ST-01 (Cheng Qi) Tear Container

What does ST-01 Cheng Qi do?

Cheng Qi ST-01 is the first point of the Stomach Channel of Foot Yang Ming and a purely local eye point: its recorded actions are to benefit the eyes, stop excessive tearing, and expel wind and clear heat from the eye region. Sacred Lotus sources & references also classify it as a Meeting Point of the Stomach channel with the Yang Motility Vessel (Yang Qiao Mai) and the Conception Vessel (Ren Mai), and that classification is not decorative — both of those vessels are described as terminating or converging in the region of the eye, which is precisely why three currents meet at a point set immediately beneath the globe.

• Benefits the eyes — the defining action, and the reason nearly every indication recorded for this point concerns vision, the eyeball or the lids. It is the Stomach channel's own eye point, sitting where the channel begins before descending across the face.
• Stops lacrimation — recorded specifically for eyes that water constantly or stream on exposure to wind. The name of the point says the same thing: this is where tears are received.
• Eliminates wind and clears heat — the action recorded for red, swollen, painful eyes and for the twitching of the eyelids the tradition reads as wind stirring locally.
• Activates the channel around the eye — its local role in facial paralysis and facial spasm affecting the lower lid and cheek, where it is used as one of a ring of face points rather than alone.
• Meeting point of three currents — Stomach channel, Yang Motility Vessel and Conception Vessel. The Yang Motility Vessel is classically tied to whether the eyes open and close; that association is the traditional basis for grouping this point with the eye rather than with the digestive functions the rest of the Stomach channel is known for.

What ST-01 does not carry is any of the Stomach channel's familiar middle-burner actions. It harmonises no stomach, descends no rebellious qi and moves no food. It is a local point on a long channel, and its recorded scope is the width of an orbit.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, Meeting-Point classification and existing action record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 130; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 145; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is ST-01 Cheng Qi used for?

ST-01 is used for disorders of the eye and eyelid and for nothing else of substance. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are redness, swelling and pain of the eye, lacrimation, night blindness, twitching of the eyelids and facial paralysis; the wider reference literature sets the list out as below. These describe traditional use, not proven treatment, and this point carries the significant safety cautions set out under needling.

• Redness, swelling and pain of the eye
• Excessive tearing (lacrimation), including tearing on exposure to wind
• Night blindness
• Blurred or dim vision, and short-sightedness
• Twitching of the eyelids
• Itching of the eye and eyelid margin
• Clouding of vision and the optic-atrophy patterns for which the point appears in modern hospital protocols
• Dry, gritty eyes — the indication for which the point most often appears in current trial literature
• Facial paralysis, particularly where the lower lid will not close
• Facial spasm and twitching of the cheek
• Deviation of the mouth and eye

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 145; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 130.

Where is ST-01 Cheng Qi, and how is it used in practice?

With the eyes looking straight ahead, Cheng Qi sits directly below the centre of the pupil, in the narrow space between the eyeball itself and the bony lower rim of the orbit. That is the whole of its position, and it is what makes the point what it is: the practitioner's finger rests on the eyeball above and the infraorbital ridge below, and the point is the gap between them. ST-01 is the first point of the Stomach channel, which begins here at the eye and runs down the face to the jaw before continuing to the neck, the trunk and eventually the second toe.

The pupil line that locates it is one of the most used vertical reference lines on the face. Directly below ST-01 on the same line lies ST-02 Si Bai, in the depression at the infraorbital foramen, and below that ST-03 Ju Liao. Directly above, on the same line but over the brow, lie the extra point Yu Yao in the middle of the eyebrow and GB-14 Yang Bai on the forehead. All of these are held in Sacred Lotus sources & references.

Which points is ST-01 combined with?

