A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond

This month's episode is a welcome chance to explore one of my personal favorite topics of inquiry: dreaming. It is inspired not just by my love for napping under my gnarled maple tree or watching butterflies transform, but because we have noticed a lot of interest and questions in our community. So we try our best to introduce our listeners to the many and varied perspectives on dreaming that are found in Chinese traditional culture. Here are just a few angles that we play with in this conversation:

In this conversation, Sabine and Leo unpack the meaning of a supposed Sun Simiao quote: "Wish for a small heart and a big gallbladder!" To understand the multiple layers of possible meanings, especially as applied to the physician and the ruler, we draw on the significance of "heart" and "gallbladder" in traditional Chinese medicine, classical philosophy, and literary and modern Chinese language.

What do mint, radish, and burnt plastic have in common? How do you explain a physical sensation to somebody without a shared language or experience to fall back on? How did the arrival of chile pepper from the Americas change the meaning of "spicy" in the old world? Does it make sense to refer to a smell or a physical sensation of Qi movement as "flavor"? Is the lung special?

So many questions, and so many possible answers that only lead to more questions! Argh.... once again, we invite you to join us as we explore a...

While it may not feel like it yet, August 7 was the official beginning of fall, marked by the seasonal node lì qiū 立秋 in the traditional East Asian agricultural calendar. At the same time, most people in the northern hemisphere have already had to deal with smoke from wildfires in this exceptionally dry and hot summer in one form or another, and at least for Sabine in the Pacific Northwest, fire and smoke season is far from over. For Leo in Vietnam, on the other hand, the burning of trash is a constant and inescapable reality of daily life. In this e...

In light of the many unprecedented heatwaves striking the northern hemisphere in this year of a super El Niño summer, this episode of The Pebble in the Cosmic Pond is dedicated to summer-heat, and to the human physical, cultural, culinary, and medical responses to it. Using Sabine’s continued experiences in Vietnam as our starting point, we consider heat as a factor both internal and external, physiological and pathological, macrocosmic and microcosmic, and we look at the therapeutic role of fluids, and water in particular. Here are some questions we address:

This month's conversation is inspired by Sabine' experience of managing a heat wave in Vietnam with more or less successful adaptive skills, to put it diplomatically. In order to prevent overheating, or overcooling for that matter, and to benefit from adaptations like air conditioning, protective clothing, iced fruit juices, or hot soups, the key is, as always, calibration on the basis of discernment.

In today's episode, which actually was recorded with both of us on the same continent, and even in the same area, near Danang, Vietnam, we consider ancient agricultural traditions. In the spirit of our new season, this is again more of a travelogue than a nerdy Chinese medicine podcast. Let us know how you like this direction for our podcast.

After a quick stop in the Swiss Alps, we explore specifically the sustainable organic farming practices that have been celebrated for centuries in the vegetable island of Tra Que near the ancient Vietnamese port city of Hoi...

Welcome to this first episode of our new Season Five on “Expressing the Spirit of Springing and Sprouting”! While we haven’t settled on a formal name for this season yet, we want to focus on renewal, play, joy, and paying attention, as a counterweight to the heaviness, suffering, and fiery chaos that is affecting so many of us these days, directly or indirectly!

How can we uplift our spirits while also showing up to the best of our ability in these dark times? What is the appropriate place for joy in the midst of suffering, and how an...

What do you see missing in Chinese medicine education? How can we, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms, with our unique combination of skills and resources, best support you as part of our beloved Chinese medicine community? What is the right and ethical balance between academic education, joyful entertainment, curious exploration, and creative play? And last, but not least, how can we harness the wonders of technology to create a community that spans continents, languages and cultures, medical and religious paradigms, and millennia of textual resources?

A tall order this is, indeed, but we had fun tossing these...

Happy new year of the Yang Fire horse to everybody!

In this conversation, recorded on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Leo had set out to share his excitement about the work that we have been doing on our upcoming course on "Nurturing Pregnancy." Sabine got distracted right at the beginning of our recording session by two grey whales passing by and then returning to feed outside her window, as the biggest (literally!) and most amazing sign that spring is truly arriving here on Whidbey Island. So this podcast meanders a bit, between Sabine's attempt to...

Most attention in the medical care of pregnancy focuses on preventing miscarriage in the tender first trimester, on the one hand, and on preparing for a smooth and safe labor and delivery in the last trimester. But what about the middle?

In this episode, Leo and Sabine delve into over 2000 years of medical literature on this topic in China to look at the therapeutic potential of the middle trimester in pregnancy. We start out by zooming in on the two formulas for the fourth and fifth months of pregnancy cited by Sun Simiao "in case of injury...

As we all know, when somebody passes judgment on another person, regardless of the validity of that judgment, it will close the door to effective communication and connection. At the same time, one way of defining any healer's role is to serve as a guide who helps the patient on their path back to health and balance. And an important aspect of most clinical sessions, at least in the context of traditional Chinese medicine, is to discern the patient's current condition and determine the causes of any imbalance or deviation from perfect health, so as to choose a therapeutic...

