Episode 7

full
Published on:

1st Dec 2024

Sun Simiao's Secret to True Healing

  • 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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About the Podcast

A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond
Old and New Stories from China's Healing Traditions
Tune in every New Moon for inspiring, joyful, and informative conversations with Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok on transforming ourselves, our communities, and the world, in the spirit of traditional Chinese medicine, spirituality, and philosophy. Separating fact from fiction, we aim to bring you medicine from China's distant past, translated here to meet YOUR needs today, in your personal practice, in your community, and in the clinic.

Sabine Wilms, PhD, is a medical historian, recovering university professor, and author and translator of more than a dozen books on the Chinese healing arts, from gynecology and pediatrics to medical ethics and materia medica, published by Happy Goat Productions. In addition to writing, she runs the only advanced 2-year classical Chinese training program for practitioners of Chinese medicine and contributes insights from her checkered past as a biodynamic goat farmer and musician, all under the banner of her favorite phrase, “cosmic resonance,” a.k.a. the Chinese ideal of harmony between the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. Leo Lok, our "purveyor of multiple perspectives," is a practitioner and independent scholar of Chinese Medicine. A native speaker/reader of Chinese languages, Leo is one of the rare clinician-scholars in the world who excels in researching and translating ancient Chinese medical literature into the English language.

Together, we offer courses on the Chinese healing arts and run the "Frolicking Fish Community" to provide deep, sustained engagement with our work and play. In a lovingly curated themed collection, we present you each month with the introductory "moongate," original translations, creative expressions, and audio and video recordings on the Chinese healing arts, culture and history, food and art, philosophy and religion, Qi cultivation, and more. In addition, the community forum offers connection, education, and inspiration.

We both love to inspire people and spread around some healing and loving vibrations. Here are our three main goals:
1. Bridge-building: We gather to explore the liminal sweet spot, in between Heaven and Earth, the distant past and the present moment, East and West, the clinic and the academy, the healer and the scholar, the discernible and the unfathomable, oral lineage and written text, and, ultimately, Yin and Yang.
2. Collaboration: The treasure house of traditional Chinese medicine is bigger than any single person's expertise, no matter how vast. We actively pursue and embrace a diversity of opinions so that we can collectively deepen our understanding. We always aim to approach our disagreements with curiosity and mutual respect, instead of defensiveness.
3. Authentic Transmission: Translation, from the past to the present, from Chinese to English, from texts to clinical application, etc., invariably involves an alteration and adaptation of the original message. How do we stay true to the wisdom and spirit of the ancient Chinese texts while still making sense to our modern English-speaking listeners? We invite you to consider the creative challenges of this task with us.

In addition to subscribing to this podcast, we invite you to sign up for our newsletter (at Happygoatproductions.com/connect), where we share resources like free articles, announcements of new courses or publications, updates on our work and life, little glimpses of love and joy and beauty, and occasionally Sabine's poetry and farm pictures.
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About your host

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Sabine Wilms

I am the producer, manager, director, and (whether I like it or not) person in charge of this podcast. I take full responsibility for this project and vision but do not necessarily agree with anything anybody else says on my podcast, whether it is framed as an opinion or a fact. You can find out more about my books at happygoatproductions.com, my mentoring at imperialtutor.com, my classical Chinese offerings at translatingchinesemedicine.com, and my gynecology courses at traditionalChinesegynecology.com.