{"podcast":{"title":"A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond","slug":"a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860","podcast_index_feed_id":6320860,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond/","website_url":"https://www.pebbleinthecosmicpond.com/","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/6965970a-2b97-406e-ac7a-03277b54c4cf/VbqJ8vh50gVW4WuvyuVGQlWi.jpg","author":"Sabine Wilms PhD","episode_count":52,"summary":"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 nativ…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-15T16:19:46.400128+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860"},"episode":{"title":"Finding your True Nature Through Living Daoism","slug":"finding-your-true-nature-through-living-daoism","published_at":"2024-12-31T19:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/finding-your-true-nature-through-living-daoism","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860","url":"https://pebbleinthecosmicpond.com/episode/finding-your-true-nature-through-living-daoism","audio_url":"https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/e06861d0-0ef4-41bf-9352-d5d03e83b34c/PP3-8-Living-Daoism-as-a-guide-to-xing-and-ming-converted.mp3","summary":"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!): 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. Compassion and the effort to alleviate suffering and be of service are the key to ethical cultivation and thereby transforming our karma. 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. Additional Information jack schaefer's website Parting Clouds Daoi…","meta_description":"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…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4352,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/episodes/finding-your-true-nature-through-living-daoism/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-pebble-in-the-cosmic-pond-6320860/finding-your-true-nature-through-living-daoism.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}