脾俞 Pishu
“Spleen Transport” · BL20
Foot Taiyang · 20 of 67 · back-shu of the spleen
Where. Below the eleventh bump counted down from the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine.
For. Bloating; loose stools; back ache.
Press. Ask a partner to press with a thumb, or lean on a soft ball against a wall, a minute.
脾俞，在第十一椎下，兩傍各一寸五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Pishu Sits on the Back
Pishu takes its place along the long middle stretch of the back, where the spine begins leaning toward the waist. The dataset locates it precisely: on the back, below the spinous process of the eleventh thoracic vertebra, 1.5 cun lateral to the posterior midline. Unpacked for hands rather than rulers: begin at the base of the neck, where the prominent knob at the junction of neck and shoulder glides beneath the fingertips when the head turns. Below that starting post run the twelve ridges of the thoracic spine, set closer together as they descend. Walk straight down the centre seam and let the count run patiently to the eleventh ridge, settle into the soft step beneath it, then step outward one and a half cun — and there, mirrored on both sides of the spine, sits Pishu.
A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, so a cun at the waist of a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. One practical rendering passed along through self-location teaching holds that the width of the index and middle fingers pressed together comes close to one and a half cun on many adult hands — helpful arithmetic, worth trusting only alongside the bony landmarks. Beneath the skin the ground is friendly by comparison with points higher on the torso: the spot rests on the broad muscles flanking the spine, well padded on most backs, with the deeper structures of the trunk lying far beyond anything gentle fingertip contact could ever reach. Why depth still deserves respect at this station is a matter the safety section takes up in full.
The neighborhood completes the map. One ridge higher, beneath the tenth thoracic vertebra, the same lateral line carries Danshu (BL19), assigned to the gallbladder; one ridge lower, beneath the twelfth, stands Weishu (BL21), the stomach’s station; two above, at the ninth, sits Ganshu (BL18), assigned to the liver. Classical teaching lined these addresses up organ by organ along the inner route of the bladder meridian — the longest pathway in the body, sixty-seven stations strong — drawn in the old cartography from the inner corner of the eye, sweeping over the head, and descending the whole back to the little toe. Down the spine it travels in paired vertical routes, the inner one running 1.5 cun from the midline — the road Pishu stands on — and along that inner road the tradition arranged the transports of the organs like offices along a corridor.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair, feet flat, shoulders heavy, because hunching reshapes the terrain about to be read. Bow the head slightly and hook a fingertip over the bone at the neck-shoulder junction, confirming it with the movement test — turn the head side to side and watch the landmark glide while the ridges beneath stay still. Now comes the long part: walk straight down the centre seam and count ridges, patiently, to eleven. Many people find it easier to count in quiet groups — three, six, nine, then two more — and worth counting twice, because a long tally invites drift. Rest the pad of the finger in the soft step immediately beneath the eleventh. From there slide outward across the muscle until you have crossed roughly the width of two pressed-together fingers, and settle where the flesh forms a gentle cord-like column flanking the spine. That shallow resting place, on either side of the seam, is the address. Repeat the whole search on the other side.
Confirmations cost nothing. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people register a faint, dull awareness at the genuine spot and little sensation a thumb-width away. Take a slow breath and notice how little this stretch of back stirs compared with the chest — that stillness quietly confirms the search stayed on the back’s quiet side. Check the horizontal position too: the true spot hugs the spine’s side of the back, on the muscle column, not out toward the waist’s softer flank. And lean on the neighbors as witnesses: whoever has found Weishu one ridge below, or Danshu one ridge above, can trust Pishu to sit exactly between them. If bare bone meets the fingertip, the search has wandered onto the spine itself or a rib; ease back toward the muscle column and begin again.
Four slips account for nearly every mislocation. Counting the neck-base knob itself as the first ridge drops the whole search one vertebra low — the knob is the starting post, not the first runner. Losing your place during the long count comes second; slowness and a second pass mend it better than confidence ever will. Drifting outward toward the soft flank comes third; the correction never changes — return toward the seam. Forgetting the mirror pair is fourth — there are two Pishu, and neither substitutes for the other. When doubt outlives every test, resist guessing from wherever the wandering ended; go back to the neck, confirm the gliding knob once more, and recount slowly from the top.
