A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond

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 th...

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 qian...

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...

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”...

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...

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 t...

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, h...

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 i...

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 con...

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 wi...

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 officia...

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 fail...

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:...

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...

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 co...

How does the training and practice of Chinese medicine change depending on one’s location? What is the difference in patient expectations, scopes of practice, and lineage versus institutional training and licensing? And what is really behind this supposed contrast between biomedicine, perceived as instantly effective and ideal for emergencies and serious conditions, versus Chinese medicine, suppos...

Catching up on the news this morning, I felt a strong need to do something so I got in touch with my friend and colleague Dr. Brenda Hood, whose tuning forks are magical. I just felt like the world had a little need for some of her healing magic, and she was happy to oblige. So here is yet another spontaneous recording session, created in response to the horrendous things happening for far too man...

Today’s conversation started out with an innocuous email I sent to Leo, requesting that we explore that aspect of any good healer’s practice that is challenging to speak about and analyze rationally, let alone measure, certify, or transmit. And yet, we all know how powerful a healer can be, not because of their technical expertise but because of something else. What is this something else? In toda...

This episode is a spontaneous response to the intense sorrow that I see so many of my friends in multiple places of the world experiencing right now, whether directly or indirectly. So I have invited my dear friend Leo Lok for a conversation about suffering, sorrow, Guanyin, compassion, and processing and transforming emotions. We invoke the healing power of religious maternal figures in both of o...

How do we cultivate the ability to hold two opposite experiences of reality at the same time and thereby somehow get closer to the truth in between? How do we overcome the limitations of language in describing the ineffable while still appreciating its analytic function? If we can use language in communication with others like multiple fingers pointing at the moon, to literally “round out” all of...

What does it mean when the Yellow Emperor mourns and why might that matter to you? Does he “lord it over” his subjects and discuss medicine and needles because the exploitation of a healthy population yields more taxes? Or does he love and care for the people like a parent for their children and is heartbroken about their suffering? How do we read and translate a text like the Yellow Emperor’s Inn...

A quote from Sun Simiao (translation by Dr. Wilms): “When a person’s body is balanced and harmonious, you must merely nurture it well. Do not recklessly take medicinals, because the strength of medicinals assists only partially and causes the persons’ organ Qi to be imbalanced, so that they easily contract external trouble. All things that contain Qi provide food and thereby preserve life. Neverth...

As just one example of the dynamic polarities, and the sweet spot in between, that we so love in Chinese medicine, this episode explores the difference between responsibility and fault. How does our perspective shift when we consider placing or accepting responsibility as opposed to faulting ourselves or others in our attempts to explain outcomes that we do not like? Can we perhaps see responsibil...

In this episode of "A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond," I am joined by my two dear friends Leo Lok and Z'ev Rosenberg. Both are experienced practitioners of Chinese medicine in the US with a strong classical foundation and shared commitment to not only practicing but also LIVING Chinese medicine. It is fascinating to me to hear how they arrive at their shared ideals from very different backgrounds, as a...

This is just a short trailer to introduce you to our podcast. Here are some RESEARCH LINKS: Additional Information Subscribe to my newsletter! Translating Chinese Medicine: Dr. Wilms' website for learning classical Chinese Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms Happy Goat Productions (Dr. Wilms' website) Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors