What is Daoism Philosophy & Chinese Medicine? Tap into Ancient Healing with expert Dr. Jack Schaefer

as a Chinese medicine practitioner we're always concerned about the why and the why always has to be addressed so for the headache we would not just treat the symptom because I mean killing the pain has to happen we also try and figure out well why did you get this headache what's the underlying cause was this a something to do with your digestive system or hormones or the weather or a muscle strain or stress or and and then we want to address that too because from our point of view one cause one imbalance can lead to a lot of problems so that imbalance that's may be causing the headache now might cause something else later hi everyone my name is Anisha and I'm your host for the wus plus podcast in today's episode I would love to welcome to the show Dr Jack schaer what the lifelong Devotion to talism martial arts in Chinese medicine Jack's expertise as a board-certified acupuncturist and herbalist illuminates a holistic approach to health and wellness through Jack's insights we'll gain a deeper understanding of the transformative power of Dallas principles and the profound healing potential of Chinese medicine hi Jack thank you so much for coming on hey thanks for having me Anisha I'm really excited to be here yeah I'm so excited so can you start by telling us the fundamentals of taism and how it led you to your journey I would say that there there are a lot of aspects to to what dosm is and ways to live it I think that for me through my entire life from my teenage years up until this point you know I've been interested in different aspects of it and you know you could say different parts of it have kind of called to me so you know dosm is really I mean it's it's the native religion of China but through through the you know 2,000 plus years that it's been growing and changing and and whatnot you know it it too it's a living tradition so the the things that make dosm tick I guess the its point of view in the universe has has also changed and what that leads to as a practitioner then are lots of opportunities because you know dosm is very focused on you know health and Longevity is something we do but it's not the only focus dosm is very focused on you know um stopping reincarnation for us as well as all sentient beings much like Buddhism and so that that that's also really interesting topic and you know maybe when you're younger you don't care as much about that but as you get older you start to really think about your mortality and next lives and and you start to see the suffering around the world and that starts to become you know you know something that's interesting to to you as well how can we end that so you know there are so many aspects to fundament the fundamentals of dosm but I would say one of the big ones that really calls to me at this moment is the relief of suffering you know not just for myself as an individual or my family but worldwide how can we sort of help relieve the suffering in the world as a kid so my father was interested in Buddhism and so and I I grew up as as a martial arts kid and so I had a lot of exposure to Asian culture my father started teaching me meditation when I was a young teenager as well as my martial arts teacher and so I got really interested in you know what in meditation maybe for the mindfulness and the relaxation part that a lot of people care about now but as a teenager probably more in like the superpowers my younger sister gave me a a copy of the doubt edging I think for my 13th birthday I read that book and I was really fascinated with just the the cryptic language in it because it seemed to be it seemed to be espousing answers for just about anything you could come up with and that was really the launching point and you know because I was involved in in martial arts and I had all these you know Asian influences in my life you know I just it never really separated from me and I kind of just stayed with with it through my teens and into college where I studied I studied dosm and I studied Chinese medicine and Chinese and Japanese language and you know ended up living in China and you know it just it honestly I you it had this momentum that I can't even explain that's amazing are there certain practices that have stuck with you every day is an interesting question because I I tend to live sort of cyclically in that I see I see practices as like medicine in that you know there are certain medicines that you take a lot and there are certain medicines that you only use when you need them and so one of the big ones is meditation um how much I use meditation definitely varies you know I mean I some there are time periods in my life where I'll meditate a lot in really um in deep in multiple times a day and then there are periods where it'll draw back and it'll be shorter sessions and less focused and you know and so then all the other practices that we do including visualization meditations or ritual practices you know self inquiry those are all things that that I do very regularly but they depend on again my particular needs or situations at the time you know what my life is like you know what what my clinic patients are like how much traveling I'm doing to you know back and forth to China or you know how much teaching I'm doing those kinds of things but I tend to really think of this stuff as as a as medicine so we use it more when we need it more less when we need it less but some of it are things we take every day no matter what have you ever had any experiences with these practices yeah you know there's a there's a couple of aspects I can we can get into it definitely it's almost embarrassing to talk about these things sometimes because they seem so woo woo the first one I ever had you know I was um I was about 16 and I was doing a um really getting serious about this particular meditation that I had learned from one of my teachers at the time and I was doing it every night and I would do it for about an hourish you know depending on I mean I was a teenager so I don't you know sometimes that didn't happen as much but I was really focused on it and you know I I was really focused on the the the benefits that would come out of that and I was really interested in them and looking for them so I was on a good stretch of I was hit right around a 100 days at this point and I remember I went and I finished the meditation and I laid down on my bed and I had this experience where I started to hear this very loud noise in my ears almost like a like a um rumbling you know like the sound that thunder makes but it was constant and I could feel my arms and legs sort of raising up off off of the bed and uh I was like wow this is really strange and then I could start to see you know this uh what seemed like energies or Spirits or beings or I don't really know what to call them at this point in my life around just around in the room you know and I just could sense the presence of all these things all around me as I was sort of floating up and then then I I kind of realized what was happening and I like Snapped myself out of it and I kind of popped back down on the bed and I was like what the heck just happened to me that was really crazy I got you know I went I called my dad and I asked my dad what was what was this about and you know his advice was really don't worry about it don't chase it these kinds of things happen just don't don't focus on it just go relax and lay down and and my other teachers sort of confirmed the same thing you know like in sort of DST lingo we talk about these two aspects of the human is one is our preh Heaven side which is the our true innate nature you know PE people might call like our Buddha nature or something like that and then we also talk about the the our po what we call Post Heaven side which is the elusory body and the elusory mind and we spend so much time in the illusion of the stories that we create about our current existence and that when we start to Glimpse those those moments like you know through like a transcendental experience like you're talking about or a vision of of what we consider to be preh heaven and dosm sometimes that that is almost uncomfortable at first and a little scary because it's like wait a minute this the That's Just an Illusion and this is the real thing well this is this is strange and and it's a little frightening at first and I think the more you're they say the more you can touch it the the more you see the illusion is just illusion and the more you see the other thing is the true your true you and it becomes less scary and you really want to be there more and that's what we consider to be more like realization experiences and whatnot hey guys I would like to take a moment to introduce you to our app yoga plus you will have access to an incredible selection of videos led by top instructors in yoga Fitness Nutrition and so much more download our yoga Plus app available on IOS and Android today [Music] [Applause] 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