SJ-11 (Qing Leng Yuan) Clear Cold Abyss

What does SJ-11 Qing Leng Yuan do?

SJ-11 activates the channel and dispels wind-damp, and it clears damp-HEAT — while its name means Clear COLD Abyss. That tension sits inside a single record, and this page states it rather than smoothing it over.

• Activates the channel and dispels wind-damp
• Clears damp-heat — heat, where the name says cold

How the two fit together, and how far our data supports it. The classical reading of Qing Leng Yuan takes qing as clear or cooling and leng as cold — a name describing the effect of clearing heat, a cool deep pool, rather than a point that treats cold. On that reading name and action agree. Our own data does not state which reading is intended, and other renderings of the name circulate. The action field is what our record actually holds: it clears damp-heat. Where a name invites an inference our data does not confirm, this library reports both and marks the inference as one.

Compare the run above it. SJ-12 records a single action — activating the channel and alleviating pain — and SJ-13 adds transforming phlegm. SJ-11 is the only one of the three whose action names heat or damp. The three points share the shoulder-and-arm indication and diverge in exactly one clause each, which is worth knowing before treating them as interchangeable.

On the name. “Qing Leng Yuan” — Clear Cold Abyss. Yuan is a deep pool or abyss, the same character as in LU-09 Tai Yuan (Great Abyss) at the wrist and SI-13 Qu Yuan. It is one of only a handful of three-syllable point names in the system, which makes it distinctive but also easy to abbreviate wrongly in a prescription.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, action, location and translation records; the LU-09, SI-13, SJ-12 and SJ-13 records queried and their actions compared against our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SJ-11 Qing Leng Yuan used for?

SJ-11 is used for pain and impaired movement of the shoulder and arm, and for migraine. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full — two entries.

• Motor impairment and pain of the shoulder and arm
• Migraine

“Migraine” is a modern diagnosis, and our record uses it outright. That is uncommon in our indication data: elsewhere on this channel and its neighbours, head symptoms are recorded as headache — a description — and our SJ-12 and SJ-16 records both do exactly that. Only a handful of our records name a modern diagnostic entity directly; our BL-26 record names sciatica in the same way. A named condition and a description of symptoms are not the same kind of claim, and where our source material makes the stronger one this library points it out rather than passing it along unremarked.

Why a point on the arm carries a head indication at all. The San Jiao channel runs from the ring finger up the arm, over the shoulder, along the side of the neck and around the ear to the temple — and the temple is the region “migraine” classically refers to here, the word itself deriving from hemicrania, half the head. A distal point reaching the far end of its own channel is the standard logic, the same reasoning our ST-42 record sets out for the foot and the upper teeth.

An honest note. Migraine deserves proper medical diagnosis and management — effective preventive and acute treatments exist, and a headache disorder that is not diagnosed is not treated well. A sudden severe headache unlike any before, a headache with fever and neck stiffness, or one with weakness, confusion or visual loss, is a MEDICAL EMERGENCY. A change in a long-standing headache pattern needs assessment. Arm pain with weakness or numbness requires assessment in its own right. This record documents classical use only, and nothing here should delay any of that.

How it is combined. With SJ-10 Tian Jing one cun below at the elbow and SJ-12 above. With SJ-05 Wai Guan distally, the channel’s Luo-Connecting point. With GB-20 Feng Chi and Tai Yang, the extra point at the temple, for the head indication — the temple being where this channel ends. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the BL-26, GB-20, ST-42, SJ-05, SJ-10, SJ-12, SJ-16 and Tai Yang records queried and compared from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SJ-11 Qing Leng Yuan located?

SJ-11 is on the back of the upper arm, one cun above SJ-10 — found with the elbow bent.

