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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!
Additional Information
Subscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)
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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.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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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. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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 CourseSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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 CourseSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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 CourseSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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 MDBrave New Medicine: Book by Cynthia Li MDCynthia Li MD – personlized medicine testChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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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 MDBrave New Medicine: Book by Cynthia Li MDCynthia Li MD – personlized medicine testChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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Today’s episode titled “Relax! You are Okay!” is the second part of Leo’s and my conversation with Cara Conroy-Lau, a Kiwi with a Chinese mom now practicing Chinese medicine and Buddhism in Canada. For this portion, we focus more specifically on the female perspective, both on the giving and on the receiving end of caring. I really appreciate Cara’s insistence on approaching Chinese medicine more light-heartedly as a playful exploration, as part of her culture, family traditions, and just life, rather than as “A THING” (in the sense of a big, serious, very special intellectual endeavor that we all have to get stressed out over). Her training in a Buddhist lineage of direct teacher-student transmission has taught her to just relax into her spiritual practice and leave the ego at the door. As a result, she experiences a “heart-to-heart transmission of joy, confidence, peace, clarity, humanity, and humanness,” as she puts it. In the context of what she calls the “healing friendship” with her patients, she reminds us of the therapeutic effect of food and encourages us to “be our own grandmother to ourselves” and rely on our particular culture’s traditional comfort foods to alleviate the heaviness of human suffering. When Leo asks Cara about the emotional entanglements that women often experience when caring for and worrying about others, Cara introduces the notion of nervous system attunement to establish connection, which she balances with the Buddhist realization that each of us is responsible for our own karmic journey.
Later on in the conversation, we also consider the holes in the transmission of Chinese medicine to the West. Especially in the context of gynecology, so much of the healing work happened behind closed doors, within the family as part of traditional practices, and beyond the written word. We ask ourselves: What would Chinese medicine look like in the West today if we were to plug the holes left by this lack of cultural transmission not with biomedical theories and practices, as Giovanni Maciocia, Bob Flaws, and the other early Western pioneers of Chinese medicine have done, but with the embodied wisdom of Asian grannies?
In the very end, Cara offers a glimpse of an answer in three parts: First, she speaks of her mother’s transmission of a nonverbal quiet presence of “You are okay. You have a right to be here.” Then she mentions the acuity of her Chinese female relatives about food and what is good and not good for the body. And lastly, in terms of menstruation, it’s as easy as “Just let it flow!”
Additional Information
Clear Sky Meditation Center - A Space For Inner & Outer GrowthCara Conroy-Lau's websiteChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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In today’s episode on “Olives and Porridge,” Leo Lok and I are talking to Cara Conroy-Lau. Cara is a beautiful global border-crossing practitioner of Chinese medicine and Buddhism who has ended up in Canada at the Clear Sky Meditation Centre in Cranbrook, after growing up in Singapore, New Zealand, and Japan. I loved our conversation for how it revealed Cara’s courage and humility and dedication to her healing work, both within herself and in her community and family.
Here are some of the questions that Cara shared some pearls of wisdom about, which I believe are relevant not just to those of our listeners who happen to be female, of Asian descent, or medical practitioners: How do we tease apart the individual strands that made us who we are today, or in other words recover the precious ingredients that went into the melting pot before modern life took the stick blender to it? How do we heal the cultural ruptures and broken transmissions to link us back to our maternal lineages and recover what she calls “knowledge that is in our bones”? How do we overcome decades of internalized racism and attempted assimilation to the dominant White culture, to share something as simple as hot water and goji berries on a first date with a fellow Asian woman? Inspired by Cara’s life history, our conversation ranged across multiple fertile intersecting identities, between being White and non-White, colonizer and colonized, female and non-female, straight and queer, Chinese and non-Chinese. When I asked her at the very end to reflect on the influence of her maternal Asian heritage on her current practice of Chinese medicine, her answer was as simple and profound and powerful as her healing work, from what I can tell. To find out what her answer was and what all this has to do with olives and porridge, you’ll have to listen to the podcast!
Additional Information
Clear Sky Meditation Center - A Space For Inner & Outer GrowthCara Conroy-Lau's websiteSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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For today’s episode on “Living and Teaching the Way of Yin,” Leo Lok and I are once again joined by Kris González, Chinese medicine practitioner and herbalist, whose personal experience of motherhood has been influenced by her Korean mother and her Mexican mother-in-law. In addition to her clinical practice, she is also an educator offering evocative courses on topics like embodied menstruation, holistic breast care, the alchemy of perimenopause, spirit-heart-womb transformation through the somatic womb path, and sacred vaginal ecology, to name just some of her juicy offerings. Check out her gorgeous website “Thewayofyin.com” to get a sense of the beauty she weaves into being in her corner of the universe.
