intestine, and then £ra the Small Intestine moves to the Large
Intestine. So it's used primarily to help stimulate J3escemion of Stomach Qi, by
weight.
Q. So energetically it might be considered Cool, maybe?
A. No. I woddn't necessarily think of fiber as considered Cool. I would
think of fiber as generally neutral, in many contexts of the word. It depends on
what exactly you are using. Let's say some people can use flax seed for its bulk-
That would not redly be the same as fiber. If you're using cellulose, the idea of
that, or pectin, or something like that as fiber, fruits or what have you,
remember, Stomach is not interested in the fruits. It's not interested in sugar.
Pancreas is going to have to regulate the sugar hvels as you eat these fruits.
Small Intestine is going to do some digestion of it. A lot of it is going to be
excreted through the Large Intestine. So that becomes where fruits would be
Cold.
OK. When you get into, as I was going to say, the Lm Channels, there are
going to be two applications. One is wing the acute model, where someone
comes in and they have Rising Stomach Fire. They have an Excess in the Earth
Element, Excess in the Stomach, but it has not gone to the point that it has
affected Stomach Yin. If it affects the Stomach Yin, then you're going to really
have to look at the context of the Longitu- Lm. Before we do that, keep in
mind that when you look at GI problems, first it's the food, second it's the
Intrinic Factors of the gut. The third is indeed psychological aspects, which
again brings us into the components of the Luo Channels.

c Psychological Aspects
The psychological aspect basidly says that what you feel is going to
affect what you eat We dl know that. Eating disorders very often are an
Emotional disorder. What we consume can conversely affect what we feel. If we
like to eat a lot of sugar, if we like to eat a lot of Damp things, maybe what we're
trying to do is numb omelves to our Emotions. The fact that we might Use to
eat a lot of spicy foods may be, in some, ways to try to release, to try to Diffuse,
to try to eliat our Emotions. So food can definitely be a Factor as to what exactly

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it is that you are trying to create in terns of your feelings, or what exactly it is
that you're trying to numb or neutralize in terms of your feelings.
In TCM they often like to remind the student of Acupuncture or the
student of Oriental medicine, that lifestyle, can be very disruptive in terms of
Stomach Yin, in terms of Stomach F k eating irregularly, not finding time to eat,
not taking the time to rest to digest, eating in the car, eating whatever it is, while
you're Needling, what have you. (laughter) Obviously here, you're not giving
yourselves the mental fadty, the Emotional faculty to be fmsed on that which
you nurture. That's very important. Be mnscious of what you're eating. Just as
it is very important to be conscious of that which you don't take time to be
mnsaous of, which is what you're breathing, Qi Gong really is being conscious
of one's breath, just as you would be c ~ c i o u osf one's eating. So Qz Gong is like
a disciplined, having lunch with air. That's what it would be. If you're willing to
spend an hour a day eating lunch, can you spend a half an hour a day breathing
and being c o n s a w of what you're breathing. That's a form of Qi Gong, already.

2- Relationship to the Transverse Luo Channels

a. &sic Concepts Involving Transverse Lm

The basic concept about Transverse Luo, as we talked about earlier, is that
you have Heat moving into the Interior, into Yang Ming. In this case it's food
that you're eating. The body produces a tremendous amount of Heat, because
the food that you ate is somewhat toxic. Maybe it's because of the toxic thou&&
that came with the food, as you're eating. Maybe the food itself is toxic, or
maybe the combination is toxic. Maybe the food itself simply is not r i ~ hfor t vou.
These are the three kinds offood poisoning, or food allergies, that we can have.
What happens is the M y takes on this Pathogenic Factor that's htemal,
diet. It generates a tremendous amount of Wei Qz to go inward to try to get rid of
it, by either promoting peristalsis, in the form of vomiting, Rebellious Qi, or in
the form of dysentery, by flushing it out. Or, it just generally creates Heat to try
to burn it up. The Transverse Lm is about the Internalization of, in this case,
I n t d Pathogenic Factors, which is food, where it tries to produce Heat to burn
it up. What you wodd experience from that, if it becomes extreme, if you are
eating so much of it now that it reaches the state of Fullness, even though we're
talking about Transverse Lm, is fwd intolerance. You have an allergic reaction
to the food. Some people develop allergies later on to food. The first time they
ate it, it seemed OK, but later they notice that they're having a hard time
handling certain kinds of food products. That's the point of Fullness, saturation.
The level of tolerance has been overextended.
So Wei Qi generates Heat in the Interior to irritate the gut. Another
example of that would be when thee is an increase in histarnine. Just as you can
have a histamine response on yuur skin, and you have seasod allergies,
histamine can occur in the gut, and you have gastric allergies, food allergies.
Histamine also stimulates gastric acid. That's why we take antihistamines for
allergies. You are reducing Spleen Ymg; you are reducing Stomach Fire. That's
why, if you're going to take a n W ~ e s you , want to make sure that you
don't eat things that further weaken Stomach Fire, because the drug you're
taking already is going to be weakening Stomach Fire, which means that you're
going to have poor digestion.
What happens now is the person begins to get an allergic readion.
Persistent allergic reaction, persistent histamine responses in the gut, will lead to
the depletion of Stomach Yin. That depletion of Stomach Yin can be seen as an
autoimmune condition. Remember Crohn's Disease, ulcerative colitis, and some
gastroenterologistseven consider chronic gastritis to be an autoimmune disease:
that there is this constant histamine, constant y an mat ion, reaction of the
body's immune system, Wei Qz that is Internalized in trying to fight off
something that's in the gut. Everything that you eat, the body is very
hypersensitive to. Iâthat is the case,if you are treating someone who has
Crohn's Disease, or ulcerative colitis, you need to use both the Transverse and
the Longitudinal Lw, because the Longitudinal is where there is already a
thinning out of the mucosa lining, the pemeability factors that people sometimes
talk about in the nutritional field.

