xū lǐ
Also rendered: the empty village (Literal) · the great network of the stomach (Descriptive of what it is) · xu li (Pinyin, the usual form in acupuncture writing) · the apex beat (Anatomical identification, not a translation)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
A place, not a vessel. 虚里 is the great network of the stomach as it can be felt below the left breast, where it pierces the diaphragm and networks the lung and its beat is strong enough to move the clothing. Chapter 18 is the source of the name, and what is read at it is the ancestral qi: panting and interrupted means the disease is in the centre; knotted and transverse means an accumulation; a beat that never comes is death; and a beat so large that it shakes the clothes means the ancestral qi is leaking away.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| Common English | xu li | Acupuncture writing generally leaves the name in pinyin, sometimes glossed as the great network of the stomach. |
| This site | the empty village | 虚 is empty and 里 is where people dwell, and the chapter gives a name rather than a description — it is one of the few places in the Suwen that is named as a spot you can put a hand on. Rendering it keeps the reader aware that this is a place and not a vessel; the identification with the apex beat is given here in the note so that the reader knows where to look, while the text's own word is left standing. |
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