Office Hours with Angelique and Toby, episode 16. Released December 25, 2025. 51 minutes.
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About this episode
Sharon Weizenbaum, an acupuncturist, herbalist, translator, and teacher who began acupuncture school in 1983 and has practiced for more than 40 years, joins Toby Daly and Angelique Britt from western Massachusetts. She describes reading the patterns of the Shang Han Lun as signs of misalignment with the movements of heaven, such as the rising and setting of the sun, rather than only locating and expelling a pathogen, and illustrates the idea with a case from the COVID era.
Sharon also talks about the clinician's inner work, starting with affection for oneself as a way to quiet self-critical voices and stay curious and warm with patients. She explains her interest in Saam acupuncture as a way of working directly with the Six Qi, how she combines it with palpation, how to begin studying classical Chinese, and why medical knowledge should be shared with accuracy and respect for its teachers and roots rather than controlled through nondisclosure agreements.
Topics
Sharon's background in acupuncture, herbs, translation, and teaching
Shang Han Lun patterns as misalignment with the movements of heaven
A COVID-era case: supporting Tai Yang and unblocking Yang Ming
The practitioner's inner work and affection for oneself
Saam acupuncture and the Six Qi; combining Saam with palpation
How to start studying classical Chinese
Sharing medical knowledge without NDAs
Key terms
Shang Han Lun (傷寒論): Treatise on Cold Damage, the Han dynasty classic of herbal formulas attributed to Zhang Zhongjing.
Tai Yang (太陽) and Yang Ming (陽明): two of the six channels, or six stages, of the Shang Han Lun.
Ma Xing Shi Gan Tang (麻杏石甘湯): Ephedra, Apricot Kernel, Gypsum, and Licorice Decoction.
Six Qi (六氣): the six climatic qi (wind, cold, summer heat, damp, dryness, fire).
Saam acupuncture (舍岩): a Korean Buddhist monastic acupuncture tradition that treats imbalance on one channel system at a time, using combinations of the five transport points.
A note for listeners: this is a conversation between licensed practitioners, offered for education, not as medical advice. Herbal formulas such as Ma Xing Shi Gan Tang should be prescribed only by a trained, licensed herbalist. Patient details have been kept general to protect privacy.
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically from the published audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors in names and terms.
Welcome to Office Hours. Whether you're new to the acupuncture profession or have been at it for decades, this is the place where we discuss all things Chinese medicine and more. Join Toby Daly, a seasoned acupuncturist of the Saam tradition, and Angelique Britt, a nurse turned acupuncturist who is brand new to the field as they explore topics in and around the world of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. There's something for everyone here. Drop in anytime.
Toby: Hi Sharon. Welcome to our show Office Hours. Thanks so much for coming.
Sharon: I'm so happy to be here.
Toby: Would you mind giving people a little bit of your background? I think a lot of people will be familiar with your work, but just on the off chance they aren't. Do you mind giving a little bit of your background so people have some context for a discussion going forward?
Sharon: Yeah, so I graduated from acupuncture school in 1983. Pretty much the same school that you went to, Angelique. And so I've been practicing a little over 40 years. I learned herbal medicine a little bit later because there wasn't an herb program in my school, but I became very entranced with Chinese herbal medicine to a really deep degree and went to China, studied there with a woman who is a gynecologist and obstetrician was. She has since passed away, Dr. Cho Xia Mei, and then came back and started teaching. I taught at the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine for a few years and began to run some of my own programs and now I've I've taught the graduate mentorship program now about 20 times over the years and it's evolved during that time I also really fell in love with classical formulas and the Shang Han Lun. I went to China to study with Dr. Huang Wong and invited teachers here to study with Dr. Fuyanling and Feng Shu Lun. And Huanghuang came several times to the White Pine Institute. And so now I think it's been maybe 20 years that I've been practicing and studying classical formulas, and that's really influenced my two year program, the graduate mentorship program. And so I live out here in western Massachusetts where it's very cold right now on a small farm. With my daughter who's been a farmer here for about eight years and horses and goats and sheep. Yeah, and still am in love with Chinese medicine. I guess another thing is that I've become a translator over time, translated a lot of material that I mostly use for the for my students, creating ebooks for them about doctors' experiences with the front. Or meal.