b. Treatment Factom to Consider for

Upper Gastro-Intestinal Disorders

Factors to also be reminded of if you're treating Stomach Fire, which

generally would be seen as an upper GI disorder, or a gastritis condition, acute
gastritis, include drugs reactions. The most common reaction that we have when
we have Stomach fire is we take antacids. Calcium, remember, interferes with
the absorption of iron. Iron t r a n s p o ~ g
cells require Stomach Fire. They
require hydrochloric aad. If you neutralize hydrochloric acid, it's going to
deplete the ability by which the body will absoib iron. !50 you can see, reducing
Stomach Fire can lead to anemia, per se. And at the same time, if you're doing
this with dcium, which is why I made the statement earlier, the body can also
do the same. The body can decide that you have all this Fire, and what is it going
to do to neutralize it? Generate Yin, since the Stomach Yin has been depleted, it
b ~ g Yins from the Kidneys. Yin from the Kidneys includes Yin from the Bone.
Bone is calcium. The body ddcifies kom the joints to move that calcium into
the gut and will a u s e the neutralization of Stomach Fire at the expense of
Ednq Yin.
This would be seen as the Essence going to maintain Latency, or the
Essence being used to finance the slowing down of Internal Heat that's in the
gut. So someone who develops rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease,
can be seen as someone who has a history of chronic gastritis. You very often see

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that in an intake, that these people do have allergies to food, that these people do
seem to have intestinal problems, that these people do seem to have chronic
seasonal allergies, that there's this chronic histamine, Wei Qi hyperactivity, in the
form pathologically as Fire.
So,just be reminded of that. Antihistamines that are used to reduce
gastric aads or these food allergies will also be depleting for Stomach Fire. Even
though we're depleting Stomach Fire, that means you're depleting what Stomach
Fire is produced from, which is Spleen Yang. Spleen Qi becomes Defiaent.
That'swhy Iongterm GI problems can lead to severe Qi Deficiency, as in the case
of someone who might have chronic fatigue syndrome.

