Not on the belly in pregnancy.
不容 Burong
“Not Containing” · ST19
Foot Yangming · 19 of 45
Where. On the upper belly, eight finger-widths above the navel and three finger-widths out from the midline.
For. Stomach ache, vomiting, poor appetite.
Press. Gentle flat-finger pressure, about a minute each side, not after a big meal.
Caution. Not on the belly in pregnancy.
不容，在幽門傍各一寸五分，去任脈二寸，直兩肋端相去四寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Burong Sits on the Upper Abdomen
The dataset places Burong on the upper abdomen, six cun above the centre of the umbilicus and two cun lateral to the anterior midline. A cun is the traditional proportional unit of Chinese point-location, measured from the person being examined rather than from a ruler — roughly the width of the person’s own thumb. The traditional map divides the vertical span between the centre of the navel and the sternocostal junction, where the lower edges of the ribs meet the base of the breastbone, into eight such units; six units above the navel puts Burong three-quarters of the way up that climb, and two units out from the midline puts it about two thumb-widths to either side. On the midline itself, at exactly the same height, sits Juque (CV14) of the Ren channel, so the trio forms a level row: a midline point flanked by twin stomach-channel points.
Under the fingertips the territory is the upper wall of the abdomen: skin, a layer of fat, and the vertical strap of the rectus muscle running from the pubic bone up toward the ribs. Deep to the wall lie the stomach and its neighbours, which is why every instruction on this page keeps contact at the surface. Nothing about locating or pressing Burong asks for force; the landmarks are shallow and announce themselves to patient fingers. Because the point stands high on the abdomen, just below the downward slope of the rib cage, many people feel the lower ribs arching within easy reach above and beside it — a helpful confirmation that you are in the right neighbourhood rather than too low.
The neighbours make the address easier to trust. One cun directly below sits Chengman (ST20), whose name continues the same story; the two are usually found together and told apart simply by height. Farther up, the channel has only recently left the chest: Rugen (ST18) rests directly below the nipple in the fifth intercostal space, four cun from the midline. Reading the catalogue entries in sequence shows the line stepping inward as it leaves the chest for the abdomen — from four cun lateral at the nipple line to two cun lateral at Burong — so a searcher who carries the chest measurement downward will drift wide of the mark until they re-anchor on the midline. Everyone carries the mirror-image pair on both sides, and the record treats the two sides alike.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat, or sit supported upright — whichever lets the belly soften. First find the two anchors. The centre of the navel is easy; the sternocostal junction takes a moment: trace the lower border of your ribs with a fingertip toward the middle until they meet at the base of the breastbone. Now imagine the vertical line between the two anchors divided into eight equal parts, and come three-quarters of the way up from the navel — or, said the other direction, one-quarter of the way down from the junction. From that height, feel for the soft groove of the midline first so the starting line is true, then slide sideways about two thumb-widths. Repeat the whole search on the other side.
A few quiet checks settle the placement. Compare sides with a feather-light touch: many people notice a faint dull awareness at the true spot and little sensation a thumb-width away. Let the breath participate — with knees bent the belly rises gently, and a correctly placed fingertip rides that lift without being pushed around by it. Check the horizontal distance too: the spot should sit clearly clear of the midline groove yet well inside the curve of the rib margin, consistent with the recorded two cun. Pressing is not part of verification; if you cannot decide, stop, take a few breaths, and begin again from the navel.
The usual slips are predictable. Counting upward along the slant of the ribs rather than vertically exaggerates the height; forgetting to switch from the chest-line four cun to the abdominal two cun lands you wide; stopping one station early finds Chengman below. Some searchers also mistake the firm edge of the rectus muscle for the point — the muscle cord sits slightly farther out and hardens when you lift your head, while the true spot keeps its softness. Whenever anything feels uncertain, return to the two anchors, divide the climb slowly, and measure sideways once, unhurried.
Reading the Name: Not Containing
The name is a sentence compressed to two characters. Bu 不 is the plainest negative in the language, meaning not or no. Rong 容 means to contain, hold, or tolerate — and, by a graceful extension, to give countenance: the character sets the roof radical over the valley element, an image traditional character-commentary reads as shelter with room inside. Together Burong renders as does not contain or unable to hold — a name that states a failure rather than a feature, which is rarer among point names and worth pausing over.
Classical commentators connected the name with the stomach’s office. In the traditional frame the stomach is the granary that receives food and drink, holds what arrives, and passes it downward in due season; when that receiving falters, what was taken in can no longer be contained, and it announces itself as fullness, belching, queasiness, or outright rejection of food. Read this way, the name describes the very complaint the point was classically asked about: the moment the granary refuses. Whether the ancients named the symptom, the hoped-for correction, or both, the records leave open — the tradition itself treats that ambiguity as part of the name’s usefulness.
Pinyin writes the name Bùróng. Bu carries the fourth tone, the falling tone that starts high and drops firmly; it has a famous quirk — before another fourth-tone syllable it flips to a rising second tone — but rong here is a second-tone syllable, the rising tone, so bu keeps its falling shape. Say it as boo-rong, a firm drop followed by a smooth rise, and the melody almost acts out the meaning: refusal, then reception. The hanzi pair 不容 is short enough to memorise at a glance, and it belongs to a family of point names describing states of the interior — fullness, deficiency, openness, capacity — rather than geography alone.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: stomachache, vomiting, poor appetite, abdominal distension, and intercostal neuralgia. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice traditionally used Burong for aching and griping in the pit of the stomach, for food and fluid that came back up, for an appetite that would not stir, and for bellies that swelled and rumbled. Each term names a familiar human experience, and the old records gathered under them a wide range of everyday digestive discomforts — not the precise modern diagnoses those same words may suggest today.