Toby: I think that's great for context for everybody. Is there a part of Chinese medicine that you're especially interested in right now?
Sharon: I think what's evolved for me over time and just deepened, especially as my Chinese language skills improve and I'm able to read more of the classical texts. What really interests me is what happens in our bodies and the circular dynamics of the universe. The rotation of the earth, the movement of the earth around the sun, the relationship with the moon. And then the way that the Shang Han Lun is well, let me just go back. The way that our pathology is can be seen through a lens of lack of alignment with these movements. And at the Shang Hanlun, the symptoms that are that are discussed in the Shanghanlun clauses are you can look at it through this lens, which I think is a Huangdi Naijing kind of lens, that the symptoms that come up in the various confirmations are showing the way that the patient is misaligned with those movements of heaven. And then the herbal form is just supplementing the qi or moving the blood or expelling an evil, they're-establishing alignment. Like we're able to diagnose how the person is misaligned and then give the herbs that will establish alignment. And the and for me, the idea of this is really kind of profound because what it means is that there's a natural Constant flow of vitality that's coming into us from the universe, flowing through us that we can be aligned to. And it's this energy that knows how to heal us. And that whether it's with our acupuncture or herbs, you know, that we're not we're not sort of just going in and causing the healing. We're just adjusting the person so that this natural function of healing can occur. So it's a different, it's a slightly different mindset than going in to get rid of wind coal to find the pathogen and get it out of there. You know, from this perspective, our bodies naturally know how to get rid of pathogens. In fact, we're we're permeable. We're constantly taking things in and processing them and having them go out. Like our bodies are our machines that know how to process things from the outside. And so the symptoms that show up are not necessarily or they it can be seen instead of seeing it through the lens of where's the pathogen and how do I get rid of it, you can look at it through the lens of what's not functioning properly to get rid of this pathogen? And how can I reestablish this natural function? To process things that come in from the outside. So like during COVID, that was a lot of how I was working and my students and TAs were also working that way. And it was great, you know, because we're if we're reestablishing function, then the person ends up being healthier afterwards than they might have been before. You know? So
Toby: Can you give me an example of that? Like a covet patient that came that using that framework to treat? Something comes to mind.
Sharon: Yeah. You know, so the if you think about the function of Tai Yang, the function of Tai Yang is sort of to go up and out and resolve the surface. Okay. And I call the six confirmations the six great sweeping motions, because they're these motions in the body as opposed to just a channel or a location. So the Tai Yong motion is up and out. And the next motion according to the Nijing and also the order that the Shongangun is written in is Yangming which goes down and in and it also corresponds to like if you're if you're following the sun the Taiyong actually means sun you know it's the sun coming up and once it reaches its zenith then the yang starts descending and that's the yangming of the west it starts descending in the west and so if yangming gets blocked in some way then if you think about what would happen if the sun got blocked at high noon things start getting really hot right and so the heat of yangming Is from this perspective, isn't like a hot pathogen that got in, it's a block in the yangming, and it has to be unblocked so that the natural life force can descend in the body. So I'm thinking that's just some background, but I'm thinking of a patient who it was a mashing shirgantong pattern. And what is a mashing shirgantong pattern? It's Where the surface can't fully resolve, like in a mahongtong pattern, the surface is blocked. So the life force is coming up and zenithing and it gets blocked from going out. In a mahongtong pattern, you open it up so it can complete. But easily that pattern, the yang gets blocked. Like it has to keep circulating. And if it gets blocked, it becomes a Yangming block. So that's what this patient had. And so you know the exterior was still not resolved and it was starting to get hot. So they're starting to have panting and pain in the chest as well as one of the signs for me whether it the whether it's still on the exterior Like with mashing chukantong, it's on the exterior, but it's going interior, right? It's in both. So the sign that it's still on the exterior, one of the key signs is that you still have this feeling of coming down with something. It's very, you just it's a very obvious to the patient feeling, but it's hard to pinpoint as a symptom, right? Like we all know the feeling of coming down with something. It's but it like how do you pinpoint exactly what your experiences? So the feeling of this person had the feeling of coming down with something and it was moving into the chest. So there was starting to be panting and the increase in more heat than cold. And they were sweating more, but it wasn't resolving. So that is right there the mashing shirgantong pattern. So that you know and mashing surgantong, my god, when you give that formula and it's that pattern, it really within five minutes, there's huge relief. It just feels you feel so much better. And so from my way of looking at it, the reason why the mashing shurgantong pattern even showed up was because That pattern was there before the COVID, you know, that the Tai Yong surface and the Yangming weren't functioning well. And so when the virus comes in, that's the part, it's showing me this is what doesn't function well, you know, and can't process this virus. So let's it you don't even know it's not functioning well until it's asked to do something that it's not capable of handling. And the signs and symptoms show me what function needs help. So from my mind, I'm like benefiting the Tai Yong function and also with the Shergal opening the Yangming so the young can descend and go along its natural way. So I'm not getting rid of a hot pathogen. Does that make sense?
Toby: Yeah, that's really clear for me, right? So yeah, again, I how I think of Mashing Shrugantan is yeah, you've got heat, you wanna discharge it, resolve it, transform or something like that. But for your you just want to keep that cycle going. And it cycle's stuck there, the sun's fixed in the sky, and it's gotta descend, otherwise everything's gonna fry.
Sharon: Right. Right. And our bodies are constantly functioning relative to the movements of the celestial bodies, just like, you know, at night we get tired because our young is descending with the sun. And so if my body is going too slow, like the Yangming is not going down at the pace that it should, you know, then I get symptoms. You know, so that kind of explains that idea of alignment with I call it being right with time.
Toby: Hmm. I can really see that in my mind. Thank you.
Sharon: Yeah, yeah. And of course the these ideas are not mine. Like I'm very interested in the other doctors and practitioners who have written about this and I and I'm translating material about that doctors have written that look through this lens, kind of that nating lens. I mean the nating is really a book about physiology. The Su Wen especially is a book about physiology, but it all has to do with being in alignment with the movements of the celestial bodies. Yeah. And yeah, you guys are little Chinese medicinophiles too.
Angelique: Yeah, definitely. I'm curious because so I'm coming up on one year of practice. That's what I hear you say you've been doing it for 40s like wow, will I ever get there. One of the things that I remember hearing you say in a lecture, which I think is important for people who listen to hear more about is that, and you can correct me if I'm wrong and I paraphrasing but that there's we have a couple of jobs when we're in clinic. And one of them is to see clearly.
Sharon: I think I say that maybe your only job in the clinic is to enjoy being yourself.
Angelique: Okay, can you speak more to that for the folks that are especially newer? Because I think that I don't know. Mean, you both could probably answer better, but I know for new people, it's you want to do well so much. You want to do the best you can do for your patients. And sometimes I can lose sight of ourselves in that. Yeah, if you could say more about that.
