In today's episode, Leo Lok and I are joined by Jack Schaefer, a practitioner of both Chinese medicine and Daoism as a living practice. In his role as one of the most active, passionate, and committed transmitters of Daoism in the West, he is the cofounder of Parting Clouds Daoist Education, along with his partner Josh Paynter. With Jack's help, we explore the connections and differences between the material compiled by Sun SImiao in the seventh century under the heading "nurturing our nature" yangxing 養性, and the living engagement with contemporary Daoist teachings in Jack's community of practitioners.

Here are just three of my personal take-aways from this conversation (and I sure hope my simplification here is not misleading!):

1. The meanings of "xing 性" and "ming 命" were never static and changed depending on the time, place, author's background, and rhetorical context. While Westerners always look for single terms to translate deep Chinese concepts like these, we may be better off just leaving them in Chinese to avoid misunderstandings.
2. Compassion and the effort to alleviate suffering and be of service are the key to ethical cultivation and thereby transforming our karma.
3. Wuwei does not mean sitting by the river meditating or "anything goes," but rather, if I may try to summarize here, spontaneously aligning with the Dao, which is the outcome of a lifetime of conscious and intentional cultivation, both ethical and physical.

You will have to take a close listen to see if this shallow description correctly represents Jack's and Leo's deep pearls of wisdom.

Enjoy! And thanks for listening. And then please share this podcast and episode if you liked it, and join the conversation over on our Facebook page.

• How do you not only treat somebody successfully in the moment, but truly alleviate their suffering and get the effect of your action to stick, whether you use herbs or diet, needles or touch, or whatever?
• In medicine, farming, cooking, or any other area of expertise, how do we balance the need for detailed technical know-how with the cultivation of intuitive wisdom, embodied sensitivity, and even personal growth?
• In the midst of the plethora of tools offered by Sun Simiao in his writings on longevity, from diet to alchemy, breath work to movement exercises, sleeping positions to seasonal prohibitions, and ethics to sex, can we find an underlying principle, and if so, what is it?
• How do we train ourselves, our colleagues, and future generations to dance the dance of Yin and Yang and find the sweet range between too little and too much?
• How do you learn, apply, and teach self-calibration, and why is compassion essential in all of this?
• Ultimately,what is Sun Simiao’s secret to personal cultivation in the pursuit of health and healing, or in other words, to “nurturing life” (yangsheng) or “nurturing our heavenly/innate/true nature” (yangxing)?

Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. With this final episode, titled “Sun Simiao’s Secret to True Healing,” we now officially finish up Season Three where we have been considering a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings. Stay tuned for what comes next!

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• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)

• Are you feeling the turmoil of the world reflected in your own internal storm of emotions?
• Do you feel like you are drowning in grief or exploding in anger, tired from rumination, rattled by fear, or giddy with joy?
• Do your emotions sometimes keep you from being the powerful force for peace and justice and love and beauty in the world that you want to be?
• Or do you simply sense the potency and urgency of the current moment and want some company in riding this wave?

If you are a sensitive person and have access to news, no matter where you are in the world, it may be a bit of a challenge right now to maintain a steady state of calm centeredness. Join us as we explore how to not drown or explode in our emotions but channel them into action. And as a special treat, if you listen all the way to the end of this episode, let Leo's beautiful healing voice wash all over you and cloak you in a mantle of support and compassion.

Note: This is a spontaneous offering, not following our regular monthly schedule. We just feel an urgency to try and perhaps ease a bit of suffering with this conversation.

• At the end of the day, what does it mean to “nurture our true, innate, genuine, heavenly nature” and how is that related to healing and personal growth?
• When is the last time you have consciously savored each breath as an opportunity for transformation and restoration?
• How does fear hold us back from health and joy by literally tying up our precious Qi in knots that impede its free flow and healing power?
• And how do we untie those knots and encourage flow when we get to the end of our rope?

Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. With this last episode, titled “Every Breath We Take,” we conclude our Season Three where we have been considering a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings.

Today, we contemplate the different elements of healing, from intellectual knowledge to intuition, to laughter, to surrendering and adapting, and to calling in the support of our family lineage, community, and even divine and celestial forces. In this challenging time full of tension, discord, and instability, we hope that this episode brings you joy and laughter and encourages you to let your Qi flow a bit more freely. We are all in this together, after all!