2. Pain
Pain, in this context, is more of a diagnostic aspect. We know that if
someone has Rising Stomach Fire or acute gastritis, the pain is generally
aggravated by food intake. We might say, "Oh, that's because there is an
Excess." But some people would say, "No, it's a Defiaency because you don't
have enough energy to break it up. As a result, when you eat something, there's
more pain, because more Qz is being consumed by that." The imprtant thing is
that if someone has pain that is aggravated by f d intake, it can involve that
there is indeed a thinning out of Stomach Yin. If the pain is relieved by food
intake, that can also involve a duodenal ulcer. If it's aggravated, we could see
that it could be a gastric ulcer. Pain that originates in the morning and is relieved
by food in general suggests that the person has an ulcer. What I mean by these
components is not necessarily to the point, medically, that they see!an ulcer.
That you got an endoscopy done, that they see an ulcer. But rather it's the
begirining stages of a thinning out of the mucosa lining musing things to begin to
break down.
c. Basic Treatment Protocol
Now we can look at the basic treatment protocol for acute gastritis, for
Rising Stomach Fire, or for hyperacidity in the gut, which remember can be seen
as the mot cause of the beginning chronic degenerative diseases. You begin with
Stomach Lm. And you treat the Transverse Lm associated with the other Heat
signs and symptoms that are being presented with the Rising Stomach Fire.
In other words, if you look at the TCM pattern of Rising Stomach Fire,
and you have, let's say the hunger. You have the thirst. You have the epigastric
distention. What I mean is these are the symptoms that we had earlier for the
Stomach. Remember, when you see the Stomach, you can have fever or sweat
You have epigastric distention. You can have Phlegm. But what happens is, let's
say if you have Rising Stomach Fire, your major symptom in addition to the
epigastric distention, the thirst, the Heat sensation is that if you have dry lips,
mouth and throat, dry mucous membranes, Large Intestine is added to ST-40. If
the person with the Rising Stomach Fire has frontal headaches, Bladder is added
to ST-40. If the person comes in and says, "Yes, my Rising Stomach Fire is
associated with a thyroid imbalance. Thyroid, remember, controls Wei Qi. So
hyperthyroidism really means that we have a lot of Wei Qi that's in a hyperactive
state, Externally as well as Internally: going into the chest with tachycardia,
hyperthyroidism, increased metabolism, hunger, sweat very easily, eyes are
protruding. All of those are signs and symptoms of Rising Stomach Fire to some
degree. Some people in TCM would say Rising Heart Fire, or Blazing Heart Fire.
So, if they're experiencing conditions relating to the eyes, we might look at the
Bladder again, BL-58. If the person sweats profusely, then again, you have Triple
Heater or Gall Bladder that can be used for that. So this is what I mean by, you
add to it the Luo Channel that deals with the specified signs and symptoms. And
again, these Luo Channels are generally the Yang Luo Channels that deal with the
Heat presentation.
Now again, Rising Stomach Fire, even though it might be acute, can
already cause damage to Qz. So if you have Liver Qi Deficiency, LR-5 is used. If
you have Yang Qi Deficiency, like let's say the person has Rising Stomach Fire
causing Deficient Spleen Yang, you're not going to think of Spleen, you're going
to think of KI-4. If you have Deficient Spleen Qi, you think of LR-5. If there's a
Blood Defiaency, or if there is Heat that's stirring up the Wind, and again,
Internal Wind here doesn't mean dizziness and so forth, but rather you can have
a lot of flatulence, a lot of gas, a lot of bloating, a lot of belching. Then you would
use SP-4. And if Heart Fire is being aggravated by the Stomach Fire, you add to
it PC-6. If you forgot why these symptoms, is those are the symptoms that we
talked about earlier of the Transverse Lw that deal with how something on the
Yang Level will Transverse to its counterpart.
Let's say someone comes in and they have Rising Stomach Fire and they
sweat very profusely, and they also complain about some joint aches and pains.
Calcium is trying to come out to try to neutralize the add. Gall Bladder can be
indicated by achiness of the joints. Gall Bladder is going to start to affect its
Transverse Luo, the Liver pair. So that person might also come in, in addition to
achy joints, complain about nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite. They wouldn't
really say loss of appetite, they would say they have a strong appetite, but they
can't eat a lot at one time. There will be diaphragmatic constriction, loose stools,
incontinence or difficulty in urination, which will be signs and symptoms of Qz
Deficiency, when you put it back into TCM, that's why you're using Liver's Luo,
Yang, Kidney, and if the Heart if affected, Pericardium, Heart Fire. If Wind is
being Stirred, a lot of abdominal movement, or abdominal signs and symptoms
of flatulence, gas, use SP-4. That's what I mean by that.
Those are the Classical symptoms associated with the Transverse Luo, and
the Transverse Luo is more important when you're treating acute GI problems,
especially in the upper GI tract. By the time if s moved into the lower GI tract, it
already means that there is an upper degeneration of Stomach Yin. There is,

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most likely, a disturbance of the Descension of Stomach Qi. Some of you know
in terms of my Pulsetaking, a lot of times when I do Pulses, I find that many
people do not have Descension of Stomach Qi. Their Stomach usually is already
showing incompetence of some degree.
So,"Qi Deficiency", LR-5, which treats the Qi Deficiency, that will
eventually cause pancreatitis, hepatitis and cholecystitis. It means this acute
gastritis can be a precursor to other conditions that are going to now affect the
Zang Organs themselves. That could just mean high cholesterol for that matter.
High cholesterol levels can also manifest.
And then, you end, because we did a Transverse Luo focusing on ST-40,
you end with the Source Point of the TransverseLuo of the Stomach, which
means it goes to the Source of the Spleen, SP-3. You can add LU-7 if the person
has Exuberant Heat on the Exterior, which means the fever, sweating, flushed
complexion, etc. That would be the treatment for acute gastritis, using the Luo
Channels. I guarantee you it will be much more effective than LI-11, ST-21, you
know, the TCM Points that you're going to use to Clear Heat, Regulate Stomach
Qi.

