Pí (脾) — Spleen / Earth
Centre of the zang — earth phase
Pí (脾) — the spleen, paired with the earth phase. The Suwen places the spleen at the centre of the five zang, corresponding to the centre direction (the fifth direction, central to the four cardinal points), to late summer, to the colour yellow, and to the sweet taste. The spleen governs the transformation and transportation of food essence (yùn huà, 運化) — it is the principal digestive organ in TCM physiology, responsible for raising the clear qi extracted from food and sending it upward to the lungs and heart. Lingshu 8 pairs the spleen with the yi (意) — intention, the cognitive faculty of focused attention and intellectual application. The yi is what allows mental work to be sustained over time, and chronic over-thinking is canonically said to deplete the spleen. We render the rendered point at the anatomical-left upper-abdominal landmark (x=0.58, y=0.36); note that the TCM spleen is a functional system that includes but is not limited to the anatomical spleen, and substantial overlap exists with the pancreas in modern correlations.
Point 4 of 5 in Five Phases (Wuxing) at the Five Zang Organs
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Huangdi Neijing — Suwen, ch. 9 (Liu jie zang xiang lun) (primary_canonical)
“The spleen is the office of the granaries — the five tastes issue from it.”
Huangdi Neijing — Lingshu, ch. 8 (Ben shen) (primary_canonical)
“The spleen houses the yi.”