Sharon: Yeah. I think what I found for myself and then as a teacher, what I have found that's a big impediment for clinic going well is that we all have a lot of conditioning and voices that we hear in our heads, like I'm not very good at this, I'll never figure this out, I'm in over my head. You know, I mean all of us have all kinds of voices going on all the time about our ourselves and I'm not very good at Chinese medicine. I have ADD I can't study very well you know or you know voices like that and so through my personal work finding a space and this does have to do with the circular dynamics of the universe because the Vitality that's always coming into us, that's kind of running our bodies, in my experience and through my practice, I experience that vitality as loving and affectionate. And so when those voices are quiet, when they're when they're not running the show, and I would call them voices of conditioning, and they tell us things that are useless and Not true things that are not helpful not true and when those voices are not present and we experience an affection for ourselves kind of ordinary affection for ourselves that we have so much wisdom and so much connection and i worked actually with literally hundreds of students working there's a process that I would help the students go through that I stopped doing now, but I did for a long time. And we would we would, you know, kind of go into a clinical situation that was difficult for them. And they would feel the student would feel what it felt like in their body when the voice came in that said, you know, you're not good at this. And What happened to their sense of connection with the patient? And inevitably it would feel terrible in the body. They would get confused and disoriented and also feel more separate from the patient. And then we would do another exercise where it was absolutely impossible for those voices to come into the room and just kind of quietly spend time. Like, what do you notice with those voices are completely absent? And inevitably, what would come up would be. They would feel an affection for the patient. They would feel curious about what's going on. And if there was a question like, can you think of something that the that might help the patient? Yeah, I can think of things, you know, and sort of this natural curiosity, this natural warmth, this natural wisdom comes through in the absence of those. Conditioned voices. So when I say like your only job is to enjoy being yourself, or maybe I should say like your first job, it's really finding that affection for yourself, that deep affection. Because in my experience, the only way to work with those voices, like you can't you can waste your time arguing with them, but they it doesn't work. And you know, you can let them beat you down and Make you work harder or something like that. You know, but that's exhausting. You know, that the only thing that quiets them down is really connecting with a deep affection for oneself. And I think every student I've ever worked with in this with this process that I developed through my own experience, they find that place within themselves that was their initial motivation to even study Chinese medicine. Like there's a natural compassion that is just there in every student. And for people to find that curiosity, that compassion. Like so many practitioners feel so bad about themselves. And it makes it hard to learn when you are feeling bad about yourself. So for my students it was really great to work through some of that so that they There weren't all these voices all the time telling them you'll never get this, you know, that kind of thing. And that there's we are we're these beautiful beings that are naturally compassionate. We don't have to try to be compassionate. It's our true nature to be compassionate. And we can experience that and find it and live it when we allow that affection to come through, the affection of the universe to come through. It quiets the voices. So It's it's not a frivolous thing. When I say like your only job is to enjoy yourself, it's not like you're just there to have fun, you know, on a superficial level. It's really it's a deep practice, I think, too. And it's really the question, like, well, who am I really? And those voices that come in, that's not who we are, you know, the at all. It has nothing to do with who we really are. And so the our practice. As practitioners can also be a very deep spiritual practice because we can we can practice this in clinic you know day by day and it evolves us I think it's it's progressive.
Angelique: It is a practice. It's something that I just I remembered. Yeah, I was like, okay, and I do I try to practice it when I'm there to really both enjoy in the fun way, but also to have that compassion and affection for myself that you're describing in the moment, especially being so new and, you know, earnest.
Sharon: Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. You're new. And you know, you might think like, I don't know very much, or that treatment didn't work. I'm not very good at this, you know. But what you're bringing is so powerful. And it's easy to lose sight of the that impulse, that motivation, the heart that you're bringing, the desire to be beneficial to. Human beings and you have skills and your skills will develop over time. But they're they're really good now, you know, that you can think of things every day to do that will help your patients. And that will just grow. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Toby: That's nice reminder too, that it's already inside us, right? It reminds me of that Chinese parable that you don't have to pull the grass up. It just grows on its own, right? We have that heart, we have that compassion. It can just come on its own.
Sharon: Yes, that's exactly right. But we can thwart our relationship to it. We can get the grass right. But yeah. Yeah, thanks for asking that question. That's important.
Toby: We can cut the grass. And I was gonna ask you if you remember what it felt like when you first got exposed to the Saam system. Angelique and I we talk about Chinese medicine in general, but the Saam system in particular on our show here. So I wonder if you can if you can remember what was that was like when you first got exposed to it.
