SJ-10 (Tian Jing) Celestial Well

What does SJ-10 Tian Jing do?

Tian Jing SJ-10 is the He-Sea and Earth point of the San Jiao channel, and its defining recorded work is to transform phlegm and dissipate nodules — the lumps, swellings and hard knots the tradition attributes to phlegm gathering in the channels of the neck and armpit. Sacred Lotus sources & references record that classification and that action directly. Two things follow from the classification. He-Sea points are the last and deepest of the five-shu set, where the channel's qi is said to enter inward like a river reaching the sea, and they are classically indicated for disorders of their organ and for rebellious qi. And because the San Jiao is a yang Fire channel, its Earth point is the child of Fire — which makes SJ-10 the San Jiao channel's five-element sedation (child) point, the classical choice for draining excess from it.

• Transforms phlegm and dissipates nodules — the first and most characteristic recorded action, and the reason for the point's long classical association with scrofula (luo li, chronic swollen nodes of the neck) and goitre.
• Regulates qi and descends rebellion — the He-Sea action. Where qi that should descend rises instead, this is the point at the elbow to which the channel's qi is said to gather.
• Clears heat from the San Jiao channel — the sedation-point action in practice, and the reason SJ-10 is chosen over the tonifying points of this channel when the presentation is full and hot rather than weak.
• Calms the spirit — the recorded action behind the point's classical use in epilepsy, agitation and disturbed sleep, and behind its appearance in the historical prescriptions for excessive sleepiness.
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — the local and channel action, for pain of the elbow, upper arm, shoulder and neck, and for the one-sided head pain that follows the Shao Yang line.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, He-Sea and Earth classification and existing action record, queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205); Nan Jing, on the five-shu indications and the mother-child rule; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SJ-10 Tian Jing used for?

Tian Jing SJ-10 is used for phlegm nodules of the neck and armpit — scrofula and goitre above all — and for pain along the Shao Yang line from the elbow up through the shoulder and neck to the side of the head. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are migraine, pain in the neck, shoulder and arm, epilepsy, scrofula and goitre; the standard reference literature sets them out as below. They describe traditional use, not proven treatment.

• Scrofula — chronic swollen nodes of the neck and armpit (luo li)
• Goitre and swelling of the throat
• Phlegm nodules and lumps beneath the skin
• One-sided headache and migraine along the temporal region
• Pain and stiffness of the neck
• Pain of the shoulder, upper arm and elbow
• Inability to raise the arm
• Elbow pain and restricted extension
• Epilepsy and convulsions
• Agitation, sadness and disturbed sleep
• Deafness and disorders of the ear along the channel
• Eye pain of the outer canthus
• Chest and lateral costal pain, from the channel's course
• Cough with phlegm, recorded in the classical lists

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205).

Where is SJ-10 Tian Jing, and how is it used in practice?

Tian Jing lies just above the point of the elbow: with the elbow bent, it sits in the hollow about one cun above the tip of the olecranon, on the back of the arm. Sacred Lotus sources & references give it in those terms in both of our location references, and both record the flexed elbow as part of the location — the depression only opens properly when the joint is bent. It is the tenth point of the San Jiao channel, which runs from the ring fingertip up the back of the arm to the shoulder, neck and side of the head.

In practice SJ-10's two clinical lives sit oddly beside each other. Locally it is an elbow and upper-arm point, used for pain and restricted movement. At a distance it is the tradition's principal point for phlegm nodules of the neck and armpit — an indication that has nothing to do with the elbow and everything to do with the channel's course and the point's Earth classification, the Earth phase being the one associated with dampness and phlegm.

Which points is SJ-10 combined with?