• With BL-01 Jing Ming — the point at the inner corner of the eye, and ST-01's closest analogue: both are deep orbital points, both are Meeting Points of several channels with the Motility vessels, and both are treated by the reference literature as a class apart. They are the pair used together to surround the globe in disorders of vision.
• With BL-02 Zan Zhu, Yu Yao and SJ-23 Si Zhu Kong — the brow line above the eye, added so that the orbit is ringed from above as well as below.
• With ST-02 Si Bai — its immediate neighbour on the same channel and the same pupil line, and the far more frequently used of the two in ordinary practice because it lies outside the orbit and over a bony foramen.
• With the extra point Qiu Hou — the other deep point of the lower orbital rim, sitting laterally along the same ridge. Where ST-01 is on the pupil line, Qiu Hou is at the junction of the outer quarter and inner three-quarters of the infraorbital margin; the two occupy the same floor of the orbit from different angles.
• With LI-04 He Gu — the standard distal point for complaints of the face and head, added to almost every local facial prescription.
• With LIV-02 Xing Jian and LIV-03 Tai Chong — the distal points that carry the channel-theory action for red, hot, painful eyes. LIV-02 is the Liver channel's Ying-Spring and Fire point and the classical choice for Liver fire rising to the eyes; ST-01 is the local point used alongside it, not instead of it.
• With DU-20 Bai Hui, GB-20 Feng Chi and ST-36 Zu San Li — the arrangement used in the modern Chinese hospital protocols for optic atrophy and dry eye in which ST-01 appears (see the research section).

Where does ST-01 sit among the eye-region points?

Sacred Lotus sources & references hold a full set of points around the orbit, and they fall into two clearly different classes. ST-01 Cheng Qi, BL-01 Jing Ming and the extra point Qiu Hou are the deep points inside the orbital rim — needled slowly against or along the bony orbital wall, reserved for serious disorders of vision, and by a wide margin the most hazardous points of the face. BL-02 Zan Zhu, Yu Yao, SJ-23 Si Zhu Kong, GB-14 Yang Bai, ST-02 Si Bai, ST-03 Ju Liao, Tai Yang and Yin Tang are the surface points around and outside the orbit, shallow and comparatively straightforward. ST-01 belongs firmly in the first group. It is a specialist point, not a general one, and the reason ST-02 is so much more commonly used is simply that ST-02 sits on bone while ST-01 sits beside the eye.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location records and the cross-referenced eye-region point records, queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 130; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 145; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is ST-01 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 130): With the eyes looking directly forwards, this point is located directly below the pupil between the eyeball and the infraorbital ridge.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 145): When the eyes looking straight forward, the point is directly below the pupil, between the eyeball and the infraorbital ridge.

How is ST-01 Cheng Qi needled, and what is the risk?

Stated plainly: ST-01 is the single most hazardous point on the face and one of the most hazardous on the body. It sits between the eyeball and the lower orbital rim, and the needle passes beside the globe into the orbit. Orbital and retrobulbar haemorrhage is the documented complication, and there is a real published case literature on injury from needling around the eye. Everything below is recorded as neutral reference data setting out what the standard texts and the published literature state. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique. Needling near the eye is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

The angle, depth and technique the texts record

• Sacred Lotus sources & references record that the eyeball is pushed gently upward with the thumb and the needle inserted perpendicularly and slowly, 0.5 to 1.0 inch, along the infraorbital ridge.
• The defining safety fact is the prohibition on manipulation. The record held here states that the needle is not to be manipulated with large amplitude; the wider reference literature, including Deadman & Al-Khafaji (p. 130) and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 145), records the same restriction in stronger terms — no lifting, no thrusting and no rotating once the needle is in. This is the single most important documented fact about the point. Every one of those movements sweeps the needle tip through orbital fat in which small vessels run, and it is that sweeping, rather than the insertion itself, that the literature associates with bleeding behind the eye.
• Firm pressure after withdrawal. The reference texts record pressing the site with a sterile swab for an extended period after the needle is removed, precisely to limit bleeding. Our own record at the companion point BL-01 Jing Ming states this explicitly.
• Moxibustion. No moxibustion is recorded at ST-01 in the record held here, and the reference literature does not use moxa at the points immediately around the eye — our BL-01 record states outright that moxibustion is forbidden there. Recorded as reference fact.

What the measured anatomy shows — and which point was actually measured

We could not locate a cadaveric or imaging study that measured the needle path at Cheng Qi ST-01 specifically, and we will not present one as though we had. What exists are two published dissection studies of its immediate neighbours on the orbital rim. Their figures describe those points, not this one; but they are the closest measured account of what lies behind the bone and the globe at this part of the orbit, and the distances involved are small enough to be worth stating exactly.

• Qiu Hou (EX-HN7) — the point on the same infraorbital margin. Twenty-eight orbital specimens from adult bodies were sectioned and dissected, with the point marked at the junction of the outer quarter and inner three-quarters of the infraorbital margin. A needle inserted vertically passed through skin, subcutaneous tissue, orbicularis oculi, the orbital fat body, the inferior oblique muscle and on to the orbital floor. Directed obliquely upward along the inferior orbital wall, the tip met the posterior ciliary artery at 26.5 ± 1.7 mm and the superior ophthalmic vein at 41.4 ± 1.3 mm; at 40.4 ± 1.5 mm it could reach the ophthalmic artery and the optic nerve. Directed downward close along the orbital floor, it met the infraorbital artery in the infraorbital groove at 13.2 ± 1.4 mm. The authors' conclusion was that depth at that point should not exceed 26 mm (Wei ZW et al., Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2020;45(5):416–8, PMID 32447859). This measured Qiu Hou, not ST-01.
• Jing Ming (BL-01) — the point at the inner corner of the same orbit. Forty-eight adult orbital specimens were dissected. A perpendicular needle passed through skin, subcutaneous tissue, the medial palpebral ligament, medial rectus and the orbital fat body, with the ophthalmic artery, the anterior ethmoidal artery and the nasociliary nerve lying above the needle shaft. The mean distance from skin to the anterior ethmoidal artery was 18.25 ± 4.45 mm, and from skin to the frontal point of the optic canal 43.37 ± 7.84 mm; the authors concluded that depth should not exceed roughly 30 mm and that angling back and upward is what risks the artery (Xu XD et al., Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2006;26(6):415–6, PMID 16813183). This measured BL-01, not ST-01.
• What carries across. Two things, and only two. First, the orbit is a small, tightly packed space in which arteries, veins, extraocular muscles and the optic nerve lie within a few centimetres of the skin — at the inner corner, a named artery at under two centimetres. Second, in both studies the danger was a function of direction at least as much as depth: angling backward and upward into the cone of the orbit is what reached the vessels. That is the anatomical reason the texts describe ST-01 as a slow, straight, shallow insertion hugging the bony rim, and why they forbid moving the needle once it is placed.

What the case literature documents

Injury from needling around the eye is uncommon but genuinely reported, and the reports are recent as well as historical.

