Nurturing Our Nature 養性
Sun Simiao’s Teachings on Cultivating Health and Longevity, Translated for Today
A 3-month on-line course, designed by Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms and taught every other year
Do you dream of going beyond treating illness, to facilitate true well-being for yourself and your family, community, and patients?
Are you a practitioner, student, or teacher of East Asian healing arts looking for the roots of your tradition?
Do you feel drawn to the teachings of the 7th-century medical sage Sun Simiao 孫思邈?
Are you ready to transform your heart, spirit, and body with ideas and practices from medieval China?
Are you interested in the creative interplay of religion, science, and medicine; of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism; and of joyful living, healing, and alchemy?
Do you want to cultivate virtue and alleviate suffering by improving spiritual, physical, and emotional health?
Do you want to join an intimate group of like-minded students and travellers on this path of self-cultivation?
Last but not least, do you need ethics CEUs and want to become a more ethical practitioner on the basis of the wisdom of our medical ancestors?
Course Description
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![Ancient East Asian illustration of scholar near a mountain spring, with Chinese calligraphy on the sides.]()
In this uinque opportunity, two internationally respected experts on Chinese medicine combine their unique skillsets, experiences, and professional training in translation, clinical and personal practice, and academic research in history, philosophy, and religion. Join us, Sabine Wilms and Leo Lok, as we explore the writings of the great medical ancestor Sun Simiao 孫思邈 (581-682 CE) on his most esteemed, deepest, and undoubtedly most challenging subject: “Nurturing Our Nature”!
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Through the lens of Sun Simiao’s writings (vol. 27 of the Beiji qianjin yaofang in particular) and supported by other traditional Chinese medical and religious texts and our own life experiences, we consider how to help ourselves and those in our care to live more balanced, healthy, and virtuous lives, thereby preventing premature aging and unnecessary suffering.
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In dynamic, engaging, and inspiring prerecorded video lectures and engaging live discussions, join an intimate dedicated learning community devoted to the alleviation of suffering through a synthesis of traditional Chinese medicine, philosophy, and religion, translated into the context of our contemporary lives and practices.
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Specific topics include daily lifestyle and preventative medicine, spiritual and ethical cultivation, meditation, sleep hygiene, physical exercises and breath work, alchemy and dietetics, and sexual cultivation.
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This course is bound to blow your mind by introducing and exploring material that has never been shared in a Western language before, brought to you by two scholar-practitioners with perfect complementary backgrounds and a solid decade-long history of collaboration. We offer nothing less than a life-altering experience!
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No background in Chinese is required, and the entire course is taught in English. We do share original Chinese sources and are happy to answer translation questions in the discussion forum. We both love reading and translating classical Chinese, but this course is about cultivating life, not translating texts.
What you receive…
In nine units presented over twelve weeks, with an introduction and conclusion, and with an additional month for review, we share our knowledge in a unique structure developed by Dr. Wilms over decades of teaching, to facilitate engagement, creativity, joy, and personal growth. Here are the details:
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In a creative combination of formal video lectures, audio conversations, and discussions, we present an enticing smorgasbord of literal translations, complementary quotes from historical and contemporary secondary material, and our personal and professional commentary.
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We walk this path of self-cultivation together and all support each other in this exploration! With Leo’s and Sabine’s gentle guidance, we have fun sharing our thoughts, practices, and personal experiences as we bring this material into our modern personal and professional lives. All live discussions will be held on Zoom and are always recorded, for you to access for the duration of the course, if you missed a session, if the time doesn’t work for you, or if you want to review it.
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We share original translation excerpts and complementary primary sources (in translation) and secondary resources.
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For each unit, you are encouraged to engage with your colleagues by sharing your personal and clinical insights, questions, concerns, and additional resources you may have, as we develop a community of engaged learners. Leo and Sabine monitor and respond to comments and questions generally within 48 hours.
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As in Dr. Wilms’ memberships and our other online courses, here too you will find all relevant information, recordings, the discussion forum, and other resources on a single platform, easily accessed with the same password you use for our other offerings. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU LOSE ACCESS AFTER EXACTLY THREE MONTHS!
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In 9 units of 2 hours of recordings and 1.5 hrs of live discussions each plus an introduction and conclusion, you gain a total of 37 continuing education hours (application pending for NCCAOM, including 4 ethics units; California CEUs possible, depending on demand). We are happy to issue any graduation certificates to fulfill other countries’ requirements.
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The total price for the course is $1999. This includes unlimited access to the course material until the end of the year and CEU certificates. If financial limitations are preventing you from joining us but you feel strongly called to this material, please do reach out to us via email, info@imperialtutor.com, and we shall try to create an arrangement that work for all of us. While we have to make a sustainable living, we really want to make this material accessible to all who feel called to it.
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We offer this course roughly once every two years live on Zoom, with a starting date of September 19. The live meetings always take place on Saturday morning, 9-10:30 am Pacific Time. We believe that the shared exploration and exchange that occurs in the intimate live discussions is a powerful component in the transformation that we aim for, in every participant, including ourselves as your guides. Following the Introduction, you gain access to prerecorded video lectures and additional written resources each week, for you to contemplate until we meet in the live discussion on Zoom at the end of each week. After the nine units of material, you get an additional month of full access to all the material for review. Units are delivered via email and always accessible on our private password-protected platform. In addition, we are always standing by to answer questions or exchange information with you and the other group members in a protected space in our Frolicking Fish Community Forum.
Your Guides
In a truly unique constellation of backgrounds and skills, you get to watch the internationally famous podcasting and research team of Leo Lok and Sabine Wilms collaborate in real time, as they plumb the depths of one of the most important and challenging texts in the history of Chinese medicine.
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Writer, translator, professor, publisher, and goat herder.
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Leo 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.
Since 2015, he has been a top contributor in the 6432-member Facebook group - Scholars of Chinese Medicine. Leo has helped research and answer more than 2000 questions on the historical development, interpretations and translations of Chinese medical topics for colleagues worldwide.
He has also been consulted for numerous translation projects for his expertise, e.g. Dr. Sabine Wilms's ‘The Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica’ (2017)《神農本草經》and "Hundred Questions on Gynecology" (2019)《女科百問》.
He is also a contributing translator for the Chinese Medicine section of an upcoming anthology of historical Asian literature on meditation related illnesses (a project by Dr. Pierce Salguero at Pennsylvania State University).
““To nurture our nature: If we strive to complete it with daily practices, it becomes perfect on its own….Then no internal or external illnesses could ever arise, and turmoil and disasters also have nowhere to start from. This is the guideline for nurturing our Nature.”
— Sun Simiao, Beiji qianjin yaofang, vol. 27
Outline
Introduction (September 19)
Unit 1: Sun Simiao and his Work and Time (September 26)
Unit 2: Sun’s “Preface on Nurturing Our Nature” (October 3)
Unit 3: “Daolin Teachings on Nurturing Our Nature” (October 10)
Unit 4: “How to Live a Healthy Life” (October 17)
Unit 5: “How to Practice Self-Massage,” Including Yogic Exercises and Breath Work (October 24)
BREAK on October 31
Unit 6: “How to Attune the Qi” (November 7)
Unit 7: “Dietetics and Alchemical Elixirs” (November 14)
Unit 8: “The Yellow Emperor’s Prohibitions” (November 21)
Unit 9: “Mending and Adding in the Bedroom” (November 28)
Conclusion (December 5)
Are you ready to emerge from the chrysalis?
If you feel like spreading your wings and exploring the beautiful butterfly that is your true nature, we welcome you!