Stay off the eyeball and eyelids.
絲竹空 Sizhukong
“Silken Bamboo Hollow” · TH23
Hand Shaoyang · 23 of 23
Where. In the small hollow at the outer end of the eyebrow.
For. Headache; red, sore eyes; twitching eyelids.
Press. Feather-light fingertip touch, about a minute each side.
Caution. Stay off the eyeball and eyelids.
絲竹空二穴，一名目髎，在眉後陷中，足少陽脈氣所發按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Sizhukong Sits on the Face
The dataset places Sizhukong on the face, in the depression at the lateral end of the eyebrow — and every word of that short sentence earns its keep. Lateral means toward the ear, away from the nose: the brow runs from beside the bridge of the nose outward toward the temple, thinning as it goes, and the point occupies the small shallow hollow where the last fine brow hairs give up. Notice what the location does not contain: any measurement in cun. Face points are found by landmark rather than by ruler, because the face supplies richer landmarks than anywhere else on the body — brows, cheekbones, the nose, the ears — so the search becomes a matter of reading familiar features instead of counting off widths. A cun remains worth understanding even so, since many points on this same channel depend on it: it is the traditional proportional unit taken from the person being examined, with the width of your own thumb at the knuckle serving as the everyday approximation.
What surrounds the fingertip here deserves a gentle hand. The outer end of the brow sits where the face thins into temple: skin lies close upon the thin circular muscle that closes the eye, and beneath both runs the firm bony rim guarding the eye socket. The skin of this neighbourhood counts among the thinnest on the body, and it is generously threaded with fine nerves and vessels — which is simply why everything done here happens with the lightest possible touch. The hollow itself is subtle. It announces itself to a resting fingertip far more readily than to a pressing one, the way a laid-open palm reads the seam of a pillow and a fist cannot.
Position within the channel gives the point its biography. The san jiao channel opens at the ring finger, climbs the outer arm past the elbow, crosses the shoulder region and travels up the side of the neck to the temple — and then, having reached the head, it makes its final gesture: a short step inward to end at the lateral end of the eyebrow. Sizhukong is that ending, the twenty-third and last of the channel’s twenty-three stations. A terminus is a different kind of place from the way-stations behind it: traffic gathers here rather than passing through, and classical practice read the end of a line as the spot where a channel delivers what it has carried. Whatever else the old records say about this point, they say it standing at the door of the eye.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably before a mirror if one is handy, hands clean, dry, and warm. Look straight ahead and lay the pad of your index finger on one eyebrow, near its outer end. Now slide outward, riding along the brow line, until the last fine hairs thin away and the fingertip slips off the end of the brow into a small, shallow hollow — a soft dip just where the brow surrenders to the smooth skin of the temple. Rest the pad there without pressing. That resting place, at the lateral end of the eyebrow, is the spot the dataset describes. Repeat the search on the other side, because the two hollows answer each other and comparing them confirms both finds.
A few quiet confirmations help before any real pressing begins. First, touch feather-light and hold still for a moment: many people notice a faint, dull awareness in the true hollow and almost nothing a finger-width away in any direction. Second, blink slowly a few times and feel the thin muscle beneath the pad gather and release — movement under the fingertip tells you the pad rests over the muscle that rings the eye, exactly the intended neighbourhood. Third, check height in the mirror: the spot keeps company with the brow line itself, neither dropping onto the cheekbone below nor climbing into the hairless temple above it.
The classic mistakes are few and easily corrected. Pressing hard blurs the very hollow you are hunting, because a firm fingertip flattens the subtle landscape it came to read — search with the weight of a coin resting on skin, not the weight of a handshake. Sliding too far lands you in open temple skin beyond the brow’s end; stopping early strands you among the thicker hairs of the mid-brow. Drifting downward sets the pad on the firm bony rim below, which feels altogether different — bone directly under skin, with no soft dip. When doubt arises, return to the middle of the brow and walk outward once more, slowly. The landmark repeats itself faithfully every time.
Reading the Name: Silken Bamboo Hollow
The three characters sketch the scene precisely. Si 絲 means silk — the finest thread the ancient world knew, drawn from cocoons and prized for weighing nearly nothing. Zhu 竹 means bamboo, and by extension the slender, tapering leaf of the bamboo plant. Read together, sizhu — silk-bamboo — became a beloved traditional image for the eyebrows themselves: fine, dark, gracefully arched strokes resembling delicate bamboo leaves painted with a silk-fine brush. Kong 空 completes the picture with the sense of a hollow, an emptiness, a void. The whole name therefore reads as the silken bamboo hollow: the little empty space tucked where the bamboo-leaf arcs of the brow come to their end.
