The Chinese Medicine Classics – Read or Dead?

Are the Chinese medicine classics just the dead thoughts of dead men, outdated and superseded, or an essential living source of inspiration and knowledge? This article gives an overview of several key chapters in the Huangdi Neijing Suwen (Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic, Essential Questions), showing their value in preserving key concepts of traditional Chinese medicine. The discussion includes the importance of a balanced lifestyle that nourishes life (Suwen 1), the concept of alignment with seasonal qi (Suwen 2) and the idea of resonance as the basis of the yinyang wuxing system (Suwen 5 and 23). Examples of the relevance of this material to clinical practice are provided.