3. Relationship to Longitudinal Luo Channels

a. Basic Concepts Involving Longitudinal Luo
Lastly, the relationship to Longitudinal Luo Channels generally involves
Descension of Stomach Qi. There was incompetence. Remember, the longer
things accumulate in the body with Fire, the greater likelihood of developing Fire
Toxins. If Fire Toxins develop, it's going to develop into intestinal abscesses. It
can develop into lesions. It can develop into tumors.
Likewise, we know that when you have long-term Stomach Fire it thins
out the mucous lining of the gut, and as it thins out the mucous lining of the gut
you're going to have Stomach Yin Deficiency, Empty Heat signs, as well as Full
Heat signs.
As I mentioned earlier, it also consumes Spleen QZ,causing a lot of
Dampness to accumulate as well. You see that with a lot of lower intestinal
problems. Usually if s not just Heat, if s usually Damp-Heat, with an underlying
Deficiency. Unless if s acute; you just ate something wrong and the body's Wei
Qiresponded and you have dysentery.
But if you have Crohds Disease or something that suggests a long-term
lower GI problem, then I would recommend that you focus more on the
Longitudinal Luo, which means that you begin by, essentially dealing with the
Rebellious Qi, the sphincter muscle. You're trying to increase, in particular,

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Descension. A lot of times, if there is Rebellious Qi in the Stomach, it can have an
influence on the Liver, and vice versa. In other words, Earth can also Insult
Wood. You have Excess Stomach Fire. It can go and Insult Wood, causing
Ascending Liver Yang, so that you can have high blood pressure, not because of
Ascending Liver Yang, but due to Stomach Fire. This is why sometimes, when
you treat Ascending Liver Yang, the hypertension still doesn't go away, because
you have not treated Stomach Fire. And even though you treat the Stomach Fire,
it still doesn't go away, because you haven't treated the diet that the person's
eating, that's causing Stomach Fire. So the Insult cycle can definitely take place.
likewise, we can have a condition where Liver is moving to the Stomach,
causing the Stomach to be Rebellious. That generally happens when the Stomach
becomes Deficient in its Yin. If you have a thinning of the mucous lining of the
gut, the Liver is going to come and start to move its Ascension into that
weakened Stomach and cause the Stomach to also have Ascension.
The Longitudinal Luo also deals a lot with the Fluids. Those are the two
intrinsic aspects that are important here. We have the peristaltic activity and the
mucosa lining. If the mucous lining becomes too thick, which can also happen,
that's Phlegm. You can also see where the mucous lining becomes too thin. As I
said, Heat can compress the Dampness that is being produced into Phlegm. You
can have Hot Phlegm, which develops into boils or abscesses that are in your
intestines. Or it (the mucosa) can thin out and cause a hole in your intestine and
cause hemorrhaging, Deficient Yin, thinning out of the mucous lining. And
because of this Rebellious Qi, generally there are symptoms of esophageal reflux.
These might include symptoms of gastritis. But very commonly it will manifest
in the lower GI, representing conditions like Crohn's, which involves
inflammation. Crohn's, as we know, can include obstruction. There could be
Wasting, and to some degree Consumption, what they called the Lao syndrome.
Abscesses can develop, and it can also manifest in the form of ulcerative colitis.
b. Basic Treatment Protocol
With the treatment, I'm going to get this Heat out I'm going to Nourish
the Yin,which is now quite a chronic Deficiency. With the Longitudinal Luo, as
you might remember from the cardiovascular model, the idea is that if
something in the Stomach has consumed the Qz of the Stomach, has consumed
the Spleen, what we need to do then is to begin with treating ST-40, and give the
body an opportunity to Release the Heat That Heat needs to be Released, &@
and foremost, through the four limbs. Second, it needs to be Released through
the Sensory Organs. And then thin&you can now Release, at least its chroniaty,
from the gut.
You begin with ST-40. Again, with all GI problems, we're going to start
with the Luo of the Stomach. And you treat the four limbs. Heat consumes the
Fluids that Nourish Wei Qi of the Sinews, and results in Bi Obstruction
Syndrome. People who have chronic gastritis, which might have foreign