• With Qu Chi LI-11, Jian Yu LI-15 and Jian Jing GB-21 — the classical scrofula group. This is not an inference. A data-mining study of 314 acupuncture prescriptions for scrofula drawn from the ancient Chinese medical corpus found the core prescription for neck nodes to be Quchi LI-11, Jianyu LI-15, Tianjing SJ-10 and Jianjing GB-21 (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023;43(2):233–8, PMID 36808521). All four points are held here.
• With Zu Lin Qi GB-41 and Tai Chong LIV-03 — the two points that, with SJ-10, made up the three most frequently used acupoints for scrofula across that same historical corpus. GB-41 is on the paired Shao Yang channel of the foot; LIV-03 addresses the constrained qi the tradition holds responsible for nodules forming.
• With Wai Guan SJ-05 and Zhi Gou SJ-06 — the two commonest distal points of this channel, at and just above the wrist. The same historical study found them in the core prescription for nodes of the chest and armpit, alongside Da Ling P-07, Yang Ling Quan GB-34, Shan Zhong REN-17, Jian Jing GB-21, Yuan Ye GB-22 and Zhang Men LIV-13.
• With Feng Long ST-40 — the great phlegm-transforming point of the leg. Where SJ-10 dissipates the nodule locally along the channel, ST-40 is the standard distal partner for phlegm as a whole.
• With Xiao Hai SI-08 — the He-Sea point of the Small Intestine channel, on the medial side of the same elbow. The two are the paired He-Sea points of the elbow's inner and outer aspects, and are used together for elbow pain.
• As part of an arm protocol in trial work. Two sham-controlled randomised trials of upper-limb muscle performance in healthy women used the same six points — Quchi LI-11, Shousanli LI-10, Hegu LI-04, Xiaohai SI-08, Tianjing SJ-10 and Waiguan SJ-05 (Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2022;2022:8052256, PMID 35186105; 2021;2021:1992753, PMID 34484385, PMC8413022). Every one of those six is held here. They are protocol studies, so nothing in them is attributable to SJ-10 alone.
• Method — Sacred Lotus sources & references record moxibustion as applicable at this point.

Where does SJ-10 sit among the San Jiao channel's five-shu points?

The five-shu points are the set of five on each channel between the fingertips or toes and the elbow or knee, described in the Ling Shu as the stages of a river: the qi wells up, glides, pours, flows and finally enters inward. Sacred Lotus sources & references hold the complete San Jiao set, and it is worth seeing whole because the element assignments are what the mother-child rule works on:

• Jing-Well — Guan Chong SJ-01, at the ring fingertip. Metal.
• Ying-Spring — Ye Men SJ-02, between the fingers. Water.
• Shu-Stream — Zhong Zhu SJ-03, on the back of the hand. Wood — the mother of Fire, and therefore this channel's tonification point.
• Jing-River — Zhi Gou SJ-06, on the forearm. Fire — Fire on a Fire channel, the horary or self point.
• He-Sea — Tian Jing SJ-10, above the elbow. Earth — the child of Fire, and therefore this channel's sedation point. This page.

The Yuan-Source point of this channel is Yang Chi SJ-04 at the wrist, which is a separate classification and not part of the five-shu set — a distinction worth holding onto, because it is one the literature sometimes blurs. On yang channels the five-shu points run Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth from the extremity inward; on yin channels they run Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water — which is why Chi Ze LU-05, held here, is a He-Sea and Water point on the yin Lung channel while SJ-10 on this yang channel is He-Sea and Earth.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location, He-Sea and Earth classification, the complete San Jiao five-shu set and the SJ-04 Yuan-Source record, and the LI-04, LI-10, LI-11, LI-15, GB-21, GB-41, LIV-03, ST-40, SI-08, SJ-05, SJ-06 and LU-05 records, all queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205); Ling Shu, on the five-shu points; PMID 36808521; PMID 35186105; PMID 34484385 (PMC8413022); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SJ-10 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402): With the elbow flexed, this point is located in the depression 1 cun proximal to the olecranon.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 205): When the elbow is flexed, the point is in the depression about 1 cun superior to the olecranon.

How is SJ-10 Tian Jing needled, and is it a hazardous point?