• 1 cun proximal to SJ-10 Tian Jing
• With the elbow flexed — our own record specifies the position, and it is part of the location
• SJ-12 Xiao Luo lies 3 cun further up the same line

The flexed elbow is not a detail to skim. SJ-10 sits in the hollow above the tip of the elbow, and that hollow only appears when the elbow is bent — so the reference point for SJ-11 exists only in that position. Our record states it, and this page keeps it. Several records in this library specify a posture as part of a location: ST-02 requires the eyes looking straight ahead, BL-56 is clearest with the calf contracted, SJ-13 with the arm held out against resistance.

The line it sits on is verified. Our SJ-12 record places that point 4 cun above SJ-10 and 6 cun below SJ-14, summing to the standard 10-cun upper arm — so the run SJ-11 belongs to checks out against the proportional system. SJ-11 is the first cun of it.

On the name. “Qing Leng Yuan” — Clear Cold Abyss. Yuan, a deep pool, is shared with LU-09 Tai Yuan and SI-13 Qu Yuan.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged including the flexed-elbow requirement; the BL-56, LU-09, SI-13, ST-02, SJ-10, SJ-12 and SJ-13 records queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 403): With the elbow flexed, this point is located 1 cun proximal to Tianjing SJ-10.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 205): 1 cun above Tianjing (SJ-10) when the elbow is flexed.

How is SJ-11 Qing Leng Yuan needled?

Our own record states perpendicular insertion of 0.3–0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable — the shallowest of the three upper-arm points. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique.

• Angle and depth as recorded: perpendicular, 0.3–0.5 inch. Compare 0.5–0.7 inch at SJ-12 and 0.5–0.8 inch at SJ-13 — the recorded depths increase steadily up the arm as the triceps thickens, and SJ-11 is nearest the elbow where the muscle is thinnest and the bone closest.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the tendon of triceps brachii and the lateral head of the muscle lie beneath the skin; the olecranon and the lower shaft of the humerus lie deep; the ulnar nerve passes behind the medial epicondyle on the inner side of the elbow — the opposite side from this point — and the radial nerve runs in the spiral groove higher up the arm.

Hazard, stated proportionately. There is no body cavity here, no pleura and no great vessel. The two nerves worth knowing about in this region both lie away from the point — the ulnar on the medial side of the elbow, the radial higher and deeper — and bone is close beneath. This is a low-hazard point, and its shallow recorded depth reflects thin tissue rather than a specific danger. Only four points in this library carry an organ-injury caution at all, counted by query — KI-21, KI-22, LU-01 and LU-02, none on a limb.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at SJ-11 could be located, and none is borrowed. Neither measured-depth study this library uses reaches the arm. No case report naming SJ-11 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged, and the SJ-12 and SJ-13 depths compared; every needling record queried and the four organ-injury cautions counted), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on SJ-11, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates SJ-11. Where the point appears it is one component of an arm or headache protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point. It is one of the less-used points on the channel.

Migraine does have a substantial acupuncture literature, and a reader who searches on this point’s indication will meet it. Those trials use multi-point protocols built around GB-20, Tai Yang, LI-04 and SJ-05 — not SJ-11 — and evidence about a protocol is not evidence about a point within it. Nothing from that literature is claimed here, and the framing above stands: migraine deserves proper diagnosis and management.

What this page can state with confidence. SJ-11 sits one cun above SJ-10, on a line whose total length our SJ-12 record independently verifies at the standard 10 cun. Its recorded depth is the shallowest of the three upper-arm points, tracking thin tissue over bone. Its indication list names migraine outright — a modern diagnosis, uncommon in our data, where symptoms are usually described rather than diagnosed. And its name says cold while its recorded action clears heat — a tension inside one record, reported rather than resolved, because our data does not settle which reading of the name is intended.

A note on searching for it. “SJ 11”, “TE 11”, “TB 11” and “Qinglengyuan” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material — and this channel is coded three ways across the literature: SJ, TE and TB. Our library uses SJ-. This point’s three-syllable name is also abbreviated inconsistently across sources. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (action, indication, location and translation records; the SJ-12 and SJ-13 records compared and the BL-26 diagnosis-naming case checked, against our own data).