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molecules that are going to escape because of the thinning of the mucosa lining,
these so-called protein substances that very often escape from the gut, the
Stomach in particular, will frequently deposit themselves a lot into the joints.
Remember, protein generally is what tumor tissue is made of as well. You can
see the correlation of how something that's in the abdomen, can result in
deposits taking place in the joints. So by Releasing the joints, you're giving the
body an opportunity to vent the Heat. So you could use ST-40, with TH-5 and
GB-37, Shoo Yang. TH-5 affects the upper limbs. GJ3-37 affects the lower limbs.
With the situation where the Luo Channels most likely are Deficient, or are
Empty, both of these limb signs and symptoms or Triple Heater and Gall Bladder
are symptoms of its Emptying into the Primary Channels, which then brings it
into the gut.
We've talked about this transition. If s almost like it's moving from
Stomach to Gall Bladder, eventually into Small Intestine, so ST-40, with TH-5 and
GB-37, Bleeding these Points, looking for Broken Blood Vessels along the
trajectories of Triple Heater, Gall Bladder, as well as ST-40. That will also begin
to relieve the deposits that are going to take place in the joints. If someone has
deposits in their joints, the deposits could be gout. It does not have to be just
arthritis. They have gout, uric add build-up, lactic add build-up. They have
chronic muscular spasms. By Releasing the limbs, you are also getting rid of the
add, that is the Heat that is depositing into the joints.
In other words, what I'm saying is that Hot Bi, or Damp Hot Bi, which is
the precursor to Wei Atrophy Syndrome, generally is rooted in the GI tract. So
(this may be) the only way you can get rid of Hot Bi, or Damp Hot Bi,which by
the way, clinically would manifest as MS, multiple sclerosis. It can manifest in
conditions that develop into leukemia, Spleen, again, lymphatics. These are
things that are often rooted in the g u t Or one can say rooted in one's Emotion,
having the inability to transform the paradigm that the Spleen and Stomach deal
with Emotionally, which is social constructs. They can't change the world, so
they destroy themselves. So, TH-5, GB-37, ST-40 would be the first step. That
would be the first treatment.
The person comes back two days later, second step. Use ST-40, and now
treat the Orifides. So the Qrifiues are treated with Tai Ymg, BL-58, and SI-7. BL-
58 treats the Upper Orifiaes. SI-7 treats the Lower Orificies. Kidneys can also do
that, but here we're focusing first on the Yang Channels. Again, BL-58,
remember the Classical symptom basically is about opening the sinus region,
nasal congestion, nasal discharge. SI-7, remember, some of its symptoms are
pebbly stools, things that are not properly being metabolized by the Small
Intestine.
In both treatments, a healing crisis can occur. Because once you start
Opening the Qrifiues, Heat will be Released, often through the Yang
Longitudinal Luo, as an EPF condition that will come out. They're said to have

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Wind Heat; most commonly that would be the presentation. So there's going to
be a healing crisis. The healing crisis can manifest also as a toothache, or there's
ringing in the ears or an ear infection if this is a child that you might be working
with who has had a long history of food intolerance, ST-40, a high fever and
irritability, Yaw Ming. Or Tai Yang, BL-58, the headaches, the chills, the fevers,
the Wind-Cold condition may be manifesting, nasal congestion- Or the person
feels flu like symptoms: body aches and pains, especially a lot of fatigue in the
upper limbs ($2-7). So this will happen, and you really have to wait. That means
the second step requires potentially several treatments, where you have to wait
until you are able to start releasing Heat. So there is a release of Wind-Heat or
Wind-Cold that takes place. You might have to do several treatments.
Once the Qrificiesbegin to Open,and things begin to Clear, things will
begin to be able to come out of the Stomach. Remember, the four limbs are
already being Opened. Some of you might recall in your other studies with me,
according to the External School, to treat Bi Obstruction Syndrome, you have to
Open the Sinus region. This will be an extension, or one can say that the Luo
Channel is supporting the theory of the doctrines of the External Medicine
School.
When you start to have the healing crisis, to ensure that the body is able to
deal with the healing crisis, you add to it the Source Point in the Transverse Luo
tradition. That means that if the healing crisis manifests as Tai Yang or Yang
Ming, you add to it the Yin Point that deals with Tai Yang or Yang Ming. Let's say
if the person has a terrible toothache after the treatment, you're going to add to it
LU-9. LI-6 would be Bled to treat the Toxins that are coming out from the teeth,
which means if s coming out from the bones, from the joints. If the person has a
high fever, SP-3is added to ST-40. The Source Points are Tonified in those cases.
The Luo Points are Bled.
Q. inaudible
A. Generally speaking the Points are done bilaterally, yes. Luo Points with
Eight Extra Channels are unilateral. But as Luo Points for Luo Vessels, they tend
to be bilateral.

Q. Body aches, and pain and fatigue in upper limbs, what were you referring
to there? Would that be Shoo Yang?
A. No, that would be SI-7. In other words, to say, "Body aches and upper
limb tightness, SI-7", that is still seen as a Tai Yang. A healing crisis will not
manifest in Shao Yang, because you already treated Shao Yang. You opened the
limbs in the first step. In the second step, what you are starting to do is bring
things from Yang Ming, remember that the idea of the Transverse Luo is being
integrated with the Longitudinal Luo: Yaw Ming back out with Shao Yang, ST-40,
S h o Yang. Now you're doing Tai Yang to Open up the Orifides, and as you do