Sharon: Yeah, it was kind of mind blowing for me. And like I think first I remember if i heard your podcast or if i read your article but all that was around the same time and the article was great and it's great i've given it to so many people and reread it many times and what really kind of blew my mind was the actually the relationship of that to the principles expressed in the nade ching And the relationship, especially with the sixth qi, that's that really blew my mind. Because it was the first time like in the Nijing, the six qi are physiological, you know, they are actually what create the five phases of birth, growth, development, decline, and completion. I sort of knew that from the Naijing. And that these six chi come into our bodies and nourish us and create us, but I didn't have such a direct experience of the six chi or a form of acupuncture that I'd ever heard of that worked with the six chi. So then with working with some, I experienced like week after week the The actuality of the six chi and the relationship with the with the channels. Like the channels in the body are the pathways in which the six chi come into the body. So very, very directly, you know, if somebody is, you know, lost their relationship with dryness, for example, and so they're damp. And then you supplement large intestine they dry up during the treatment, like you're literally bringing dryness into their body or warmth or cold, you know, it like or ministerial fire. Like I think about the that ministerial fire, that gallbladder chi and just patients that I have had that were so upright after the treatment and they would go and you know quit their job that they had been miserable in. And they, you know, like it was so stunning to see those six chi. It felt so good. Like, like I got to like, you know, diagnose it the best I could. That I think that's that's the difficult part is diagnosing accurately. But sometimes it was quite clear, you know, those patients where it's just so Clear what you need to do. And the results were so clear. And it feels really fun to sort of have that for me, it's like that relationship with the universe. Like I'm I'm I'm supplementing your large intestine channel. And what that meant to me is I'm I'm making that channel function to bring in dryness that you've lost your relationship with. And now you've we've re-established that relationship and your body functions so much better. So that's what really excited me about Sam.
Toby: Really thinking too, especially with your couple of decades of experiences, especially with the Shanghan Loon, right? So much work with Liu Jing. And then yeah, you can suddenly apply that to acupuncture. Yeah. That must have been really
Sharon: Yes, yes, yes, it really, really excited me, you know, as you know, because then I invited you to come here and you know, yeah. Yeah, so thank you, Toby. Yeah.
Toby: Thanks so much for recounting that. I was always wondering what was happening in your mind then. So that's nice to hear. Thank you.
Sharon: Yeah. I mean I think I missed like previously I had done a lot of palpation. And you know, I had studied with Kikamatsumoto and Japanese styles of acupuncture. And so with palpation, you know, really looking for points that changed the pathological findings directly, you know, in and can instantly, you know, you poke here and it hurts and when you find the right point, it feels better, you know, like you can feel that things are opening up. And that also felt really direct to me. You know, like you know, maybe it's like what you were asking me, Angelique, about like how clarity is really important and like being able to get feedback from the body, which we do in Saam as well. So you know I've now shifted and am primarily using palpation. Which I kind of wanted to integrate that back into my work. Because with so the you know I think it was three years I only did some because I wanted to really learn it and so whatever you can learn in three years, but I missed the palpation. So I've been integrating that back into my practice now. So I palpate areas where it's easy to find out if there's a problem or not. So the channels on the thighs, the inside and the outside of the thighs, so the spleen, liver, kidney, the stomach, gallbladder, and bladder channels on the thighs are really easy to palpate and tell if there's
Toby: What does it look like?
Sharon: Problems mostly through the person feeling discomfort in those channels but also you can feel you know if it's very tight. And also the groin like right at the top of the thighs is often really jumpy for people. And then the abdomen of course you know looking at various areas of the abdomen finding what just getting a baseline like what's going on and finding where the painful areas are the center of the chest the alarm points and also the scm so i kind of get a sense of okay where are all their painful points and then what i want to do because then i also studied with thomas sorenson who was doing some and then he shifted and So now I'm actually only using one acupuncture point per session. And I'm looking for a point that will clear everything. I want everything to go away. And so there's a system for sort of looking for that point. And I also have found that, you know, there are different ways to find a point. And I don't think there's only one point that can do that. But some is really useful and especially the mother point of the deficient organ, you know, is sometimes incredibly powerful to change everything. And I'm also looking like if somebody has pain at the time, or some problem like, my eyes are really dry or you know, my shoulder hurts. Like I want the needle to take care of that too. So I've really liked that. I really like it. And so there's different ways to find the point, but Saam is one of those ways, you know, that if somebody it's really clear their pericardium is deficient, you know, using the mother point on the channel that needs supplementing can often take care of everything.
Toby: You start off with one point and then if it doesn't clear everything, you go to a second point or you go for you look for another one.
