More on Compassionate Practice

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 InformationOpen 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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Tune in every other week for inspiring, joyful, and informative conversations on transforming ourselves, our communities, and the world, in the spirit of ancient 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 clinic and beyond. I am your host, Dr. Sabine Wilms, 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, I teach and mentor at https://www.imperialtutor.com/, about the roots of Chinese medicine and its larger cultural background. In addition, I will bring in insights from my checkered past as a biodynamic goat farmer and musician, all under the banner of my favorite phrase, “cosmic resonance,” a.k.a. the Chinese ideal of harmony between the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. I really love to inspire people and spread around some good vibrations, which is what I aim to do in this podcast, with the assistance of some of my favorite clinical and academic colleagues, friends, and guides, like Leo Lok (our self-proclaimed "Purveyor of Multiple Perspective") and Dr. Brenda Hood, master physician and specialist in all things Daoism. New episodes will generally drop twice a month, with a free one on the new moon and a bonus one for Imperial Tutor members on the full moon. Check out https://www.imperialtutor.com/membership for more information on my mentorship. Episodes will be roughly an hour long and will follow the format of what you may already be familiar with as the Imperial Tutor’s Tea Time Talks: loosely structured conversations that provide education, inspiration, and connection. If you want to be notified of new episodes, why don’t you subscribe to my newsletter at https://www.happygoatproductions.com/connect? 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, between 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. 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 as true as possible to the insights expressed in the ancient Chinese texts while still making sense to our listeners? We invite you to consider the creative challenges of this task with us. Potential future topics include: Meditation Sickness and Qigong Psychosis; The Difference Between Responsibility and Fault; Daoist and Confucian Perspectives on Humanity's Role Between Heaven and Earth; The Creation, Development, and Transmission of Medical Knowledge and the Dangers and Benefits of Lineage; Buddhist Perspectives on Reality and Expedient Means; The Wuwei Way; The Weasel and the Yak, and The Frog in the Well; Simple Questions: How to Read the Classics; The Cosmos in Six Lines: The Yijing as a Tool of Healing; Translation, Transmission, Transcendence, Transcreation; Pointing to the Moon: How to Name the Unnameable; Should Return and A Hundred Meetings: What's in a Name; The Fish’s Delight: The Limits of Sense Perception; Clear Talk: Creating Light in Dark Times; Reverberations of the Valley Spirit; Lotus in the Mud: Buddhism and Medicine...