Piercing the heart · dong xin

Also rendered: Piercing the heart (vivid, and it sounds like a wound) · The hollow heart (plain, and it keeps the sensation) · Piercing the heart (the site's convention for a symptom-name)

Physiology

Reviewed · 2026-10-25

At a glance

Pinyin: dòng xīn
Simplified: 洞心
Literal: 洞 dòng — a hollow, and to pierce through; 心 xīn — the heart, and here the region beneath it. Together: a hollow feeling at the heart, as if it had been pierced through.
Shuowen: 《說文》：洞，疾流也。引申爲空、爲通。此云洞心，兼空與通二義：空者其感，通者其機。

In brief

What too much acrid food does to the heart region: the acrid qi rises and lingers below the heart, the camp and defence cannot receive it in season, and the centre feels hollow, as if pierced. 洞 carries both senses at once — a cavity and a passage — and both are wanted here: the sensation is emptiness and the mechanism is a forced opening. It is the exact counterpart of 悗心, the stifled heart that sweet food produces: one hollows, the other blocks.

Senses in the classical corpus

The symptom 令人洞心

使人心中空豁

It makes the heart hollow — the symptom named.

令人洞心 — 靈樞·五味論

Its cause 久留心下，故洞心

久留心下，所以洞心

The acrid qi stays long below the heart, and that is why.

久留心下，故洞心 — 靈樞·五味論

Its flavour 辛走氣，多食之

辛味走氣，多食則如此

Acrid moves into qi; eaten to excess it does this.

辛走氣，多食之 — 靈樞·五味論

Its mechanism 辛與氣俱行

辛與氣一同行走

Acrid travels with qi, so it opens and scatters where qi is.

辛與氣俱行 — 靈樞·五味論

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

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1 passages

靈樞·五味論 Read in context →

薑韭之氣薰之，營衛之氣不時受之，久留心下，故洞心。辛與氣俱行，故辛入而與汗俱出。姜韭之气薰之，营卫之气不时受之，久留心下，故洞心。辛与气俱行，故辛入而与汗俱出。

jiāng jiǔ zhī qì xūn zhī, yíng wèi zhī qì bù shí shòu zhī, jiǔ liú xīn xià, gù dòng xīn. xīn yǔ qì jù xíng, gù xīn rù ér yǔ hàn jù chū.

The qi of ginger and chives smokes upward, and the nutritive and guarding qi receive it from time to time; it stays long below the heart, and therefore the heart feels hollow. Pungent travels together with qi, and so when pungent enters, it leaves together with the sweat.

「洞心」本篇3見，辛味多食之所致。洞兼空、通二義：心下空豁，其感也；辛開氣散，其機也。與甘味之悗心一空一塞，正相對。

Compounds built on this term

洞

dòng

hollow, pierced through

空也，通也

營衛之氣

yíng wèi zhī qì

camp and defence qi

營氣與衛氣

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

This site	piercing the heart	the graph's double sense
Literal	hollowing the heart	exact, and it loses the pang
Clinical	epigastric emptiness after acrid food	clear, and interpretive

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-10-25

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