Stated plainly, and without padding: SJ-10 is a low-hazard point. It lies over the back of the elbow in the hollow above the olecranon, where the tissue beneath the needle is the tendon and muscle of triceps and then the bone of the humerus. No body cavity, no major vessel and no large nerve trunk lies in the path recorded for it, and the depth the texts record is small. Everything below is neutral reference data describing what the textbooks and the published studies state. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique. Needling is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

The angle and depth the texts record

• Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.3 to 0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable. For comparison within our own records that is the same shallow figure held here for GB-24 on the chest wall and roughly one-fifth of the 1.5–2.5 inches recorded for GB-30 in the buttock — but for a quite different reason. At GB-24 the figure is small because of what lies beneath; at SJ-10 it is small because there is very little soft tissue there to receive a needle before bone.
• Deadman & Al-Khafaji (p. 402) and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205) record a comparable shallow perpendicular range, and both record the flexed elbow as the position in which the point is located and needled — the depression above the olecranon only opens when the joint is bent, so the posture is part of the recorded depth rather than separate from it.
• Moxibustion is recorded as applicable.

The measured anatomy — what has been described, and in what species

• A dissection study describes the needle path at this point — in rabbits. A comparative anatomical study located the San Jiao channel's five-shu points and its Yuan-Source point in ten New Zealand rabbits by reference to the WHO standard and the Chinese national standard for human point locations, then dissected each and recorded what a needle passes through. At Tianjing SJ-10, located at the junction of the shaft of the humerus and the lateral condyle just proximal to the olecranon, the recorded path was skin, superficial fascia, deep fascia and then the triceps brachii muscle. The study also recorded that the points of this channel on the forelimb are supplied superficially by cutaneous branches of the ulnar and radial nerves and the medial brachial cutaneous nerve, and in the deep layer by branches of the ulnar and radial nerves (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2020;45(7):557–63, PMID 32705830). This was a rabbit study, and rabbit forelimb anatomy is not human elbow anatomy; it is cited for the layered description it gives, not as a human measurement, and no depth figure from it is applied to a person.

• Discrepancy, flagged rather than silently reconciled. The abstract of that same rabbit study describes SJ-10 as the "Source-point" of the San Jiao meridian, and lists Yang Chi SJ-04 among the five-shu points it examined. Sacred Lotus sources & references hold the opposite, and hold it consistently: SJ-04 Yang Chi is the Yuan-Source point, and SJ-10 Tian Jing is the He-Sea and Earth point, the fifth member of the five-shu set. Our own classification is retained. Readers meeting the study's wording elsewhere should treat it as a labelling error in that paper rather than as a competing tradition; the standard reference literature agrees with our data.

• No published study has measured a safe needling depth at SJ-10. That is stated plainly. Searches of the safe-depth literature returned no study naming Tianjing or SJ-10 among its measured points, and none is claimed. For a point of this kind that absence is unremarkable: safe-depth studies concentrate on the chest, back and abdomen, where an over-deep needle can reach a cavity.
• What does apply generally. Two systematic reviews of the safe-depth literature — 33 studies in the first, 47 in the second — concluded that depths measured for the same point differ greatly between subject groups and measuring methods, and that the definition of "safe depth" has never been standardised (J Altern Complement Med 2011;17(3):199–206, PMID 21417806; Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2013;2013:740508, PMID 23935678). And a review of needling sensations concluded that a sudden electric-shock sensation is caused by a needle entering a nerve directly and should be read as a warning sign of possible peripheral nerve injury rather than as a sign of correct technique (Guo Y et al., Neural Plast 2020;2020:8834573, PMID 33204248, PMC7655260). At the elbow this is worth knowing chiefly for the point next door: Xiao Hai SI-08, held here, lies in the groove behind the medial epicondyle where the ulnar nerve is superficial and palpable. SJ-10 is on the opposite, posterolateral aspect, and is not over that nerve.

