nèi guān
Also rendered: Inner obstruction (keeps the gate) · Inner gate (literal, and it sounds like a point) · Internal blockade (clinical, and it is heavier)
Reviewed · 2026-10-25
At a glance
The name given when the wrist pulse is four times the neck pulse, as 溢陽 is given when the neck is four times the wrist. The image is of a gate barred from within: the yin has swollen until it can no longer let the yang through, and the verdict is blunt — death, beyond treatment. It is the exact counterpart of overflowing yang, and the pair marks the chapter’s outermost reach: at one, two and three degrees the disease is still named by channel, at four it is named by a failure of passage. Note that the graph is 關, a gate, and not 内關 the point on the forearm; the two are homographs and nothing more, which is why the site keeps the phrase as a diagnostic name and not as an acupuncture one.
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.
| This site | inner obstruction | the text's own figure |
| Literal | the inner gate | exact, and it invites confusion with the point |
| Clinical | yin blockade at the wrist | clear, and it is an interpretation |
Search the glossary
Reading path
Guided routes through the corpus, each built on a handful of chapters and their key terms.
See all reading paths