Reading the Name: Spleen Transport
The name is a job description in two characters. Pi 脾 means spleen — plain vocabulary for plain duty. Shu 俞 belongs to the family of characters used across the point catalogue for stations of transfer, carrying the old sense of conveying or infusing, the way water passes along a channel from reach to reach. Together the name reads as the spleen transport: the place where the spleen system delivers its activity toward the back. Classical teaching set an entire series of such addresses beside the spine, one for each of the organs, all sharing the suffix character; high in the back the lung keeps Feishu, the liver and gallbladder hold stations of their own, and at the eleventh vertebra the office falls to the spleen. Wherever the tradition wanted to say that an organ keeps a window on the back, it wrote shu.
The spleen itself occupied a busy seat in classical physiology. Among the five phases it was assigned earth, the element classical writers placed at the centre of things, the season-less fulcrum the others arrange around; its working was described as transformation and transportation — the labor of receiving food and drink, breaking it down, and sending its essence along as qi and blood. In that frame, complaints of fullness and unsettled bowels were read as the transport falling behind on its deliveries, and the organ’s back address became a natural station in classical discussions. Classical lists also liked pairing: each back transport had a companion gathering place on the front of the trunk called a mu point, and for the spleen that companion is Zhangmen (LR13) — front door and back window, tradition suggested, holding one office between them. All of this is the heritage’s own weather map, offered warmly for understanding, not as anatomy confirmed.
Pinyin renders the name Píshū: pi climbs on the rising second tone, while shu rides a level, high first tone. The hanzi pair 脾俞 stays legible at a glance — spleen, transport — and like many points named for what they do rather than where they sit, the label performs real work. Gates imply watching a threshold; transports imply delivery. The name quietly states its instructions: whatever concerns the spleen’s transforming work, this is where the tradition delivered its attention on the back. A reader who remembers just the two characters carries the whole doctrine in miniature.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: abdominal distension, diarrhoea, vomiting, dysentery, blood in stool, back pain, and jaundice. The digestive entries travel together in the traditional telling. Abdominal distension is a distinct traditional concept: a subjective tightness, swelling, or stuck quality across the belly, understood as qi failing to move freely there. Diarrhoea and vomiting, in the classical frame, were read as the spleen’s transformation and transportation faltering — food and fluid arriving but not being properly received, sorted, and sent onward — so the organ’s back transport stood near the centre of such discussions, much as a household treats its own front door: the first address consulted whenever the trouble came knocking.
Then come the grave entries, and honesty asks that they be read slowly. Dysentery was, in the vocabulary of older eras, a heading for severe and often dangerous bowel illness; blood in stool likewise named something the old physicians treated with gravity. Jaundice — yellowing of skin and the whites of the eyes — received classical explanations involving dampness bogging down the spleen’s transforming work, yet the sign itself has always pointed toward serious underlying trouble. None of this history transfers to self-care. Today, blood in the stool, yellowing skin or eyes, severe or persistent bowel symptoms, or vomiting that prevents keeping fluids down are signals that belong before a doctor promptly — reasons to seek assessment, never targets for pressing. The record preserves these entries because records preserve everything; this page repeats them so the list is quoted faithfully and so nobody mistakes their gravity for an invitation.
Last on the list, back pain looks like the odd one out until the channel map opens. The bladder meridian pours down the entire back in paired routes, and the inner line on which Pishu stands runs beside the spine from shoulder to sacrum; stations along that road served the territory they traversed, and the paraspinal muscles at this height share the same long column of tissue that aches in many backs. It bears repeating plainly: these are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding, not claims that pressing this point treats disease. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Once located, settle into position: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy — the groove you want hides under tension. Reaching the middle of the back asks one small decision. Invite a partner to lend their fingertips, or reach the opposite hand over the shoulder and walk down beside the spine until the muscle column found earlier rests under your pads. Curl the fingers and touch with the pads — never the tips. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, each circle riding a long exhale out; then swap hands and match the other side.
Quality outranks duration, as it does everywhere in gentle practice. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the whole discipline; jabbing teaches the body nothing and startles a stretch of back that spends its days braced against a chair. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and let the session double as a pause — the mid-back rarely receives deliberate attention, and simply being attended to settles many people. Readers who keep routines anchor this one somewhere natural: after the morning shower, before lights-out, or in the afternoon lull. Consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for, here as everywhere.