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that, you're giving all three Yang Levels the opportunity to Release the trapped
Heat. As it releases, most commonly if s going to come out from where if s
Internalized, Yaw Ming. Or it comes all the way out to the surface, to Tai Yang.
During the healing crisis, during these conditions, what you're doing is you're
supporting the Yuan Source Qi to help push it out. So what's very important is
that you do not try to numb, that you do not try to suppress that by, let's say,
Herbal medicine, taking Yin Qko, or taking Ma Huang Tang, or something like
that, depending on if if s Wind-Heat or Wind-Cold, because then what you're
doing is telling the body, I don't really want this Wei Qi to come cut,I want it to
go back in. What you're doing is you're supporting Wei Qt to push it out, so it
increases the resolution faster. If s almost like, if you using Herbs, you have to
use something like the Jade Windscreen formula to help increase the Wei Qi to
move these things back out.
The third step, after the healing crisis has been set, which means you have
allowed things to move out, which means that the Ascension has been balanced,
also means that the Descension has been resolved. Remember the Rebellious Qi
is due to Heat So once you Clear the Heat, there's no longer Rebellious Qi. Now
you can Nourish the mucosa lining of the gut. As you nourish the mucosa lining
of the gut, you're looking at what exactly has been depleted. Is it just Stomach
Yin, which very often in terms of bodily Fluids will affect Lung Yin? Has it gone
to the point that Blood has been depleted? Is there an ulceration, involving
hemorrhaging, causing Blood to be depleted? Are you treating a person who
comes in with arthritis, with a history of gastritis or intestinal problems, where
they have decalcification, which means the Yin, in terms of Kidney Essence, has
been affected? Once you know, from your intake, you'll be able to determine
that.
So the third step is that you start again with ST-40. In each case ST40 is
Bled. If s just that when you're looking at the third step, the Tai Yin, Shao Yin and
Jue Yin, those Points are going to be Nourished. Now the Luo Points of LU-7 and
SP-4 are going to be Nourished, which means Plum Blossom followed by
Moxibustion, or Bleeding followed by Moxibustion. Tai Yin basically means that
what has been depleted has been bodily Fluids, Exogenous Fluids. The person
comes to you, they have long-term GI problems, and they have Sjogren's
Syndrome: dry lips, dry mouth, they always need to have artificial tears put into
their eyes. Their lips are very dry; they have artificial saliva that they need to
constantly administer. That would be rooted in the gut. A lot of people who
have Sjogren's Syndrome, can be seen as an autoimmune disease, Wei Qi
attacking the body. In particular attacking Stomach Yin, causing the Yin of the
Sensory Organs to be extremely dry. The skin is dry, and they very often have
psoriatic arthritis. There are also things affecting the joints themselves. So here,
we do Tonification of the Source Point relating directly to the Luo Point. If s not a
Transverse Lw. If s a Primary Meridian, and the Primary Meridian addressing
the associated Luo Meridian: LU-7, SP-4 with LU-9 and SP-3. All four of those
Points are Tonified.

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Q Inaudible
A. LU-7 is the Luo Point In other words, if s Tai Yin. The third step, if you
have Tai Yin, LU-7 and SP-4. And Tai Yin means that the affect has been on the
body's Exogenous Fluids or hormonal fluids. So you're using LU-7 with its
Source Point, and SP-4 with its Source Point.
If if s Blood that you're looking at, then you're looking at Jue Yin. With Jue
Yin, essentially if s a situation where the person has chronic gastritis. It tends to
have an affect on the bile, that is affecting the Blood, because the Blood,
remember, is Deficient If Blood is Deficient, what happens to Blood in general?
It also becomes Stagnant Blood Deficiency leads to Blood Stasis, and Blood
Stasis leads to Blood Deficiency. And in particular, there may be Blood
Deficiency because, somehow, the Fire has been neutralized, or the Fire is being
treated medically. This is usually where people who have chronic gastritis are
treated medically by either Herbs, conventional or alternative medicine, where
inadvertently the clinician basically just thought it was just Fire, so they
neutralize the Fire. This means that the body's ability to Transport is
compromised. Neutralizing Stomach Fire, which is produced by Spleen Yang,
Spleen Qz, means that you're neutralizing the Ascension of the Red Substance
into the Heart to become Blood. As I said, you need Stomach Fire to transport
iron. So, inadvertently, we become anemic because of that treatment. And
anemia is going to cause the body to want to retain more Blood, whatever Blood
you have. You're going to have Blood Stasis in the gut Most commonly we
know where the Blood Stasis occurs would be the Uver. We develop hepatitis.
It might be in the pancreas. We develop pancreatitis. There's an inflammation,
storing Blood. Or for that matter, you develop gallstones. So, after clearing the
Heat above, through the four limbs and the face, you'd use PC-6, LR-5 and thafs
paired off with the Source Points, PC-7 and LR-3.
The Jing, Kidneys, Essence may be affected. This can mean that the body,
in its attempt to try to maintain Yin in the intestines, brings Jing there, which can
develop into a tumor. So there's a lot of Jing going into the area. That Jing get
defecated out; it looks mucousy in your stools. Or they notice that after they
defecate, they feel worse, they feel more exhausted. If s not any relief. If s
almost like HIV. A lot of times we think of them having the diarrhea, because
you think of them having Spleen Deficiency. If s not Spleen Deficiency because
what you have is Jing trying to maintain Latency of the Pathogenic Factor. What
happens is after a while, when the body is weak, you can't hold on to the
Latency, and that Latency comes out in the form of mucousy diarrhea. Whafs
happening is they're losing Jing. So if you try to Tonify the Spleen, a lot of times
the body is not going to respond to that. If you nourish Yin, all of a sudden the
diarrhea would stop, because what you're doing is giving back the body what it
really needs, which is Yin to maintain the Latency.

