dì shì
Also rendered: the lie of the land (Keeps 勢 as a disposition) · terrain (Purely physical) · geographical environment (Modern and abstract)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The whole answer to the chapter’s question, in four words. Asked why one disease can be treated five ways and still get better, Qibo replies that the lie of the land makes it so — the methods differ because the ground differs, not because the physicians disagree. Wang Bing unpacks it: the reference is to the generative, growing, gathering and storing of heaven and earth, and to the disposition of high and low, dry and damp. Everything that follows — east, west, north, south, centre — is this sentence unfolded.
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 | geographical environment | Accurate as far as it goes, and the phrase most often used for this idea today. |
| This site | the lie of the land | 勢 is not location but bearing — how a country sits, which way it falls, whether it is high or low, dry or damp. Geographical environment names a space; the lie of the land names a slant, and the slant is what this chapter treats with. |
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