KI-24 Lingxu - Spirit Burial Ground

Ling is the spirit's Yin aspect, being able to hear the Heart's insight. This point is about being quiet enough to hear your own Heart. Think of dancing shamans calling the potential, 'we need rain here': this point evokes the potential of the person, connects them with their Ling spirit and creates a situation so they can receive, so that Heaven can descend into their Heart. It makes prayer effective. No point on the body is better for bringing life back where there has been death. In a category all its own, this point can open the ground to resurrect the spirit itself, restoring and reviving it. Frames the core problem as existence without real life: the body and mind keep working, sometimes convincingly, while the spirit that gives joy and meaning is missing. When the spirit is deeply buried, this point allows resurrection and access to ancestral wisdom, guidance and constitutional strength. Its message is firm encouragement that all will be well, taking a person out of profound resignation and back into the flow of life. It resurrects the Ling, the Yin of the Heart spirit, bringing Water's qualities into a barren, desert Heart. The character for burial ground shows two men gazing in every direction across a wild, barren upland and seeing nothing, the kind of place the imperial tombs were built. Both this word and Ling suggest the potential of the empty vortex turning between Heaven and Earth: the Dao is empty yet inexhaustible, and its emptiness is what makes it useful. It can bring a whole new vision.

Reawakens our innate capacity to experience the divine, and recognizing this presence rekindles the bliss of being alive.

Location: On the chest in the 3rd intercostal space, 2 ACI from the midline, level with REN-18.
Needle depth: 3 fen
Moxa: 5 cones

• When their spirit is buried and they feel like they are going through the motions and do not want to go on
• When they are tired or have a false bravado, but deep inside they are not okay
• When we cannot see what their spirit needs because they have had a spiritual death
• When someone's spirit is down in the dumps and you need to dig it up; their spirit is almost gone, they are sinking, and you are bringing them back to consciousness
• When the person is deeply resigned and the spirit cannot be touched because it is absent; no spark remains
• When the person's spirit is just hanging in, disappearing underground, with a deadness inside
• When a person has carried such heavy burdens or such trauma that they have all but given up; they may come across as loud and out of control, or as quietly resigned
• When the mind's determination makes it appear all is well, but it is only an empty shell, lacking life's inner spark
• When they are flat, with no spark, and need the spark of the Heart's insight
• When the person does not know who they are
• For deep depression
• When spiritual practice has grown too lofty and the spirit needs bringing back into the body
• For dreams of ghosts, fear and wilderness; intense fear and nightmares, including fear of drowning or burning
• For worry carried so far that it makes a person ill
• When life seems a barren wasteland, scorched by the Heart's impulses but with little potential to manifest, and the person grows sad as they are cut off from their spiritual source and power
• When an inner spiritual crumbling runs parallel with the body's disintegration as life's resources dry up

• KI-23 Spirit Seal with KI-24: often used together, or one after the other
• KI-25 Spirit Storehouse after KI-24: strengthens the spirit once it has been unburied, often followed by REN-8, REN-14 or HT-1
• REN-8 with KI-24: encourages the spirit after it has been awakened

• We have to unbury the spirit before we can treat the spirit; if it is not done, it will affect the ability to get to the deeper levels
• We must support the person after this point, or they will go right back into the grave
• They have to be in the grave to use this point; it takes experience to see if they need it
• When the spark has caught, ask whether it needs fanning, and if it does, add another point
• The most frequently prescribed point for practitioners who are not being treated
• Calming and revives the spirit; good for insomnia and anxiety (all upper Kidney points, but especially KI-24)
• Calling power: a call to surrender to Heaven
• Moxa reinvigorates and rekindles the spirit
• Consider this point before an Internal Dragons treatment, to bring the spirit home
• The most powerful point for reconnecting the spirit, with REN-1 nearly as strong. Without the spirit present, the body won't heal
• In balance, the person feels connected to the wellspring of life's greatest resource and experiences themselves as a potent, effective force in the world
• Resurrection before ascension