Classical literature preserves a further thread: an alternative name for this point reads Muliao, joining mu, the eye, with liao, a hollow beside bone. The alias states plainly what the position already hints — this station keeps watch at the eye’s doorstep, however proudly the san jiao channel claims it as its terminus. Worth noting alongside: the licensed record assigns this point no special classical category. Unlike the mu points and xi-cleft points catalogued along other reaches of the body’s channels, whose titles carry whole chapters of theory with them, Sizhukong stands uncategorised in the record — its story is told entirely by name and place, which may be why commentators have always lingered over both.
Pinyin renders the name Sīzhúkōng. The first syllable, si, carries the flat, high first tone; the second, zhu, rises through the second tone; and the third, kong, settles back into the level calm of the first tone. Say it aloud twice and the melody keeps itself. Among the architecture named across the channel world — gates, valleys, courtyards, storehouses, connections — this point borrows something humbler: an absence. Emptiness is the feature here, not the flaw. The name instructs the searching fingertip better than any diagram: look for the place where nothing much seems to be, just past the final stroke of the silk-bamboo brush.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The licensed record lists seven traditional indications: red swollen eyes, twitching of the eyelids, headache, toothache, dizziness, inward-growing lashes, and epilepsy. Read as their era wrote them: red swollen eyes is the old shorthand for eyes grown inflamed, bloodshot, or puffy — the visibly troubled eye. Twitching of the eyelids captures the flutter and jump of a tired or stirred lid, a phenomenon classical medicine attributed to wind stirring at the body’s surface. Dizziness translates the spinning, swaying unsteadiness the old records grouped under vertigo-like terms, and headache needs little translation — though precisely where the pain sat mattered greatly to classical diagnosticians.
Two entries stretch further and deserve their traditional logic unfolded. Toothache appears because classical practice reasoned along channels rather than diagrams of nerves: the san jiao route ends at the lateral brow, and discomfort arising near a channel’s territory was traditionally met at stations along that route, the habit known as choosing distant points along the channel. Inward-growing lashes — lashes turned to trouble the very eye they grow to shelter — entered the list through the same doorway: standing at the eye’s outer doorstep, the point belonged to the classical toolkit gathered around complaints of the eye. Epilepsy reflects the old emergency listings, written by physicians who had no hospitals and reached for every instrument at hand; a seizure today summons emergency services, and no pressure routine belongs anywhere near one.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. 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. Several listed entries carry modern footnotes worth their ink: an acutely red, painful eye deserves prompt professional assessment rather than patient pressing; lashes growing against the eye are today the business of eye-care professionals; and anything seizure-shaped belongs to emergency medicine first — a matter the safety section takes up in full.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the hollow found by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, shoulders easy, hands clean and warm, mirror optional but friendly. Curl the index finger slightly and rest its pad — never the tip, never the nail — inside the hollow at the brow’s end. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, letting the fingertip learn the ground. Then add tiny, slow circles, so small the skin barely travels, letting it glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging across it. Pressure should register as pleasant warmth or the faintest dullness — anything sharper is the cue to lighten. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales; swap hands and repeat so the two sides receive equal care.
The neighbourhood asks for particular manners. Everything stays on the bony hollow at the brow’s end: the pad never wanders onto the eyelid, never drifts toward the eye itself, and never pulls at the delicate skin around the socket. Wearers of contact lenses often find the gentlest conceivable touch the most comfortable, and anyone who has recently had anything done to their eyes should let the area rest entirely until their clinician agrees otherwise — a rule the safety section repeats with emphasis. Beyond that, the usual comforts apply: warm hands before cold ones, a quiet corner chosen over a screen, the practice doubled as a slow-breathing pause, and the whole session anchored to an existing habit, so that consistency rather than intensity carries the routine.
Treat these minutes as a ceremony of attention rather than a treatment. Across weeks you may notice the brow region feels less clenched, that the small muscles around the eyes ease while you press, or simply that you spent a few unhurried moments tending your own face. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — harder, longer, deeper, to force a result the practice never promised; around the eyes least of all. When curiosity pulls toward force, return to feather-lightness, or set the practice down for the day. The hollow will still be there tomorrow, waiting patiently to be found again.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point carries one of the more striking warnings in the licensed record: do not apply moxibustion, because classical literature warns that moxibustion here may harm the eyes. Moxibustion is the warming herb technique of professional East Asian practice, in which prepared mugwort is burned at or beside a point — and the classical authors drew a bright circle around this one, judging the eye-neighbourhood too tender to welcome heat applied there. Home acupressure uses neither needles nor burning herbs, so the specific danger the old books flagged never arises in self-care practice. The deeper lesson still transfers intact: this is a place where tradition judged ordinary boldness inappropriate, and self-care honours that judgement by staying lighter here than almost anywhere else on the body.