Risk in proportion

A meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies estimated serious adverse events in acupuncture at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments, with roughly half of all recorded events being bleeding, pain or flare at the needle site (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268). The two randomised trials that used SJ-10 among six arm points in healthy volunteers reported no adverse events (PMID 35186105; PMID 34484385). For SJ-10 the honest summary is that the ordinary local risks — bruising, brief soreness — are the ones that apply, and that the point carries no organ-injury hazard of the kind that defines the trunk points.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record; the GB-24, GB-30 and SI-08 records queried directly for comparison); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205); PMID 32705830; PMID 21417806; PMID 23935678; PMID 33204248 (PMC7655260); PMID 34489268; PMID 35186105; PMID 34484385 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Tian Jing mean?

Tian Jing means "Celestial Well" — tian, heaven or the sky, and jing, a well. Sacred Lotus sources & references translate it exactly that way. Both halves are descriptive rather than mystical. Tian is used throughout the repertoire for what is upper: on this channel it also names Tian Liao SJ-15 on the shoulder and Tian You SJ-16 on the neck, both held here, and the San Jiao is a channel that climbs. And jing, a well, describes what the point physically is — a deep, walled hollow that opens above the point of the elbow when the joint is bent, and closes when it straightens.

There is a small terminological trap in the name worth knowing. SJ-10 is called a well, but it is not the channel's Jing-Well point — that is Guan Chong SJ-01 at the ring fingertip. The two jing are different characters with different meanings, and a name that sounds like a five-shu category here is not one.

Why is SJ-10 the San Jiao's sedation point?

Because on a yang Fire channel, the Earth point is the child. The reasoning has two layers, and separating them is what makes it stick.

The first layer is the five-shu position. SJ-10 is the He-Sea point, the last of the five and the deepest, where the channel's qi is said to enter inward. The Ling Shu and Nan Jing assign He-Sea points to disorders of their own organ and to rebellious qi — which is the recorded indication pattern here.

The second layer is the element. On yang channels the He-Sea point is an Earth point; on yin channels it is a Water point. The San Jiao is a yang channel of the Fire phase — Hand Shao Yang, paired with the Pericardium as the second, "ministerial" Fire of the tradition. In the generating cycle Fire produces Earth, so Earth is the child of Fire. Under the mother-child rule a channel is drained through its child point and supplemented through its mother point. So on the San Jiao channel:

• Sedation (child) point — SJ-10 Tian Jing, the Earth point. The classical choice for draining excess and heat from this channel.
• Tonification (mother) point — SJ-03 Zhong Zhu, the Wood point, since Wood produces Fire.
• Horary (self) point — SJ-06 Zhi Gou, the Fire point: Fire on a Fire channel.

The distinction students most often get wrong. Being the He-Sea point does not by itself make a point the sedation point — it depends entirely on the channel's own element, and on whether the channel is yin or yang. On the San Jiao, a yang Fire channel, the He-Sea point is an Earth point, Earth is Fire's child, and so SJ-10 is the sedation point. On the Lung, a yin Metal channel, the He-Sea and Water point Chi Ze LU-05 is likewise the child and likewise the sedation point — but by a different arithmetic. On the Liver, a yin Wood channel, the He-Sea and Water point Qu Quan LIV-08 is the mother and therefore the tonification point, while the sedation point is Xing Jian LIV-02, the Fire point. And on the Heart, a yin Fire channel, the Ying-Spring and Fire point Shao Fu HT-08 is Fire on Fire — the horary point, not the sedation point. Our LU-05, LIV-02 and HT-08 records make the same correction from their own sides. The rule to carry away is that the five-shu position tells you the classical indication, while the element's relationship to the channel tells you the tonification-or-sedation role, and the two coincide only by arithmetic.

Is there research on SJ-10 Tian Jing?

There is a small point-specific literature, and its most striking item is historical rather than clinical: when the classical corpus is counted, SJ-10 turns out to be the single most frequently prescribed point in the entire tradition for scrofula. That is a documented finding, not a claim about effectiveness.