• Orbital haemorrhage. A 2025 case report in Orbit describes bilateral orbital haemorrhages following periocular acupuncture, and notes that reports of complications from periocular acupuncture — orbital haemorrhage, globe perforation, retinal detachment and endophthalmitis — have been increasing (Davidson AE et al., Orbit 2025;44(5):633–7, PMID 40116367).
• Bruising around the eye, which is the common event. Two women aged 61 and 86 developed severe periocular ecchymosis after acupuncture for dry eye; in both, the bruising resolved over a few weeks without proptosis, globe perforation or lasting visual effect, and one was taking daily low-dose aspirin (Tsai JHJ et al., J Surg Case Rep 2025;2025(1):rjae783, PMID 39895879, PMC11784745). This is the realistic common outcome: visible, alarming, self-limiting.
• Penetrating injury of the globe. A 61-year-old woman developed a traumatic retinal hole with localised retinal detachment the day after periocular acupuncture, requiring laser photocoagulation and scleral exploration with cryopexy (Meng XC & Yu L, Zhonghua Yan Ke Za Zhi 2026;62(4):305–7, PMID 41946599). Ocular penetration by acupuncture needles is separately documented in the ophthalmic literature (Xu F & Jin C, Ophthalmology 2021;128(2):217, PMID 33485474 — an erratum was later published to that item; it is not retracted), and retinal-choroidal injury after periocular acupuncture in a highly myopic patient has been reported more recently still (Acupunct Med, PMID 42337828).
• The counter-argument, recorded fairly. A commentary by Korean medicine researchers argues that the safety concern in periocular acupuncture centres on proper practice — point location, depth, technique and practitioner training — rather than on any risk inherent to acupuncture itself (Kim TH et al., Korean J Ophthalmol 2025;39(1):91–3, PMID 39715700, PMC11856083). Both positions belong in a fair record.

Proportion

None of the case reports above names Cheng Qi ST-01 as the point involved, and we do not imply that they do; they describe needling in the region around the eye. It should also be said plainly that these are individual reports set against a very large number of treatments. 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, placing it among the safer treatments in medicine (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268). A systematic review of the Chinese-language literature reporting 479 adverse events likewise concluded that most traumatic complications followed improper technique rather than acupuncture as such (Zhang J et al., Bull World Health Organ 2010;88(12):915–921C, PMID 21124716, PMC2995190). Both things are true at once: the overall rate is very low, and the events that do occur cluster at a small number of points, of which the deep orbital points are one group.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record, and the BL-01 record for the moxibustion prohibition and post-needling pressure); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 130; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 145; PMID 32447859 (measured Qiu Hou EX-HN7); PMID 16813183 (measured Jing Ming BL-01); PMID 40116367; PMID 39895879 (PMC11784745); PMID 41946599; PMID 33485474; PMID 42337828; PMID 39715700 (PMC11856083); PMID 34489268; PMID 21124716 (PMC2995190) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Cheng Qi mean?

Cheng Qi means "Tear Container" — cheng, to receive, hold up or support, and qi, tears or weeping. The image is exact: the point sits in the trough below the eye where a tear collects before it spills onto the cheek, so it is the vessel that receives what the eye sheds. Other translations render it "Container of Tears", "Receiving Tears" or "Tears Container", and all say the same thing. Alternative classical names recorded for the point include Xi Xue ("Stream Hole") and Mian Liao ("Face Bone-Hole"). The name is one of the more useful in the point vocabulary, because it states both the location and the leading indication in two characters — this is the point below the eye, and it is the point for an eye that will not stop watering.

Why is ST-01 a Meeting Point, and what does that mean?

Sacred Lotus sources & references classify ST-01 as a Meeting Point of the Stomach Channel with the Yang Motility Vessel and the Conception Vessel. A Meeting Point (jiao hui xue) is one at which more than one channel or vessel is described as passing or converging, so that needling it is held to reach all of them. Here the convergence is meaningful rather than nominal:

• The Yang Motility Vessel (Yang Qiao Mai) ascends the outer side of the body and terminates at the inner corner of the eye, where it meets its yin counterpart. The Ling Shu ties the two Motility vessels directly to whether the eyes open or close, which is the classical basis for associating a vessel of movement and sleep with a point beneath the eyeball. Its Confluent point, BL-62 Shen Mai, is held here, as is its partner KI-06 Zhao Hai.
• The Conception Vessel (Ren Mai) runs up the front midline and is described as ascending to encircle the mouth and reach the eyes at its termination. Its Confluent point, LU-07 Lie Que, is also held here.
• The Stomach channel itself begins at this point. The face is where Foot Yang Ming is at its richest, and ST-01 is its first station.