In this second half of our conversation with Kris, we considered a Yin approach to Chinese medicine. How do we shift out of the heady, Yang space and the intellectual models of Chinese medicine as currently practiced and taught in the West, into the sensorial, embodied experience that serves as such a potent alternative doorway to healing? How can we manifest a more expansive, softer, deeper, gentler, and less rigid healing practice that aims to lean into and support what feels good rather than fighting what is wrong? How can we express the Yin way of weaving community and nurturing health instead of the Yang way of solving problems? Ultimately, how can we change this extractive culture of ours through the authority and power of our medicine, to restore the valuation of Yin in all aspects of society, from menstruating and giving birth to cooking and caring? What a conversation! Oh, I am really happy that I get to share it with you and hope that this will in turn inspire you to engage in similar conversations with your community of family and friends.
Additional Information
The Way of Yin - Nourishing Life WisdomTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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Welcome to Season Two of “The Pebble in the Cosmic Pond” where we focus on 2nd generation immigrant Asian voices by, for, and about women in that sweet spot in between traditional Asian wisdom and contemporary Western embodiment.
Joining Leo and myself for our third episode on Season 2 is Kris González, Chinese medicine practitioner and herbalist, whose personal experience of motherhood has been influenced by her Korean mother and her Mexican mother-in-law. In addition to her clinical practice, she is also an educator offering evocative courses on topics like embodied menstruation, holistic breast care, the alchemy of perimenopause, spirit-heart-womb transformation through the somatic womb path, and sacred vaginal ecology, to name just some of her juicy offerings. Check out her gorgeous website “Thewayofyin.com” to get a sense of the beauty she weaves into being in her corner of the universe.
I first crossed paths with Kris when she consulted with me on the classical Chinese perspective on women’s health and on yangsheng, so that is naturally where our conversation with Leo started. It was really interesting and moving for the three of us to explore the fertile intersection between Kris’ personal lived experience and her professional training in Chinese medicine. I feel like this has given her a special angle that is rooted firmly in a traditional Asian perspective, emphasizing dietetics, living in harmony with the external cycles of the seasons and internal cycles of the female body, and yangsheng (“nurturing life” or, as she put it “providing wellness instead of treating disease”). Kris is such a beautiful spirit, internally and externally, and Leo and I walked away from this conversation feeling very lucky that she so generously shared her way of being in the world with us, and through this podcast also with all of you, our dear listeners. May her deep commitment to helping women experience the cycles of their bodies fully and with ease, in harmony with the cycles of the seasons and the cosmos, inspire you as well to explore the power of this approach in your own life and clinical practice!
Additional Information
The Way of Yin - Nourishing Life WisdomChanneling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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In Season 2, titled “Over the Moon?”, we feature the voices of second-generation immigrant Asian women on female health. We explore the creative sweet spot in between the traditional Asian kitchen table wisdom that they have inherited from their mothers and aunties, and their personal and professional experience in contemporary North America.
In this Episode two on “Attuning and Releasing,” we continue our conversation with Ramona Deonauth, a Chinese medicine practitioner of Indian heritage in San Diego who is finishing up a doctoral dissertation on menstrual education at Yo San University in Los Angeles.
Now we get to dig a little deeper into current menstrual education in the US: What are some missing pieces that traditional Asian cultural and medical paradigms might be able to provide? What is the effect of non-existent or harmful information on menstruation not just for menstruators but for their family members, partners, and society at large? How can we celebrate and elevate currently emerging young women’s intuitive voices and cross-cultural universal experiences to fundamentally change the way in which especially young women experience menstruation in a positive direction? And on the other hand, how can we address and prevent, instead of normalize, menstrual pain and provide much needed medical, emotional, and social support? We walk away with Ramona’s insistence that menstrual education must be improved for ALL humans, not just women, and Leo’s teaser for a future session that “fertility is not an on-or-off switch.”
Additional Information
Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologyRamona Deonauth's bio and websiteSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsLeo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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Once again, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms are here to bring you old and new stories about China's healing traditions and about Medicine in Heaven and on Earth... ...and in the sweet spot in between.
In a special twist for Season 2, evocatively titled "Over the Moon?", they focus on second generation immigrant Asian voices by, for, and about women's health, as the sweet spot between traditional Asian wisdom and contemporary Western embodiment. And yes, they do realize that they need help with this theme since both Leo and Sabine are first, not second, generation immigrants in the US (he from Malaysia and she from Germany), and he is a guy and she is not Asian. That’s where the interview partners come in.
