Yang, where does it come from?

The idea of ming men life gate fire is not found in the early classics. What many attribute to Kidney yang as being the source of all yang, some argue is really the Heart fire, Imperial fire. Both, of course, are shaoyin, but Heart is fire and Kidney is water. An interesting correlation to this is that the Heart acts through its proxy, the Small Intestine, which can be seen to be the outer manifestation of that fire as it guards the surface, ie wei qi and its tai yang association. The source of all yang comes from the Du mai (Governor vessel), which many attribute to the Kidneys, but in actuality has the opening point of Small Intestine 3 (also the wood point and can be seen as the acupuncture analogue to guizhi cinnamon twig -- see post below). Similarly, the lower dantian/cinnabar field is thought to be the root of yang and deriving from the Kidneys, but the main source of the lower dantian, Ren 4 (Conception vessel) is the front mu point of the Small Intestine.

So, today when a patient came in with significant yang deficiency of the Heart, needling Small Intestine 3 brought about a major change in her pulse.

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