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 This can be seen where someone has ulcerative colitis or Crohn's. The
difference is in one you have Blood and mucous, so you're using HT-5, KI-4.
You also would use the Great Luo of the Spleen, SP-21, and you pair that off with
HT-7, Kl-3, and rather than using SP-3, as the Source Point for SP-21, in this case,
you're going to be using ST-30, because you want to tap into the Chong Vessel,
Eight Extra Channels, to help you.
Remember, if you have Yin Deficiency, especially in the Kidneys, there are
very often Empty Heat signs. So if there is Empty Heat, you add to it CV-15 and
GV-1, especially if the Empty Heat is generating Wind, signs and symptoms of
Wind.
In all of these treatments that involve the Luo, you need to look for the Luo
Vessels, capillaries along the trajectory, and as always, evaluate the diet and the
psychological issues. Remember, the gut is just an arena to help you to
transform your world. It Transforms and Transports; that's the focus of the
Earth Element, Spleen and Stomach. You give to it the world you want through
the food you select to eat. If s really the Stomach and Spleen as a reflection of
something that you have consciously decided, or unconsciously decided, you
want in your life. That might not be what you rationally would think would be
the best way, but unfortunately, remember, lifestyle can be rational, but it could
also be just out of a certain sense of personal satisfaction.
In summary, as we end our discussion for this weekend, what you have
here is the idea that you have the Jing, the Channels, and then you have the
Collaterals. From a Daoist perspective, the Jing,the Channel is where you
understand what is your primacy. You understand what are your priorities.
You understand what are the things that you really want in your life. And you
decide to live life to its fullest.
The Luo Channels represent the distractions. The Luo Channels represent
the inconsistencies. The Luo Channels represent the contingencies. That
question, "What if this happened in my life?" Or "what if that is going to
happen?" AH those "what ifs" that you tend to ask yours&. When you have
these distractions, when you have these inconsistencies, when you keep on
asking "what if", it distracts you from the authentic, or the Real Self.
Remember in Chapter 1of the Su Wen, it says that the Real Person is the
person, the Zhen Ren, the person who essentially is interested in their authentic
concerns, interested in their authentic decisions. That's the premium of life; the
things that are real, not the things that are false. From the Daoisf point of view,
things that are false are when you're just getting by. That's a falseness of living.
If you're just going along with the crowd, they believe that's a false way of
living. If you're just doing what you're supposed to do, that's a false way of
living. If you're just trying to be a good person, that's a false way of living. The

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 Authentic Self, the Premium Self, is the Self that is very conscious of how they've
chosen to live their life.
In truth, when you look at the Luo Channels, the Luo Channels are about
taking responsibility. Thafs what if s really coming back down to. That's why
you work with the Luo and the Source. The Source is to say, "You know, you
could take responsibility. Here are your Kidneys, here's theJing." It's going to
give you this responsibility. What if s telling us to do is really take
responsibility, having the Will to take responsibility for our actions. Thafs why
when we have a hard time with our distractions, with our Luo, we add to it the
Source Points. When you add the Source Points, what you're really doing is
trying to say that I have the integrity. I have the willpower, if you want to use
that word, but in truth, what you really have is the choice, that you want to make
about changing the way your life is.
So remember, this is very important, because we as clinicians, as medical
practitioners, won't really tell our clients necessarily would they should do.
What we do, rather, is understand that what they do, understand that how they
live is really up to them. If s really up to them how they live, how they make the
choices about how they live. What is important is that, no matter what choices
they make, they're very passionate about what it is that they're doing. They put
their heart into it. They put their faith into it, perhaps. They put their motivation
into it. They commit to it themselves, because we know that we cannot heal on
behalf of our clients. Healing comes from them. All we can do is instigate a
certain degree of responsibility. As I said, part of that responsibility is
understanding your Emotions. Emotions, as I pointed out, have three parts. You
have Responsibility, and if I'm responsible for what I feel, my Emotions, and I
understand how society might contribute to how I feel, but I take Fesponsibility
for that, I have the ability to change it. If you don't take Fesponsibility, you can't
change the Social Constructs. You can't change the Emotions, and they're going
to continue to haunt you. They're going to continue to keep these Luo Vessels,
these inconsistencies, these distractions, these Collaterals alive in your body.
You continue to break out in Broken Blood Vessels.
So if s the understanding that we do have choices. We do have options.
Remember that psychosoda1 model I pointed out. Choices and options are the
function of the Gall Bladder, to be able to see different opportunities. If s almost
like, no matter how fast the world is moving, you realize that no matter how
superficialthose around you may appear to be, regardless of that, you don't
really care, because you can take responsibility for your own life. If s not a
matter of, can they take responsibility. To do that, it might require a leap of faith,
having that leap of faith in yourself. I talked about lifestyle choices, personal
satisfaction,natural, moral satisfaction, and third, religious, and if you choose
not use that word, spiritual satisfaction. Spiritual satisfaction requires a leap of
faith. Thafs what religion is about You have to have faith that there is
something very divine in you that allows you to be able to do what you do. That
I