• The classical record, quantified. A data-mining study extracted 314 acupuncture and moxibustion prescriptions for scrofula from the ancient Chinese medical corpus — 236 single-point prescriptions and 78 multi-point ones — covering 54 acupoints with a total frequency of 530. The three most-used points were Tianjing SJ-10 (first), Zulinqi GB-41 and Taichong LIV-03; the most-used channels were the hand and foot Shao Yang and the hand and foot Yang Ming; and the most-used categories of special point were the He-Sea points and the Shu-Stream points. Association-rule analysis produced a core prescription for the neck of Quchi LI-11, Jianyu LI-15, Tianjing SJ-10 and Jianjing GB-21 (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023;43(2):233–8, PMID 36808521). This is a study of what the historical texts prescribed, and it corroborates our own indication record with an independent count.
• A second historical data-mining study. An analysis of ancient prescriptions for excessive sleepiness found SJ-10 in a recurring core combination with Sanjian LI-03 and Lidui ST-45, and in one of the effective cluster groupings (Medicine (Baltimore) 2025;104(11):e41676, PMID 40101083). It is a corpus study, not a trial, and it is worth noting that this is an indication our own record does not carry — recorded here as a historical observation rather than added to the point's uses.
• Comparative anatomy. The rabbit dissection study described under needling recorded the layered needle path at Tianjing and the nerve supply of the channel's forelimb points (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2020;45(7):557–63, PMID 32705830). Its labelling of SJ-10 as the channel's Source point conflicts with our data and is flagged there.
• Sham-controlled human trials, but not of this point alone. Two randomised trials in healthy women tested a six-point arm protocol including SJ-10 against sham needling, measuring isokinetic elbow and forearm performance with surface electromyography. Both reported gains in the real-acupuncture arm and not in the sham arm (Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2022;2022:8052256, PMID 35186105; 2021;2021:1992753, PMID 34484385, PMC8413022). Small, single-centre, in healthy volunteers, and using six points at once — so they support the protocol, not SJ-10 specifically.

What is missing should be said plainly: there is no controlled trial of SJ-10 for scrofula, goitre or any phlegm-nodule condition — the indication the classical record most strongly attaches to it — and no trial isolating this point for anything else. The historical data-mining studies establish that the tradition used it heavily; they do not establish that it works.

How does SJ-10 compare with the points around it?

Zhi Gou SJ-06 is the channel point most often paired with it and the one to contrast it with: Jing-River and Fire, the horary point, on the forearm, and the channel's usual choice for constipation and lateral costal pain. Zhong Zhu SJ-03 on the back of the hand is the Shu-Stream and Wood point — the tonification point, the mirror image of SJ-10's role. Yang Chi SJ-04 at the wrist is the Yuan-Source point, a separate classification from the five-shu set. Qing Leng Yuan SJ-11 sits one cun directly above SJ-10 on the same line and is the point most easily mistaken for it. Xiao Hai SI-08 is the He-Sea point of the Small Intestine channel on the medial side of the same elbow, and the point at that joint where the ulnar nerve genuinely lies superficial. Qu Chi LI-11, the He-Sea and Earth point of the Large Intestine channel on the outer elbow crease, is SJ-10's counterpart on the neighbouring yang channel of the arm — the same five-shu position, the same element, on a channel of a different phase, and one of SJ-10's constant partners in the classical scrofula prescriptions. And Feng Long ST-40 in the leg is the point SJ-10 shares its phlegm-transforming reputation with, from the other end of the body.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, translation, He-Sea and Earth classification, the complete San Jiao five-shu set, the SJ-04 Yuan-Source record, and the SJ-11, SJ-15, SJ-16, SI-08, LI-11, ST-40, LU-05, LIV-02, LIV-08 and HT-08 records, all queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 402); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 205); Ling Shu, on the five-shu points; Nan Jing, on the mother-child rule; PMID 36808521; PMID 40101083; PMID 32705830; PMID 35186105; PMID 34484385 (PMC8413022) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.