For this first interview, Leo and Sabine get to chat with Ramona Deonauth, a Chinese medicine practitioner of Indian heritage in San Diego who is finishing up a doctoral dissertation on menstrual education at Yo San University in Los Angeles. Sabine has had the great honor to serve as one of her advisors for her super fascinating research project, which involved her interviewing young menstruators and professional providers of menstrual education from the worlds of nursing, public health, and Western and Chinese gynecology. For the last year or so Sabine has been so enjoying her monthly mentoring sessions with Ramona because Ramona has really powerful stories to tell and insights to share, sad and beautiful and inspiring. Doing a ton of listening and learning, she has been contemplating how to improve the experience of bleeding with the moon for young American menstruators.
Truth be told, Ramona is actually the reason for this theme for Season Two because the three of them had such a wonderful conversation, in perfect alignment with each other on the huge potential and power for this subject, that they knew at the end of three hours that they couldn’t stop there. And since Ramona has to focus on finishing up her dissertation, Leo and Sabine have simply found other second generation immigrant Asian women to interview until Ramona is done with her doctorate and can join them again. You will be able to tell from the first time Ramona opens her mouth that she is one of those human angels, motivated by her deep care for the young menstruators she has been encountering in her research and clinical practice. Leo and Sabine are delighted that this podcast might help get the word out about Ramona’s work and about the significance and potential of menstrual education from a Chinese medicine perspective, along the lines of Leo’s beloved “Bodhisattva Math.”
Additional Information
Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologyRamona Deonauth's bio and websiteSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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In a special twist for Season 2, we feature second generation immigrant Asian women’s voices on female health. We explore the creative sweet spot in between the traditional Asian kitchen table wisdom on women’s health that they have inherited from their mothers and aunties, and their personal and professional experience in contemporary America.
Before we get to interview these women in our official episodes, here is a little introductory conversation where Leo and I explore this topic and ask questions like “Where does traditional women’s knowledge on female health come from and how is it transmitted? How is it reflected, if at all, in the traditional literature of Chinese medicine, written largely by and for men? How do we plug the gaping holes in the male-dominated traditional literature as modern providers of medical education and medical care by and for women? Whether in the context of advanced clinical practice or daily yangsheng, how can we make space for the female perspective of the nurturer versus the technician?
Additional Information
Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat ProductionsTraditional Chinese GynecologySubscribe to my newsletter!Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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What is the relationship between your personal practice of yangsheng and your clinical efficacy? Is it important, or even relevant, for a practitioner of Chinese medicine to embody the ideas of Yangsheng? In other words, can you be a good healer of others if you can’t take care of yourself? Are the short lifespans of many historical and contemporary Chinese medicine practitioners due to their failure to practice self-care? Or could it be related to the Wounded Healer pattern, to the fact that they started out with and were inspired by their own frail bodies?
Considering occupational hazards from a different angle, how do you meet a depleted patient without depleting yourself? What does a healthy or ideal interaction between the patient’s Qi and the practitioner’s Qi look like? Does the practitioner replenish the patient’s Qi, or is it a question of merely attuning the patient’s body, like tuning a piano instead of playing it, and leaving it up to the patient to replenish their own Qi?
For this episode of the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast on “Occupational Hazards in Chinese Medicine,” Leo Lok and I invited our dear friend Michael Max to join us. As the host of his famous Qiological podcast and a practitioner with decades of experience, he was the perfect conversation partner. Become a member of the Imperial Tutor mentorship to receive related translated passages and listen to the continuation of this conversation as the Imperial Tutorial episode on "Dealing with Bingqi and Avoiding Martyrdom."
Additional Information
QiologicalDr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe to my newsletter!Translating Chinese Medicine: Dr. Wilms' website for learning classical ChineseImperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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Today’s conversation is inspired by Leo Lok’s ideal of “Bodhisattva Math,” which is a great reminder for us to focus on topics in Chinese medicine that have the most impact on alleviating unnecessary suffering with the least amount of effort! In this context, Sun Simiao reminded us already in the seventh century that food is essential for human survival but can be medicine or poison. As he put it:
“Anything that contains Qi without exception has the potential to provide food and thereby safeguard life. And yet, if we eat it without awareness [of its specific effect], it can mean thriving or ruin.”In this episode on “Eating for Old Age: The Lost Art of Chinese Food Therapy,” Leo Lok and I explore the potential and power of food in the contemporary clinical practice of Chinese medicine. To cite Master Sun again, dietetics is
“...the special method of lengthening the years and ‘eating for old age’ and the utmost art of nurturing life. Any practitioner of medicine must first thoroughly understand the source of disease and know what has been violated. Then, use food to treat it. If treatment with food will not cure [the patient], afterwards apply drugs. The nature of drugs is harsh and unyielding. This is just like managing soldiers. Soldiers being fierce and violent, how could you allow them to recklessly set out!”You will see, there are some real gems that Leo shares with us in this episode, such as how to have your ice-cream and eat it too…
Additional Information
Leo's course on "Weight Loss in Chinese Medicine"Leo's course on "Shen Nong's Secret Sundae"Dr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe to my newsletter!Translating Chinese Medicine: Dr. Wilms' website for learning classical ChineseImperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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Medicine, like any other skill or knowledge system, needs to be rooted in both subjectivity and objectivity. By valuing either one over the other, we deprive ourselves of an essential part thereof. Can traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy help us find a more balanced way of making sense of the world than the cold, rational, evidence-based cause-and-effect thinking of biomedicine and modern science? As Greg Bantick, our special guest on today’s episode of A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond puts it with his wonderful clarity: The act of failing to examine our filters is not benign, but dangerous, and results in problems like racism, cultural appropriation, and orientalism.