Treat the exercise as a few minutes of attention paid to a stretch of yourself that cannot see itself. Across weeks you may notice the area feels less guarded, breathing feels easier while you press, or simply that you spent ninety seconds tending your own back — all outcomes fit the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation: pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result. Curiosity pulling that way should meet the same answer every time — return to gentleness, or stop for the day. The point is not going anywhere; tomorrow it will wait at the same eleventh-ridge address.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record keeps its warning short here — do not needle deeply — and brevity should not be mistaken for lightness. Professional texts watch the depth of technique all along the spine because the structures that matter lie closer than casual intuition suggests; the caution attached to this entry belongs to that family of professional discipline, a category household acupressure never approaches. Home self-care manages the same risk differently and completely: by never leaving the surface at all. Feather-light fingertip work engages skin and superficial muscle alone, and honouring the spirit of the recorded caution builds precisely the habits gentle practice wants — patience, lightness, and an early hand lifted from anything uncertain.
For fingertip practice the rules follow plainly. Keep contact light and strictly superficial — the intention stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward toward the spine or ribs. Use finger pads, never elbows, knuckles, tools, or devices. Skip the point entirely during feverish illness or any acute flare of illness, and over broken or irritated skin. After recent back or abdominal surgery or injury, wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once, and not again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with ongoing digestive, liver, or kidney conditions, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice. And when energy runs low or unwellness visits, the wisest session is the postponed one — rest is also self-care.
Over everything stands the wider rule: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a longer pressing session — for blood in the stool, yellowing of skin or eyes, vomiting that persists or prevents keeping fluids down, diarrhoea that stretches on or arrives with fever, severe abdominal pain, or symptoms following a blow to the abdomen or back. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the problem. The image of the spleen’s window on the back is elegant, and it earns its keep as memory and meaning; but the safest gift Pishu offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with their own mid-back, tended lightly and surrendered promptly whenever the body asks for more than gentleness can give.
Pishu, the Spleen Transport, stands midway down the back beneath the eleventh thoracic vertebra, a thumb-and-a-half out from the spine’s central seam. Classical teaching made it the spleen’s own address on the back, the station reached for when fullness or unsettled bowels weighed on a person. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Pishu without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the neck as the whole map. Find the knobby bone at the junction of neck and shoulder that slides under the fingers when the head turns; walk straight down the centre seam and count ridges patiently to eleven; rest a finger in the hollow beneath the eleventh; then slide sideways about the width of two pressed-together fingers onto the muscle column beside the spine. Weishu waits one ridge below and Danshu one ridge above, and the trio confirm one another. Cun measurements encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Pishu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, engaging skin and superficial muscle far short of the deeper structures professional cautions concern. The recorded warning involves depth of professional technique — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals all the same: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens means finish immediately, and fever or acute illness cancels the session entirely.
- What did classical practice use Pishu for?
- The traditional record lists abdominal distension, diarrhoea, vomiting, dysentery, blood in stool, back pain, and jaundice. The name tells the headline: as the spleen’s own transport point on the back, Pishu anchored classical discussions of the transforming work behind digestion. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is a point for digestion located on the back?
- Classical cartography draws the bladder meridian descending the back along two paired routes, and the inner line — 1.5 cun from the midline — carries a procession of stations the tradition matched organ by organ, the spleen keeping its window at BL20. Each back transport also had a front companion, the mu gathering place — for the spleen, Zhangmen (LR13) — and tradition often read the pair as front door and back window holding one office between them. Bilateral symmetry doubles everything: there is a Pishu on each side of the spine.
- Can acupressure at Pishu replace seeing a doctor about digestive symptoms?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. Blood in the stool, yellowing skin or eyes, persistent vomiting, diarrhoea that will not settle or arrives with fever, or severe abdominal pain call for professional assessment promptly — think of daily self-care and clinical medicine as caretakers of two different doors, each minding its own threshold, neither substituting for the other.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, back-shu theory, and bladder-channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL20 Pishu — location, point class, actions, and caution record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/bl20/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/bl20/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/bl20/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "BL20",
"name": {
"en": "Pishu",
"gloss": "Spleen Transport",
"zh-Hant": "脾俞",
"zh-Hans": "脾俞"
},
"channel": {
"id": "BL",
"order": 20,
"of": 67
},
"location": {
"text": "Below the eleventh bump counted down from the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine."
},
"for": [
"bloating",
"loose stools",
"back ache"
],
"press": {
"text": "Ask a partner to press with a thumb, or lean on a soft ball against a wall, a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl20",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}