The practical rules gather quickly and bear listing. Use only the soft pad of a finger — never knuckles, elbows, or tools of any kind. Keep the pad on the hollow at the brow’s end, entirely clear of the eyeball, the lids, and the lashes. Keep the touch strictly superficial, the weight of a resting hand rather than a working one. Skip the point over broken, irritated, or inflamed skin, and rest the area completely after any eye procedure, injury, or infection until a clinician clears ordinary touching again. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and leave the area alone for the rest of the day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with an ongoing eye condition, do well to consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point work at all.
And the wider rules stand over everything. A sudden change in vision, an eye turned acutely painful, red, or sensitive to light, injury to the eye, and any seizure whatsoever call for prompt professional or emergency care — with no time spent on pressure points; the classical listings reflect a different century’s kit, and today’s emergencies belong to today’s medicine. Persistent headache, lingering dizziness, or toothache that outlasts a reasonable interval likewise belongs with a licensed practitioner rather than under a patient fingertip. Above all: this page is educational only, acupressure is self-care rather than diagnosis or therapy, and persistent symptoms of any kind deserve professional eyes. The safest gift Sizhukong offers most people is a slower, kinder acquaintance with their own face.
Sizhukong, the Silken Bamboo Hollow, ends the san jiao channel at the outer tip of the eyebrow. Classical practice reached for it when eyes reddened, eyelids fluttered, or head pain gathered at the brow. This guide walks through finding it by touch, pressing it safely in so delicate a neighbourhood, and the lines tradition drew around it.
Cautions from the classical sources
- No moxibustion here — classical texts warn it may damage the eyes.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Sizhukong without knowing anything about cun?
- This may be the friendliest location on the whole channel, because the landmark is worn on every face. Lay a fingertip on the outer stretch of either eyebrow and slide gently outward until the fine hairs end; the shallow hollow under the pad right there — where brow yields to temple skin — is the spot the dataset describes. No counting is needed, because the location records no measurements at all: cun govern the forearm and leg stretches of this channel, while the face answers to brows and cheekbones.
- Is pressing Sizhukong myself actually safe?
- Feather-light fingertip contact held on the hollow at the brow’s end is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults. The celebrated caution attached to this point concerns moxibustion — heat applied by professional technique — which classical writers feared could harm the neighbouring eyes, and home acupressure never approaches that category of practice. The manners that matter locally are simple: stay clear of the eyeball and lids, keep pressure at the weight of a resting hand, and treat sharp or radiating sensation as an immediate stop signal.
- What did classical practice use Sizhukong for?
- The traditional record lists seven indications: red swollen eyes, twitching of the eyelids, headache, toothache, dizziness, inward-growing lashes, and epilepsy. Eye complaints dominate, which surprises nobody who has noticed the address; the remaining entries arrived through the channel-minded habit of meeting complaints at stations along the route that ends here. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims — and the seizure entry belongs to emergency medicine today, not to a pressure routine.
- Why does the san jiao channel end way up at the eyebrow?
- The channel’s recorded course runs from the ring finger, up the outer arm, over the shoulder, and up the side of the neck to the temple, and its final step carries it inward to the lateral end of the eyebrow. Classical authors read a terminus as a delivery point — where a channel hands over what it has gathered — and placing the delivery at the face set the channel down at the doors of the eyes and the head. Modern readers need not accept that as physiology; it is best appreciated as an old, coherent map of connection drawn long before modern anatomy.
- Can acupressure here replace seeing someone about my red, irritated eye?
- No. An acutely red, painful, or light-sensitive eye, any change in vision, or any injury to the eye needs prompt professional assessment, whatever a comfortable ritual might whisper. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and eye-care specialists keep the consulting room upstairs that you visit when symptoms persist, worsen, or frighten you. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and it never substitutes for the floor above.
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 TH23 Sizhukong — location, 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/th23/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/th23/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/th23/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "TH23",
"name": {
"en": "Sizhukong",
"gloss": "Silken Bamboo Hollow",
"zh-Hant": "絲竹空",
"zh-Hans": "丝竹空"
},
"channel": {
"id": "TH",
"order": 23,
"of": 23
},
"location": {
"text": "In the small hollow at the outer end of the eyebrow."
},
"for": [
"headache",
"red",
"sore eyes",
"twitching eyelids"
],
"press": {
"text": "Feather-light fingertip touch, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"Stay off the eyeball and eyelids."
],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/th23",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}