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leap of faith is real belief. I don't mean, "Oh I don't know if I can believe it, but
I'll try." That's not faith. Faith means you have a real belief, a genuine belief in
what it is that you're doing.
If s almost like saying the reason why I think Oriental Medicine is so
popular in this country, a lot more popular than it is in European countries, and
maybe even more popular than it is in China, is because I think Oriental
Medicine provides a sense of what is at stake in this culture. Americans often
pride themselves in the sense of responsibility. In the recent decades, there's a
sense of victimization. We feel victimized. Victimization, we know what that is,
the Great Luo of the Spleen. If s almost like a Great Luo of the Spleen global issue
happening in America. We feel victimized through class. We feel victimized
through race. We feel victimized by the medical systems. A lot of people feel
Western medicine is not listening, the HMO we become victims to. Even religion
has somehow gotten very superficial, especially in the latest scandal. You're
going to know that religion is almost seen as a sham with all these accusations
about sexual abuse.
So what happens is that Oriental Medicine provides a way by which you
can look deeper into yourself. I think the Lw Channels really provide that If s
something that you can call your own. If you can call Chinese Medicine your
own, which is a leap of faith, what you begin to get is a sense of empowerment.
Thafs what the Luo Channels provide you the opportunity to do, to begin to look
at your life, to look at its inconsistencies. And if you're looking at Bleeding, what
you're doing, Bleeding, is not about hurting yourself. Bleeding is about
liberation. Bleeding is about letting go. Bleeding is about freedom. Not so much
political freedom, not so much social freedom, but freedom of choice. I can free
myself, and have the decisions that I want to live my life to its fullest. If you do
that, you get back into the Primary Channels. Your life becomes primary to you,
not to someone else, not to society. That's what I think of as the Luo Channels, to
realize that the undercurrent behind all of it is your Emotions, to realize that if s
your Emotions that make your life what it is. If s your Emotions that definitely
animate your life.
To be able to live life passionately, that's Emotional, but passionate
because this is what you really believe that you want to do. Then you have a
healthy Luo Channel. I'll leave you with that particular statement. I hope this
has been enjoyable. If s definitely been enjoyable for me. So . . .until we see each
other.
Are there any questions?

Q. Would you talk a little bit about what the next seminar will be about, the
Three Spirits and Seven Souls?

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A. The Three Spirits and the Seven Souls: basically in Daoist belief, they talk
about three components of the human Spirit. The three components, in the Jade
Purity tradition for example, that I come from, are Taz Qing, Grand Purity, Shang
Qzng, Upper Purity, and Yu Qing, sometimes referred to as Jade Purity. So you
have these three layers of purity. They call that the Three Pure Ones in religious
writing. It says that there are these vibrations outside of us that begin to come in
toward us, and the body is really a manifestation of external Spiritual vibrations.
They manifest internally, inside of us. They create Seven Souls, or seven steps of
evolution. So what happens, from the Daoist point of view, is they believe that
when you look at someone's illness, if s a reflection of a certain step along their
unfolding, that they have an imbalance in. What you're really doing, rather than
treating the disease, is you're treating by really getting them to be conscious of
how they're unfolding in their life. If s not really seen as an intervention, then, in
healing. Rather, if s becoming conscious of their contribution to their illness, as
well as having the choice to help heal themselves from these so-called conditions.
That's what referred to as the Seven Souls and the Three Spirits.
Medically, you hear people talk about what they call the Three Worms.
Sometimes they say that the Three Worms eat away at your Seven Emotions.
That would be a medical analogy of the Three Spirits Seven Souls. So the word
Gu is the typical term that people used in the ancient times to refer to these Three
Worms, these Three Spirits, that constantly are gnawing at you and saying "do
this, do that" and then your Emotions get all riled up in not knowing what to do.
The Seven Emotions, or the Seven Souls, are sometimes given the equivalence of
the seven chakras, which obviously is not exactly what the Chinese meant, but
there are similarities as well.
Any other questions? Thank you all for coming. I hope you have very
good beginning of Spring.

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 Arm Yin Luo Channels

Heart Pericardium
Arm YanpLuo CharmeIs
Leg Yang Luo Channels
Leg Yin Luo Channels
at Luo of the Spleen Governor Vessel Lwf