Sharon: So I look for the point through palpation and I don't needle until I find a point that clears the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. Thomas Sorensen uses only one point and but he does it with patient. And that's cool. I really like needles. I just feel like I'm connecting in a way, but it was amazing to shadow him and to see patient after patient. He gets incredible results and just one point with a tation is very efficient time wise too.
Toby: And no sharp's container.
Sharon: He knows sharp's container. He doesn't have one. I think actually he does. Every now and then he'll use a needle for some reason, but you know I actually didn't see him using needles at all.
Toby: That's amazing. Yes, so many different avenues to help patients. That's amazing. I don't think I ever heard of that. One ta one needle only with the Tation and then resolving everything. So that's amazing.
Sharon: Yeah, I should say also that I've studied with Slate Burris. He does something called neoclassical acupuncture. And that has also really influenced me. So I just want to give a shout out to my teachers. Thomas is like amazingly perceptive with his hands and just his being. So he can sort of lightly palpate the abdomen and the pulse and then know what to do. And it's too subtle for me. Like I mean maybe if I had another lifetime I could develop it, but I really like things that are more obvious. You know, like it hurts when I press here. You know, I where I really get undoubtable feedback. I worry that I would gaslight myself, like this and you know, and so slate's style is also more physical. Like I think some of us are more physical and earthy and some are more ethereal. And we each have to find our what resonates, what our path is. And it's so cool that there are so many ways to go.
Angelique: I think it's important that we go through the standard education, then finding what lights you up inside and following that and then applying that to your clinical practice. I think the more excited and interested and vibrationally aligned you are with what you're doing, I think the better it works. Yeah.
Sharon: Yeah, but I'm so happy about things like San and where the classics are really coming through much more than like when I went to school. And it just feels like the world of acupuncture's gotten so rich. And you've been a big part of that, Toby.
Angelique: No.
Toby: Yeah, thanks for saying that.
Sharon: Yeah. Well really I think you've kind of changed the face of acupuncture significantly. In the in this country anyway. Yeah.
Toby: That seems amazing to hear, but okay.
Angelique: Your teacher would be so proud. Yes.
Toby: Yeah. Yeah, he could foresee all this, but not me. And so it
Sharon: That he I'm sure he could. I was just thinking that like when you were sick and he treated you, he was like, This is the guy. Yeah, what a journey.
Toby: Here we here we go.
Angelique: You have another question before I ask my translation question. I think you've got some cooler questions.
Toby: I've got close I've got several more questions, but I'm why don't you ask one and then I'll ask one more if it's
Angelique: It's kind of a bigger question. Just in terms of it's just a bigger question. So you can choose how about that. We'll give you the option because you can always cut it. But I'm curious how you began your study of reading the medical classical Chinese. And if one were to want to pursue that as an avenue, like what you would recommend to somebody who
Sharon: Yeah, well I went to China in 1990 and I had studied a little bit. You know, we live in a college area and I have audited classes and then I when I went in 1990 to Hangzhou, I also studied at the university there, but also I was so excited by my teacher's work in gynecology and obstetrics, and I got a copy of her book. And I couldn't read it. You know, like I knew like standard niha and you know like just basic colloquial Chinese, but medical Chinese, not so much. You know, then when I was living in China, I fell pregnant and came back to the States. And when I was pregnant, I started just I had a dictionary and I wanted to find out what's in this book. So I just started using a dictionary and I translated the table of contents using a dictionary. It took forever to just translate the table of contents. And so I really was translating because I couldn't read it. So I was only translating to read it, not to translate it to publish it or something like that. Just wanted to read her book. And that was great because now there are so many translation tools. Like then that we know Wenlin came along and then Pleco and but using a dictionary, you really learn. Like you look up a character and then you find it again and you don't remember what it was and you have to go and count the strokes and look in the, you know, and you learn characters by using a dictionary. Where if you can just hover over it with your mouse and the whole definition comes up, it's harder to learn. You don't you don't remember the characters in the same way. So once Wenlin came out, which was many, many years later, you know, my character knowledge stopped increasing as much. But so what I would recommend, like it's exciting, and we're starting, we have no translation group in the White Pine circle. And you know, and we'll probably be having more classes for beginners. To just start you know find a case study and just start translating it with the help of other people like and you know slowly you'll develop you'll just develop you know the grammar will start to come and you'll recognize you know so now like most modern Chinese texts I can pretty much just read them but the classical is something totally different. But Really fun and i'm in a class now i've studied a bunch in different classes of classical chinese and we have one now on white pine circle where we're working on translations and i'm doing a collaborative translation of the fifth chapter of the ling shu which is just an incredible thing i've just learned so much with the help of our teacher in how to do that and hopefully we'll we'll finish it'll have Lots and lots of commentary because you kind of can't do it without the commentary. Anyway, I would say just jump in because you would have access to so much in a relatively short amount of time. Especially someone like you who's so smart.