We start off this episode by exploring the meaning of "tiao qi" 調氣, which is the title of one of the chapters in Sun Simiao's volume on Yangxing (self-cultivation and longevity). Inspired by Sun Simiao's writings and our work in translating and teaching this material, we start within this context of yangsheng but end up exploring much broader clinical practices. We reject the judgmental tone of "regulating," as a translation of "tiao" 調, in favor of the playful curiosity and flexibility of "modulating," "calibrating," or "playing with." As a side note, it delighted both of us to discover the significance of embodi...

In today's conversation, I asked for Leo's help in exploring Confucius' teachings on social cohesion, authority, and the creation of harmony in self, family, society, and the world, on the one hand, and on ethics, on following our "mandate from Heaven," and standing steadfast by our values, on the other.

In today's episode, I got to ask Leo to speak more specifically about the different kinds of love that are found in the Buddhist teachings. Together, we were able to explore how I can make sure that the deep love I feel for my daughter, to use the example closest to my heart, does not turn into a suffocating blanket of mutual needs and wants, as conditional love between parent and child does all too often.

Instead, unconditional love can become a powerful generative and regenerative force of healing, when it rests on the solid triple foundation...

In this conversation, Leo and Sabine feature our friend Paola Campanelli, an international practitioner and graduate of Sabine's 2-year classical Chinese training program. Together, we explore Paola's journey from philosophy to sinology to Chinese medicine, from her native Italy to China and Taiwan and ultimately to her current home in southern Germany. We discuss Paola's challenges and insights gained through studying classical Chinese, in a range of topics as wide as Paola's life experience, from German philosophy to language acquisition and the importance of grammar, to poetry and the power of beauty and song... We also touch on the...

In this episode, we (Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok) invited the Spanish practitioner and teacher of Chinese medicine Manu Moreno to share with us his personal journey of learning, practicing, teaching, and translating Chinese medicine. Manu generously introduced us to his childhood experiences, including his struggles with dyslexia, guidance from dreams and past-lives experiences, and connection to his family healing tradition, all of which eventually led him to drop everything and move to China. There, he immersed himself completely in the language and culture and ended up studying Chinese medicine in a rare combination of an institutional education and...

In this conversation, we get pretty personal! In an honest exploration, we look at the intersection of Sabine's personal experiences, Leo's healing practices, and the power of intention. Specifically, we discuss the Surangama mantra and its protective and healing powers, and then consider the general impact of community healing through chanting and other ways of being present with a suffering person. We also briefly touch on ethical issues in practicing and training and transmitting intention in performative healing rituals like exorcism and chanting in the modern clinical context.

Additional Information

Chinese medicine practitioners are all too familiar with the common pathology of "Liver Qi Stagnation/Constraint." Partly related to feminine gender norms in both China and the West that force women to suppress and deny their anger, it results from the inability to let the liver Qi flow freely. In light of the palpable tension in the air these days, which is erupting into violence all too often, whether locally, nationally in the US, or globally, Leo and Sabine consider the root causes and possible treatments. From a slightly different angle of cultural norms preventing men from accessing and...

What do we (as in Leo and Sabine) mean when we say with great urgency and earnestness that postpartum care can heal trauma for multiple generations into the past and future? Why is there such a gaping hole in our modern culture's attention to the deep exhaustion, isolation, dangers, and need for intentional recovery from childbirth? How can medical professionals utilize the many tools offered by Chinese medicine to address this hole, from diet and medicinal formulations to acupuncture and moxibustion, massage and sound healing, as well as by educating and empowering the patient and their supporters? What can...

Today's episode, which could also be called "the mother and child within each of us," explores the healing power of the heart through the joy that Sabine experiences when caring for her fluffy baby ducklings and goslings, or when sharing them as a healing tool with her community, old and young. Leo's direct observations and questions pierce right through to the heart of the matter, past any rationalizations:

In this case, the answer is delightfully simple, at least for Sabine and for those human beings...

Let's talk about exercise, strength training, aging, and, yet again, the need for careful calibration. In today's conversation we explore the sweet range between taxing the body, enabling it to work harder, and building strength, on the one hand, and resting and honoring a more Yin approach to life, on the other. As the counterpoint to our dominant culture, which celebrates productivity, youth and physical prowess, and caffeine-fueled Yang-type accomplishments, many Chinese medicine practitioners tend to advocate for more of a Yin approach, in the tradition of the historical scholar-physicians' writings. But that is not all there is to...

For this episode, Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms explore how to find joy, practice self-care, and show up in meaningful ways during dark times.

Starting with learning from animals and babies, somehow they keep coming back to resonance, rhythm, and movement, as the key to avoid getting stuck and immobilized by overwhelm. From dancing to drumming and swimming to swirling, they try to bring some lightness to the conversation, in addition to some useful tools, like the gentle life-giving penetrating breeze that showed up in Sabine's Yijing reading the night before.

So they invite all...

What do kindness and joy, swimming in cold water and sharing food, euphoria and resilience, coping mechanisms, COVID, community, compassion, and connection have to do with each other? How do we sustain our work and find joy in the face of suffering? Is it possible to make suffering lighter, without making light of suffering? What is the role and meaning of celebration when LA is burning and the roundups have started? How do each of us find the strength to keep going?

Welcome to the Pebble in the Cosmic Pond podcast, where we now, in Season Four...

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...

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...

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...

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 Cosm...

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 pers...

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...

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 C...

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 to...

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...

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...

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 ha...

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 rele...

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...

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 pe...

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 d...

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...