HT-4 Ling Dao and Peace of Mind

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Yael

One of two courses I’m taking this year talks about the Five Elements and the Shen.
I feel it’s one of the most important courses/seminars/classes I have attended. Both subjects are deeply interesting, and at least here in Israel, there aren’t many practitioners who can tell us a lot about it. Portland’s got Heiner. The UK had Dr. Van Buren.
We have Yair Maimon.

I know Yair for 10 years now. He started out as my practitioner and quickly turned to my biggest inspiration in Chinese Medicine and my greatest teacher of the field.
After 8 years of continuing nagging and begging, he finally started a course last December, which is quickly approaching it’s end, and I feel truly blessed and a bit sad that’s it’s about to become a memory.
Still, I learn so much each lesson. And though Yair emphasizes the practical clinical part of things, I find true happiness in the theoretical part of it.

In the course we each had to talk about different acupuncture points.
We all had to draw three folded notes from a bag, all had different point names written in them. I got LI-3, KID-1 and HT-4.
I started reading about the three points and quickly realized that I will talk about HT-4. The other points will simply have to wait their turn.
We all know it’s location and functions, so I won’t repeat them, but if you want to refresh your memory, click here.
Let’s take a look at the name, Ling Dao.

Father Larre and Elizabeth Rochat wrote that the meaning of the radical “Ling” is “influences that fall from above like rain”.
That’s just beautiful if you ask me. It also indicates a very strong connection between the Ling and the Heaven (above).
I decided to search for other points that have “Ling” in them.
I found the following:
DU-20- Ling Shang: Ridge top, Celestial fullness.
GB-18- Cheng Ling: Spirit support.
KID-24- Ling Xu: Spirit ruines.
HT-2- Qing Ling (Quan): Blue green spirit.
GV-10- Ling Tai: Spirit tower.
TW-11- Qing Ling: Clear spirit (that’s one of the alternative names for TW-11).
When we look at the above points and think of their location, we will see that they are all located on upper parts of our body.
That is understood, I mean, how else are we to catch the influences that fall from above us like rain? It makes perfect sense.

“Dao” means pathway, the way.
When we put both words together, we have to look at the way of the inner part of the Shen, which is Ling, and so we are looking at the way of a person.
Once we are walking in the pathway of our life, we are well.
Once we are walking in the pathway of our life and are well, we have peace of mind.
When people turn to us for help, it is because they have lost their peace of mind, and they want it back. Something in their life made them get off their own pathway. If we can help them find their Dao again, they will be happy, content and their peace of mind will be restored.

Peace of mind, as Yair pointed out, is a common phrase.
But when you look closely, you find that it is a wonderful thing to be able to give to another person- whether it is a friend or a patient.
These are my thoughts on HT-4. And I feel that this point, with it’s name and ability to affect such deep parts of our Shen, one of the main things that Chinese Medicine can give to man kind.

Over to you
Do you agree? You think I got it all wrong?
I would love to read your thoughts on the point, and if you had the chance to use it, what you know about it and so on.