Angelique: Well, thanks.
Toby: Sha Sharon, tell her how frustrating it was like to look try and find a character and spend an hour on one character and then still not know what it was. Because she needs to appreciate that when she can just click and hover over things. It was so frustrating, Angelique. You just you would spend an hour trying to do one character and then at the end of the hour still not figured it out. So
Sharon: Yeah. Yeah. And the dictionaries that were available. It was so limited, you know. There's so many dictionaries. Yeah. Yeah. What was it? Like just this little dictionary. It was what I looked up everything in, but they're like medical dictionaries and historical dictionaries and all kinds of stuff. It's so rich now, but This was just like very laborious. And I, you know, you have to take some calligraphy classes because if you don't know how to draw the characters, you can't count the strokes. You know, say, for example, like a box, you might think, that's four strokes, right? But it's not. It's one, two, three, you know, and so if you don't know calligraphy, you can't tell how many strokes are in that character. But that's fun to take calligraphy. Yeah. I mean you don't have to do calligraphy, but you but you do have to d draw a lot of characters to learn the correct stroke order. And that's really important to be able to look up character or used to be important.
Angelique: Okay, all good things and the things that you don't know you don't know like who knew you had to count strokes. I didn't.
Sharon: Have some beginning classes too. And maybe you can take one and just like, I think if you feel like, you know how if you've never knit and then you like, my God, I made a scarf. You know, it wasn't that hard. You know, and if you translate a few case studies in a little class, you'll be like, my God, look what I could do. And it's inspiring.
Angelique: I that. I'll supplement my pericardium before starting to try.
Toby: But it's it's motivating, right? Because I mean you want that information. So that's that's you know, it is not just for fun or just to learn another language for f for just for, you know, d intellectual entertainment, right? It's like, I can really help my patients if I can get this out. So you know, so it's really motivating.
Sharon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Angelique: Yeah, that's how it.
Toby: All right. Sharon, can I ask you one more question?
Sharon: Course.
Toby: Right. What role do you think non-disclosure agreements should have in the teaching of Chinese medicine?
Sharon: Mm. I would say no role. Like you can't actually own knowledge. Like, you know, so if like as a teacher, I don't own any of the knowledge that I'm teaching my students. So an NDA would be unenforceable because you I couldn't say you can't share this information. Because that's not legal. You can't own knowledge. So an NDA, I don't think there should ever be an NDA. And you know, sometimes I know there are NDAs, but my experience is they get shown to be actually a form of coercion towards the students to try to control students and control knowledge and to control competition. And so you know, I are they even ethical, you know, since they are uninf since you can't own knowledge, is an NDA even ethical? On the other hand, what I do think as a teacher, what I do is I ask my students not to share, you know, you know, not to copy what I'm teaching. You know in a big way without checking with me. And but I don't it's not a legal thing, you know, and
Toby: That's just to make sure the information's right. You w you want them to check in with you to make sure that they're sharing it correctly, or wha what's the reason?
Sharon: Yeah, that's the main reason is to make sure, you know, like if you learn something here and then you want to go off and teach it, you know, like there are people that I have taught that are teachers and you know, and my relationship with that is let me know if you want to use some of my PowerPoints and I'll send them to you, you know. That's my relationship to that, just in general. But you know, those are always people that I have great respect for and feel like they have respect for what I'm teaching. It and it's it's just to have them respect, just have some respect for okay, there's a teacher, there's knowledge, and you can take that knowledge and go do things, but it's really good to kind of honor your teacher also. You know, honor where things have come from. And it's not that it's important to me or for my ego. It's there's just roots, right? They're roots of where things come from. And if I'm a teacher, I want my students to know what my roots are because we're connected to something that's much older and bigger than me. And so to kind of keep those roots alive, where did this come from? And And there might be many roots. People study with a bunch of teachers and pull it together in their own way. I don't know if I'm being articulate about that.