When we encounter perspectives of the world that make us squirm because they challenge our own beliefs and experiences, we have three choices in how we respond:
We can deny their value and write them off as “barbaric” or “superstitious”; we can orientalize or exoticize them as “other” and then creatively interpret them in such a way that they ultimately confirm our own beliefs; orwe can accept the discomfort and embrace this challenge of getting our own world rocked as a chance to learn something new, and then we grow in that process.The choice is ours!
For today’s episode, titled ““Questioning our Filters,” our special guest is Greg Bantick, a leading practitioner and international teacher of Chinese medicine with almost half a century of experience, who also happens to be a deeply committed practitioner of Buddhism with a beautiful kind heart and a deep well of wisdom.
I should warn you though: We end a bit abruptly and sadly, with us sharing a sense of grief at the huge loss of so many centuries of information and experience that can be found in the treasure house of traditional Chinese medicine. As our conversation explores, the misunderstandings and ignorance that affect the transmission of Chinese medicine into the West are due to two key factors: The lack of an open mind, and the linguistic barrier that prevents the vast majority of Chinese medicine practitioners in the West from even knowing what is out there.
Additional Information
Orientalism, Cultural Appropriation, and Critical Thinking — Happy Goat ProductionsGreg Bantick's websiteDr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsHappy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website)Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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What makes somebody a master physician? What can we learn from historical texts about some limitations and possibilities, strengths and weakness of Chinese medicine that are no longer visible in the modern clinical context, especially as practiced in the West? How can we acquire and transmit skills to adapt Chinese medicine more flexibly, beyond the now standard “perfumed, candle-lit privileged context of the so-called worried well” (in Daniel Altschuler’s words) in order to serve patients in dire need who may not have access to standard health care? Wouldn’t YOU want to try and to save a patient suffering from appendicitis with Dahuang Mudanpi Tang, rather than watching them suffer and possibly die as they wait for biomedical care in an overburdened or nonexistent system?
On a deeper level, is there a role for Chinese medicine as a tool to “re-humanize” (in Leo Lok’s poignant word) the people we touch by reconnecting them with their physical, social, and environmental bodies and helping them find peace and ease and comfort, rather than merely making their lab results and diagnostic tests conform to a standard value imposed by for-profit pharmaceutical companies? Can Chinese medicine, or any medicine for that matter, be a tool of resistance to our modern relentless pressure for maximum productivity and efficiency in our industrialized capitalist society shaped by corporate greed where doctors are left feeling like assembly line workers and cogs in the machine?
This episode of the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond is actually the second part of a conversation Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms had with Daniel Altschuler, on “Compassionate Practice.” It turned out that Daniel was the perfect person to help us find answers, due to his varied experiences of training under a traditional Chinese medicine doctor in Taiwan, followed by his work teaching and practicing in Seattle and his passion project of providing free healthcare to any and all once a year in a monastery in rural Nepal. I hope that you agree with Leo and me that Daniel is a rare treasure and wonderful example of just this “compassionate practice” that this whole conversation is ultimately about.
If you haven't done so yet, please sign up for my newsletter at HAPPYGOATPRODUCTIONS.COM/CONNECT to stay in touch. Also, please rate, review, and share this podcast wherever you can. Lastly, to hear the last third of this conversation, join my Imperial Tutor mentorship, where you can listen each month to the exclusive follow-up “Imperial Tutorial” episodes that drop every full moon, in addition to receiving all sorts of other benefits like weekly translations and live Tea Time Talks. Find out more and sign up at happygoatproductions.com/imperialtutor.
Additional Information
Open Hands Medicine - Daniel Altschuler's Non-Profit in NepalDaniel Altschuler's clinic website - Home - Acupuncture Seattle - Traditional Chinese MedicineAcupuncture Seattle – Traditional Chinese Medicine | Looking for Acupuncture in Seattle? Chinese Medicine, Cancer Acupuncture Specialist, Dr. Daniel Altschuler can help you.Dr. Wilms' free course: Introduction to Classical Chinese — Translating Chinese MedicineSubscribe to my newsletter!Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. WilmsLeo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors
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