Additional Information

• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

• How do we decide in each moment on the best path towards píng 平 (“equilibrium” or “balance”) in the spirit of Chinese medicine?
• How do we calibrate our responses to external factors and decide between action and non-action?
• What do we use (and teach) as criteria for this process of actively cultivating or passively nurturing our True Nature?
• How do we promote an ever-growing self-awareness in our multiple roles as individuals, family and community members, and healers?

Today’s episode on “The Sweet Spot for Calibration” is part of Season Three where Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms consider a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings from the seventh century.

In this episode, we uncover yet another layer in the wisdom found in Sun Simiao’s work. We start out considering the relationship between the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Rather than seeing them as competing schools, we discover their power as a thick braid woven from three different yet beautifully complementary strands in early medieval China. Stay with us, if you want to find out how this braid helps me decide whether to watch the sunrise wedged in bed between my dog and cat in dreamy stillness or to get up and vitalize my qi and blood in the crisp fall air with an invigorating qigong session under the magical maple tree! And last but not least, Leo always reminds us to find joy and curiosity in this calibration process!

Additional Information

• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

How can we get better at listening to our body and aligning with the Dao? How can we compost harmful emotional energy into life-giving Qi in service of physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation? How can we use the tool of curiosity as an antidote to judgment and thereby change the flavor of our inquiries? How can we complete our nature through a hundred daily actions while at the same time allowing our spirit to settle in stillness? How can we steer away from exhaustion towards not just sustainability but restoration?

Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives. Today’s episode on “Finding Balance Between Stillness and Action” is part of our Season Three where we consider a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings and in preparation for the course we will be teaching on this topic this fall.

Listen in, as we discuss some of the gems from Sun Simiao’s introduction on the topic and their application to Leo’s clinical practice and Sabine’s current physical issue of an overworked body. We follow Sun’s lead to pursue the sweet spot in between too much and too little, between action and non-action, between exposure to and protection from seasonal change, between activity and rest, between Yin and Yang, and between innumerable daily acts of virtue and quiet contemplation. Reading this powerful synthesis of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism that comprises the core of Sun Simiao’s brilliance, we ask for his guidance.

Additional Information

• Nurturing Our Nature Course
• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Are you curious about the theme music for Season Three of our podcast and the sharp contrast to the obnoxiously gregarious Mexican accordeon music of the previous two seasons, which, I must admit, are a reflection of my own German heritage and decades spent in Hispanic culture? Do you recognize Leo’s beautifully serene voice and grasp the meaning of some of the words, but can’t quite catch what the whole passage is supposed to say? Are you fascinated by Leo’s multicultural background as a person of Chinese descent from Malaysia, so vividly reflected in his singing, from Chinese lullabies to Indian love songs to Krishna and Malay nursery rhymes? Or do you just feel a warm and fuzzy sense of elemental stillness and well-being and want to know more about the origin of this musical gift and how that might relate to the role of music in yangsheng and healing?

Well then, listen to this conversation between Leo Lok and myself on “Singing as Yangsheng.” It is part of our Season Three where we shall consider a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性, to explore cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today on the basis of Sun Simiao’s writings and in preparation for the course we will be teaching on this topic this fall.

Additional Information

• Nurturing Our Nature Course
• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Welcome to the first episode in Season Three of the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast. For the next few months, we shall consider a variety of perspectives on “Nurturing Our Nature” 養性: Cultivating health and longevity from ancient China to today. 

This project is inspired by two things: First, Leo Lok's and my research in the volume on this topic in the seventh century text Beiji qianjin yaofang 《備急千金要方》 (Crucial Formulas to Prepare for Emergencies Worth a Thousand in Gold) by the famous medical author Sun Simiao. And secondly by our preparation for a course we will be teaching on this potent topic starting in September.  In this podcast season, and the course, we shall both present early and medieval Chinese writings and practices authentically and, at the same time, make sense of this material in our personal lives and in the contemporary clinical context.

Our first conversation on this topic in the present podcast episode, titled “The balanced person doesn’t get sick” 平人者不病, starts with a critical exploration of the topic of yangxing in general, and specifically of the meaning of xìng 性 (“innate nature”). As usual, we try to balance the presentation of generalized default ideas with a more nuanced and textually rigorous way by differentiating between specific texts and contexts, authors, periods, and even passages within a single text.