Toby: That seems really clear to me too. And Chinese medicine is that, right? I mean, so many different routes together to put out these different aspects of Chinese medicine comes draws on so many different areas. And I feel like yeah, that's that's the two things, right? If the if you're not corrupting the information and you have respect for the tradition, then that inform and it's valuable, then the those three things, the information should go out. It should go out to try and help.
Sharon: I wanna share it. I wanna share it. Yeah.
Toby: But if it gets corrupted if it gets corrupted then you know that branch may fall off and not and not be able to help others. So
Sharon: Yeah, I yeah. But I also think that we can't control what people do with it. You know, like it goes out and it might there might be ways it will get corrupted that we can't maintain control over. I think that just is part of it as well. I think as teachers if we hold it in our heart in a really respectful way and pass it on in a way that is filled with love and appreciation for it that just in general that's going to be how it's going to be passed on. And outside of that, we don't have control over it. So you just let go of people that don't do it well or something, you know, or what I don't know. Do you know what I mean?
Toby: I mean as c I think it won't be as clinically effective too, right? If it gets corrupted, if it kind of gets loses the root, I feel like the so it will be a little bit self-limiting also.
Sharon: I agree with that. Yeah. We don't have to worry about that. And we don't have to we can't really control it. So it's a waste to worry about it. And it would be self limiting. I agree. Yeah.
Toby: I was sh I was shocked to hear that there's people in a profession that have their students sign NDAs. I that was just shocking to me. So anyways, thank thanks so much for discussing it because yeah, I mean it just it just it seems antithetical to Chinese medicine, which is always just building on, building on, building on, to try and sequester part of that and not let it build upon itself. I don't know. I was really surprised to hear that.
Sharon: Yeah, and to threaten students if they talk about it is pretty shocking too. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I mean maybe I'm you know getting quite a bit older and you know, when students of mine, like there's a student of mine in Denmark who's now teaching his own herb program in Denmark in Danish and I feel that it feels like a jewel on my crown. You know that it makes me it makes my heart swell and it makes me feel at peaceful because I'm not gonna be around and like, people have taken what I'm doing and they're they're helping it live on. But it's just like such a good feeling. And you know, of course they're gonna do it in their own way. And that's how it should be. That's exactly how it should be. Yeah.
Angelique: Mm.
Toby: I have two thoughts about that. First, I heard this quote you can never measure the limit of a teacher's influence, but it just reverberates out and out. And I thought that was so beautiful. And then yeah, as long as they're respecting the tradition, trying to do the best they can with the information, and then trying to help other people with it. I think it's it's just it's only good as it goes out. But again, if people try and pull that in, yeah, it's it's it that branch is gonna fall.
Angelique: Yeah, versus abundance mindset.
Sharon: It's such a it's it would be from such a scared place to do that, you know. Yeah. And it you know, if we think of the principles of Chinese medicine relative to the natural world, which is what our classical texts talk about, the Huangdi Nijing, it's a natural principle, isn't it? About growth and about the way that nature works is with cooperation and generosity and teachers come and new teachers come. They die and new teachers come. You know, it's it like it's constantly evolving and nourishing. Each generation nourishes the next. Yeah.
Toby: Like you were saying with the cycle, right? The Leojing, right? It has to keep moving. You can't fix you can't fix the sun in one spot, otherwise everything's gonna scorch, right? So yeah, that's it's foolish to try, right? It's foolish to try.
Sharon: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. Thanks, Toby.
Toby: Thanks so much for spending time with us, Sharon on Office Hours. A real pleasure to spend a little bit time with you. And yeah, thanks for making the time.
Sharon: My deepest pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Good night.
Toby: Everyone take care. Bye forever.