The first four belong together in traditional physiology. Stomach and spleen partner as the centre of digestion: the stomach receives and sends downward, the spleen transforms and raises upward. When the descent fails, qi rebels upward and shows as vomiting; when the centre weakens, appetite thins; when qi stalls rather than moving through, the abdomen distends. An ache at the pit of the stomach was read as the centre complaining. Burong, standing high on the stomach channel alongside the upper stomach region, with a name aimed straight at the failure of containment, naturally stood inside these discussions. This is the traditional reasoning of channel thinking, recorded to aid understanding, not asserted as effect.
The last entry, intercostal neuralgia, looks like a stranger among digestive complaints until the map is consulted again. The point lies high on the abdomen where the lower ribs arch down toward it, and the stomach channel sweeps through this territory on its way down the trunk; discomfort along the rib margins and between the ribs was therefore approached at points along the route, and Burong belonged to that conversation. It bears repeating plainly: these are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are 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
With the point located, settle in: seated comfortably or lying with knees bent, clothing loose, hands warm. Rest the pads of your index and middle fingers — never the tips — on the spot and begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths. Then add small circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging across it. Aim for a pleasant dullness or gentle warmth; sharpness is always the signal to ease off. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, each circle riding a long exhale out. Swap hands and give the other side the same unhurried attention, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Timing and setting do quiet work. Choose a moment when the stomach is comfortable — many people prefer letting a full meal settle for a while before practising — and a calm corner rather than a screen. Pairing the practice with slow nasal breathing turns ninety seconds of pressing into a genuine pause: inhale, feel the belly rise under still fingers, move on the exhale. People who keep the habit usually attach it to something already fixed in the day — after morning washing, before lunch — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for.
Honesty about scope keeps the practice healthy. Across weeks you might notice the area feels less guarded, that mealtimes feel calmer, or simply that you spent a minute attending to yourself; every one of those outcomes fits self-acupressure’s real register. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder or longer to force a result the practice never promised. Curiosity that pulls toward force should be met with gentleness, or with stopping for the day. The value of the ritual lives in its modesty, and the modesty is what makes it sustainable.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record for this point lists no special cautions, and that quiet record deserves a careful reading rather than a careless one. Absence of a warning is not an invitation to force: the upper abdominal wall covers the digestive organs, professional techniques in this region belong to trained hands, and home practice keeps its own simpler discipline — light, superficial, brief. Every rule on this page follows from treating the abdomen with respect: welcoming at the threshold, private behind the door.
The practical rules are short. Skip the point entirely during any episode of acute abdominal pain, during a feverish illness, during a wave of nausea, and over broken or irritated skin; let a heavy meal settle before practising. Use finger pads only — no elbows, knuckles, or tools — and never press through pain or while holding the breath. Stop at once on any sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not try again that day. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice, and anyone living with a digestive condition or recovering from abdominal surgery should do the same.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, acupressure is self-care, and neither diagnoses nor treats anything. Seek prompt medical care — not a longer pressing session — for severe or worsening abdominal pain, repeated vomiting or inability to keep fluids down, blood in vomit or stool, fever alongside belly pain, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the picture. Burong’s safest gift to most people is not a treatment but a relationship: a better acquaintance with the upper belly, met kindly and left unforced.
Burong, Not Containing, stands high on the upper abdomen — six cun above the navel centre, two lateral of the midline, level with Juque. Classical practice reached for it when the stomach could not hold what it received: stomachache, vomiting, poor appetite, a swollen, grumbling belly. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Burong without knowing anything about cun?
- Anchor on the two landmarks the measurement assumes. Find the centre of your navel and the place where the lower rib edges meet the breastbone; the point stands three-quarters of the way up between them, then about two thumb-widths to the side of the midline groove. Cun simply encode that landmark sequence in proportional language — the same recipe written in the body’s own units.
- Is it safe to press Burong myself every day?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable daily self-care for healthy adults, and the dataset records no special caution for this point. Keep it light and brief, skip it when the stomach is acutely upset or the skin is broken, and let any sharp sensation end the session. Comfort, not intensity, is the goal — and persistent symptoms belong with a clinician, not a routine.
- What did classical practice use Burong for?
- The traditional record lists stomachache, vomiting, poor appetite, abdominal distension, and intercostal neuralgia — a portfolio gathered around the stomach’s receiving work and the channel’s high-abdominal course. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for cultural context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does the stomach channel step inward at this point?
- On the chest the stomach channel’s points run four cun from the midline, along the nipple line — Rugen (ST18) sits directly below the nipple. From Burong downward the abdominal points run two cun out, and the catalogue locations record the change station by station. For a searcher it simply means re-anchoring at the waist: measure from the midline there, not from the wider chest line above.
- Can pressing Burong replace seeing a doctor about stomach pain?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and belly pain carrying red flags — severity, worsening, repeated vomiting, blood, fever — needs prompt professional assessment. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and the consulting room upstairs is for symptoms that persist, escalate, or frighten you. Neither substitutes 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 and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST19 Burong — location, actions, and indication 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/st19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st19/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST19",
"name": {
"en": "Burong",
"gloss": "Not Containing",
"zh-Hant": "不容",
"zh-Hans": "不容"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 19,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "On the upper belly, eight finger-widths above the navel and three finger-widths out from the midline."
},
"for": [
"stomach ache",
"vomiting",
"poor appetite"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle flat-finger pressure, about a minute each side, not after a big meal.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"Not on the belly in pregnancy."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st19",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}