The neighbouring point BL-01 Jing Ming carries an even longer version of the same classification — a Meeting Point of the Bladder, Small Intestine, Stomach, Gall Bladder and San Jiao channels with the Governing Vessel and both Motility vessels. Between them, ST-01 and BL-01 are the two great crossroads of the orbit.

Is there research on ST-01 Cheng Qi?

The honest answer is that no trial isolates ST-01, and the substantial point-relevant literature is anatomical and safety-related rather than therapeutic. Cheng Qi does appear by name in modern Chinese hospital trials, always as one component of a multi-point protocol:

• Glaucoma-related optic atrophy, randomised controlled trial. Seventy patients (89 affected eyes) were randomised to conventional treatment alone or conventional treatment plus acupuncture, the main points being DU-20 Bai Hui, the extra point Shang Jing Ming, ST-01 Cheng Qi, GB-20 Feng Chi and ST-36 Zu San Li, with additional points by pattern, twice weekly for three months. The acupuncture group showed better best-corrected visual acuity at six-month follow-up and a greater mean retinal nerve fibre layer thickness, with no difference in intraocular pressure or visual-field indices (Chen SL et al., Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023;43(4):432–6, PMID 37068821). ST-01 is one of five main points; the trial measures a protocol.
• Dry eye, randomised controlled trial. Eighty patients received sodium hyaluronate eye drops with or without acupuncture at BL-01 Jing Ming, BL-02 Zan Zhu, ST-01 Cheng Qi, LI-04 He Gu, ST-36 Zu San Li and SP-06 San Yin Jiao, thirty sessions over five weeks. The acupuncture group showed longer tear break-up time and Schirmer values, lower corneal staining and symptom scores, and lower tear IL-6 and TNF-α (Lin ZS et al., Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2022;42(12):1379–83, PMID 36484191). Again a multi-point protocol at a single centre.
• The safety and anatomy literature is the point-relevant literature. The two orbital dissection studies described under needling (PMID 32447859 on Qiu Hou, PMID 16813183 on BL-01) and the periocular case reports (PMID 40116367, 39895879, 41946599, 42337828) are the substantial body of published work bearing on this region — as at other high-hazard points, the safety research is the research.

What this does not support is any claim that ST-01 treats glaucoma, optic atrophy or dry eye. The fair summary is that the point is in current specialist use in ophthalmic acupuncture protocols in China, that those protocols have produced some positive multi-point trials, and that the point's own standing rests on the classical and clinical record.

How does ST-01 compare with the points around it?

ST-02 Si Bai lies directly below it on the same pupil line, in the depression at the infraorbital foramen over the infraorbital nerve, and shares its eye and facial indications — but it sits outside the orbit on bone, our record gives it a shallow 0.2–0.3 inch with an explicit note against deep needling, and it is the point most practitioners actually reach for. BL-01 Jing Ming at the inner canthus is ST-01's true counterpart: the same deep-orbit class, the same slow insertion against the bony wall, the same prohibition on vigorous manipulation, and moxibustion forbidden. The extra point Qiu Hou lies laterally along the same lower orbital rim and is likewise a deep vision point. Yu Yao in the middle of the eyebrow, BL-02 Zan Zhu at its inner end and SJ-23 Si Zhu Kong at its outer end form the brow line above, all shallow and all in a different safety class. ST-03 Ju Liao continues the pupil line down the cheek. Readers looking for a straightforward point for tired or irritated eyes want the brow-line points or Tai Yang at the temple, not Cheng Qi.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, channel and Meeting-Point classification, and the BL-01, BL-02, ST-02, ST-03, Qiu Hou, Yu Yao, Tai Yang, BL-62, KI-06 and LU-07 records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 130; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 145; Ling Shu (Spiritual Pivot) on the Motility vessels and the closing of the eyes; PubMed PMID 37068821, 36484191, 32447859, 16813183, 40116367, 39895879, 41946599, 42337828 — each checked as active and not retracted; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.