To demonstrate the importance of this approach, we look at the role of the emotions, and joy in particular, in self-cultivation and how this might have changed between the Han and Tang periods, and between the authors of the Neijing and Sun Simiao. Fortunately, our background in Chinese medicine can help us make sense of the complicated linguistic material by grounding the textual evidence and abstract ideas in the concrete physiological responses in the body, through pulse, Qi flow, complexion, the shine of the shen, and other markers.

At the end of the day, we can evaluate the effect of any emotion by asking: Does it bring us closer to the ideal of píng 平, the healthy state of balance and dynamic equilibrium, or does it take us away from that? For this reason, we titled this episode 平人者不病 “The balanced person doesn’t get sick.” Isn’t this phrase from Suwen 18 a beautiful way to describe the essence of our medicine?

I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, and I am joined, as usual, by Leo Lok, Resident Purveyor of Multiple Perspectives at the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we share old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between.

Additional Information

• Nurturing Our Nature Course
• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

This episode, titled "What Do Love, Qigong, and Christ Consciousness Have to Do with Healing," is the second half of our conversation with Cynthia Li, a biomedical doctor in the Bay area who specializes in functional and integrative medicine. She is also a practitioner of what she calls “qigong consciousness healing” or “collective field qigong” and the author of two books: “Brave New Medicine: A Doctor’s Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Disease”, and “Mingjue Awakening: Teachings on Pure Consciousness, Collective Field Qigong, and Energy Healing.”

In preparation for publishing this interview, I listened to our conversation again and took five pages of notes, which I find impossible to condense into a paragraph for this introduction. I really hope you take the time to listen closely.

Cynthia has such a beautiful healing presence and deep deep wisdom about healing, from her religious upbringing to her professional training, personal journey through suffering and healing, and Qigong practice. All these strands come together in her work of creating this healing cosmic consciousness space of oneness, or physiological coherence or Christ consciousness or, ultimately, unconditional love and peace and happiness, merged hearts, total acceptance and endless creativity.

And to add the cherry on the top, Leo was able to connect Cynthia’s descriptions to some beautiful Buddhist concepts, from Nirvana to descriptions of breath cultivation to the Buddha’s command to stop the discursive, differentiating, analyzing mind and embrace emptiness. You are in for a real treat!

Additional Information

• Mingjue Awakening: Book by Cynthia Li MD
• Brave New Medicine: Book by Cynthia Li MD
• Cynthia Li MD – personlized medicine test
• Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat Productions
• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors

Cynthia Li, our interview partner for this episode, is a biomedical doctor who I have been dreaming of asking questions for several years now, ever since our mutual friend Michael Lerner introduced me to her work. She is a biomedical doctor, specializing in functional and integrative medicine. She is also a qigong practitioner who studies and performs what she calls “qigong consciousness healing” or “collective field qigong.” She is the author of two books: an incredibly honest and courageous biography of her own intense healing journey published in 2019 and titled “Brave New Medicine: A Doctor’s Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Disease”, and the recently published “Mingjue Awakening: Teachings on Pure Consciousness, Collective Field Qigong, and Energy Healing.” I hope you note down these titles and get a hold of both of them when you are finished listening to this podcast. I find them incredibly relevant to many of the most salient conversations in the field of Chinese medicine as practiced in the West. The links are also in the shownotes.

This episode is the first half of our interview with Cynthia, with the second half to follow in two weeks. It seems to me like this whole conversation circled around Cynthia’s quest for the root: for the root causes of her patients’ conditions in her medical practice, for the root in her own healing journey, for the root in her qigong practice, and, in an unexpected turn, for the root in the Christian teachings she received from her Chinese parents. Most importantly, in the context of true healing, she suggests that we track down the sometimes hidden threads in each of our lives, including our traumas, that lead to our true inner work, in a playful way, like a scavenger hunt.

Being both a traditionalist and a scientist who appreciates long-term observational study, her work seems to dance between the pursuit of the true, enduring essence and the creative manifestation and application thereof in the moment, whether she is looking at her medical or qigong practice, her life journey, her spiritual interest in Christ consciousness, or the authentic transmission of her teacher’s wisdom.

Additional Information

• Mingjue Awakening: Book by Cynthia Li MD
• Brave New Medicine: Book by Cynthia Li MD
• Cynthia Li MD – personlized medicine test
• Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat Productions
• Traditional Chinese Gynecology
• Subscribe to my newsletter!
• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors