Macrobiotic

Guidebook For
Living
· AND OTHER ESSAYS ·

by George Ohsawa
Translated by Herman Aihara

George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation

Chico, California
 By George Ohsawa
The Book of Judo
Cancer and the Philosophy of the Far East
Essential Ohsawa
Four Hours to Basic Japanese
Gandhi, the Eternal Youth
Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living
Macrobiotics, An Invitation to Health and Happiness
The Order of the Universe
Philosophy of Oriental Medicine
Practical Guide to Far Eastern Macrobiotic Medicine
The Unique Principle
You Are All Sanpaku
Zen Macrobiotics

Edited by Paula Markham, Kathy Keller

Text design by Sue Reid, Carl Ferré
Cover design by John Clark, New York City

First Japanese Edition 1947

First English Edition 1967
Revised English Edition 1985
Current Edition, minor edits 2013 Mar 1

© copyright 1985 by
George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation
PO Box 3998, Chico, California 95927-3998
530-566-9765; fax 530-566-9768
[Link]; gomf@[Link]

ISBN 978-0-918860-41-5

Printed in the United States of America

 Acknowledgments
The efforts of many people have gone into the realization of this
book. Thanks to Lou Oles and Shayne Oles Suehle for their editing
of the 1967 edition of the Guidebook; to Tom Goldwasser, Susan Ja-
cobowitz, and Maya Edwards for their work on the Practical Guide
to Far Eastern Macrobiotic Medicine from which several essays
have been taken; to John Clarke for cover design; and to Susan Reid,
Sylvia Zuck, Paula Markham, and all the George Ohsawa Macrobi-
otic Foundation staff who have helped bring this book to its present
form. Unending thanks to George and Lima Ohsawa.
Herman Aihara

3
 Editor’s Note
The Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living was originally published in
1947 in Japan, where it was very successful. It was translated into
English by Herman Aihara and published in 1967 by the Ohsawa
Foundation in Los Angeles, California.
In the present edition, the text of the Guidebook has been rear-
ranged slightly for clarity. Additional material on child care, which
was printed in the 1967 edition as a separate essay, has been incor-
porated in the text.
The first five essays in the Essays section are reprinted from
Practical Guide to Far Eastern Macrobiotic Medicine. “Your Bi-
ography Before Birth” appeared as a separate essay in the 1967 edi-
tion of the Guidebook. “The Seven Stages of Judgment” is reprinted
from Philosophy of Oriental Medicine. “The Order of the Universe
and the Unique Principle” is reprinted from Atomic Age and the Phi-
losophy of the Far East.

4
 Contents
Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living
Introduction ________________________________________ 7
Chapter
1 Love __________________________________________ 9
2 Marriage _____________________________________ 14
3 Family _______________________________________ 18
4 Expanding the Family ___________________________ 22
5 Baby Care _ ___________________________________ 31
6 Childhood _ ___________________________________ 39
7 The Age of Activity _____________________________ 44
8 Old Age ______________________________________ 47
9 Sickness ______________________________________ 50
10 The Secret Medicine ____________________________ 62
11 Truth is Simple _ _______________________________ 67
12 No Incurable Disease ____________________________ 73

Essays
When Will You Be Cured? ____________________________ 81
Curing the Man _ ___________________________________ 83
The Education of the Will _ ___________________________ 86
The Unique State Called Happiness _ __________________ 102
The Way of Life ___________________________________ 110
Your Biography Before Birth _________________________ 117
The Seven Stages of Judgment _ ______________________ 125
The Order of the Universe and the Unique Principle _ _____ 128
Reference Notes ___________________________________ 131
About the Author __________________________________ 132

5
 Forward to the Original Edition
I have suffered misgivings in calling this volume The Macrobiotic
Guidebook for Living since I have no qualifications as a teacher of
morals, much less the ambition to be one. My biggest desire is to
give of my years of experience in dealing with a fundamental rela-
tionship—the one that exists between food and life.
As you read you will surely conclude, and with good reason, that
I have been a gourmand all my life! I have been so big an eater that
I have surprised and frightened myself more than once.
I thus know the dangers inherent in eating through personal ex-
perience. What could be a more open confession of my struggles
with the problem of over-eating than my activity as a teacher of diet?
My big appetite would surely have brought me to an early, mis-
erable death had I not been engaged in an unending search for the
secret of food. It was most fortunate that near the end, when I was
almost dead, I found macrobiotics.
George Ohsawa
Japan, 1947

6
 Introduction
I believe that we cannot achieve anything important if we do not
have a strong stomach. If we cannot eat all things, we are unhappy.
As the result of understanding macrobiotics, I can now maintain
health and happiness while eating anything I desire. My writing is
the condensation of such understanding and experience.
I have met so many unhappy people in my life—they consult me
every day. I can sympathize with them since I myself was once such
a person. After hearing about my experiences, they imitate the way
of living I have evolved and soon overcome their difficulties. This is
what has made me more and more confident in the macrobiotic way
of life.
During one of my seminars I visually diagnosed an old woman
who sat in front of me. It was very obvious to me that she had been
separated from her husband and I told her so. “Yes, I have been alone
thirty years,” she replied, startled. For a long time she had been eat-
ing the things that could cause such separation—sugar, fruit, or gen-
erally yin (expansive) food—and it showed in her physical make-up.
She was impotent, could not conceive, and had developed a hatred
for men which caused them to avoid her instinctively. Her life had
long been a miserable one.
Our faces mirror two things: 1) the food eaten by our mothers
from the time of conception; and 2) what we have eaten since birth.
Mr. Nanboku Mizuno, an authority on the diagnosis of an in-
dividual’s past and future, fate, and character, was asked how one
could reach his level of understanding and possess his secret. “Study
everyday food,” was his answer. Mizuno, a masseur in a Turkish
bath, talked with countless numbers of people every day during his
work. He endlessly engaged in the small talk that covered an indi-
vidual’s constitution, parentage, and place of birth. After many years
of this kind of experience, he worked out the relationship between
facial characteristics, bone structure, fate, character, and food.
Like Nanboku, I have learned much from observing people.
Their constitutions and faces tell me what their daily eating has been.
7
8 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

At times, this is troublesome because when I see an individual, I see

food. Some people look like fruit or sugar, others look like milk,
eggs, steak, or ham! And as soon as I see what their daily food in the
past has been, I can picture their everyday life at the present—their
families, friendships, financial problems, thoughts, character and
mentality. I can tell when and how a woman’s menstruation occurs
and what the condition of her ovaries is. In short, I can see whether
the person before me is happy or unhappy.
Recently I met a man who had come to Japan to preach religion.
Noting his eyebrows, I foresaw misfortune in his future. His inabil-
ity to give up eating the one particular bad food prohibited by his re-
ligion was very obvious. I realized he was a hypocrite. Nevertheless,
fifty people listened to him lecture and were much moved; I myself
learned very much from him. And yet I wondered about his future.
Only yesterday I attended a group meeting of prominent people
in the field of economics where we discussed him. It was revealed
that my foreign friend had been purged from his religious organiza-
tion; he was openly called a liar. This confirmed my diagnosis of him
on the basis of food.
Good luck or bad, happiness or unhappiness, longevity or early
death, wisdom or stupidity, beauty or ugliness, goodness or bad-
ness—all are determined by eating. When we understand this fully,
we see that men are neither good nor bad; they are only the products
of good or bad eating.
The Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living is devoted to our destiny
in life, our happiness or unhappiness as based on food. It thus differs
widely from the sort of guidance for life offered in the writings of
many great men.
George Ohsawa
 Chapter 1

Love
Food and the phenomena of life are very closely related; where there
is no food, there are no phenomena of life. Growth, size, strength,
wisdom, ignorance, ideas, attitudes, activities, the rise and fall of
race and nation—all are affected. They are determined and con-
trolled by what we eat and drink. Love and marriage, the fundamen-
tals of social living, are no exceptions to this rule.
It is common knowledge that there are no bigger drives in our
lives than sexual desire and hunger for food. There has been much
discussion as to which is more primary. Even those who have man-
aged to detach themselves from sexual desire find that the need for
nourishment is with them always. Hunger is the most powerful mo-
tivation for man. If we do not eat for a long enough period of time,
we die. The profound influence of hunger is felt as long as we live.
Whoever wants to realize the full strength of his hunger has only to
fast for a few days.
I do not mean to play down the strength of sexual desire; his-
tory is witness to the intensity of its force. It has undone heroes and
brought emperors to the level of the common man. It has even given
birth to the saying, “Behind every crime is a woman.”
On the simplest level, we are alive because of our appetite for
food. If we are at all thankful for that life, we are expressing our grat-
itude for the hunger that is its driving force. He who has a healthy
appetite can enjoy the simplest meal. Who can afford to be without
it?
I believe that any concept of the universe that claims to be the
true way for man, the path that leads to complete fulfillment, must
teach a practical method for achieving the following goals:
9
10 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

1. the hunger without which individual life ceases to exist, and

2. the sexual love that underlies all social living—that of race, na-
tion, and all humanity.
This is macrobiotics.
* * *
Within the range of human desire, craving for food appears
very early—the first day after birth. When we hear a baby cry for
its mother’s milk and then see it at the breast, we are witnessing the
miraculous power of the will to live.
At the age of seven or eight, a child shows signs of intellectual
desire—the need to know. At the same time, an awareness of the
opposite sex comes into being. Around fourteen, girls commence
to menstruate, while boys become manly in structure and character
at about sixteen. The biological structure of a female is complete
by twenty-one; she is then ready for motherhood. Boys in turn are
physiologically prepared for parenthood and seek out the opposite
sex as they approach twenty-four.
These are the ages of love for both male and female and are in-
evitable. Although the precise periods may differ slightly from one
race or nation to another, they generally follow this pattern.
One thing is certain: if by the ages of twenty-one for girls and
twenty-four for boys the desire for the opposite sex has not appeared,
it is not only unnatural but a sign of deep illness. It is caused by eat-
ing habits that are not in accord with the orderliness of the universe.
A grave dietary error has been made during the first seven years for
the female or the first eight years for the male. Those who carefully
observe the macrobiotic diet avoid this difficulty. They are strongly
attracted sexually and know the joys of love. It is interesting that
physiological and spiritual changes occur in cycles of seven years
for the female (at seven, fourteen, twenty-one, etc.). Biologically
speaking, the cells of the human organism are completely changed
every seven years. Girls, more yang at birth than boys, are drawn
to yin foods and change rapidly in accord with this biological law.
Boys, more yin when born, are attracted to yang with the result that
change for them is slower—every eight years. Here we see the key
to the biological superiority of the female.
For example, women are mature by the age of twenty-eight (four
 Love 11

times seven) and a strong sexual life begins for them. No wonder
that these have been called the dangerous and troublesome years.
At thirty-five (five times seven) they become quieter and a spiritual
quality begins to show itself. At forty-two (six times seven) their
spiritual life has deepened; at forty-nine (seven times seven) men-
struation and sexual life cease and women become peaceful at last.
Boys mature as men at thirty-two (four times eight). At forty
(five times eight) the spiritual life begins and has deepened enough
by the age of forty-eight (six times eight) for them to become think-
ers; steadiness becomes very apparent. A man begins harvesting the
fruits of his life at fifty-six (seven times eight); at sixty-four (eight
times eight) his sexual life ends and his true, peaceful life of deepest
spirituality commences.
For both sexes, six times their cycle (forty-eight for men and
forty-two for women) marks the dividing line between the physical
and the spiritual life. From this time on, they are more and more de-
tached from the materialistic flesh and can attain a spirituality that is
peaceful and eternal; they are free.
There are those people whose lives are so divorced from the or-
derliness of nature that they never enter this realm; they spend all
their years involved with sex and appetite and are most unfortunate.

* * *
It is one of the primordial laws of nature that yin and yang are
strongly attracted to one another. In the case of male (yang) and fe-
male (yin), the attraction must be strong enough for them to be able
to hold together in an enduring, happy marriage.
At the seventh year, the female begins to develop distinctly fem-
inine characteristics and the male, distinctly masculine ones. From
here on, if care is taken, girls become progressively more feminine
(yin) and boys more masculine (yang). It has been traditional in
many cultures, notably the Oriental ones, to separate boys and girls
as much as possible from this time on. They neither sit together nor
play together in schools or playgrounds and are kept somewhat apart
until marriage.
The characteristics that distinguish one sex from the other are
given little chance to become blurred by the familiarity that results
12 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

from continuous social contact. Yin becomes more yin and yang
more yang. Nurtured thus, the power to attract the opposite sex has
the opportunity to grow as strong as possible. (Brothers and sisters
of course are the exception to the rule of separation, since they live
under the same roof and cannot avoid being together. Can this be
the reason why they are sexually attracted to one another only under
abnormal circumstances?)
After fourteen to eighteen years such females will have devel-
oped their full yin potential, males their full yang potential. This is
particularly so if they have followed a macrobiotic way of living.
Yang represents centripetal force and yin centrifugal force. So, in
love, the male (yang on the surface) is aggressive, while the female
(yin on the surface) is passive. This is a natural phenomenon. In fact
the whole idea of love is natural—as natural as the appetite for food.
It is a false idea to treat it as either divine or sinful.
The attitudes of men and women towards all things are exactly
the opposite, just as yang and yin are opposed to one another. At the
age of thirty-two (four times eight) a man becomes concerned with
materialistic matters such as business, occupation, or position in life;
he becomes a pragmatist. The woman of twenty-eight (four times
seven), on the other hand, is involved with more abstract, romantic
ideas; she is the romantic.
In love, man is the hunting dog in pursuit of the rabbit—oblivi-
ous of mountain, valley, or stream. He sees the game, never the sur-
roundings; he feels the joy of the chase, never the difficulty. Woman
by contrast is the rabbit—she desperately seeks a place to hide.
When a rabbit does not flee but follows or even chases the dog,
the situation is no longer a natural one; she is either sick, or cruel,
or both...a wolf in rabbit’s clothing! After marriage, such a rabbit
will either kill her mate by making his life miserable or take off after
another dog and disappear. Whoever understands this will find suc-
cess in love.
“Love is blind,” noted writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare,
Coleridge, and Emerson. With the appearance of love, life inevita-
bly becomes complicated. Everything is affected when it bursts in
upon us; love adds depth, beauty, and art to an existence that would
be tasteless without it. There are countless stories in the literature of
 Love 13

every country that express the many facets of this moving drama.
Sometimes the power of love is so strong that we are overwhelmed
and can understand neither its significance nor its meaning in our
lives.
How important that so powerful an emotion be properly direct-
ed! Our life is a tragedy if we fail. And how easy it is to establish this
good direction if we follow a macrobiotic way of eating!
It is interesting and amusing that in old age we find that this
emotion has dwindled away like a pebble disappearing into a pool of
water. That it was once so irresistible is hard to believe.
To sum up, the man who takes too many sweets in boyhood will
become impotent in adolescence; too much meat will make him cruel
and violent in his sexual behavior. The greatest misfortune, however,
has befallen the individual who eats a combination of extreme foods
(sweets, meat, dairy products, coffee, laboratory-produced foods)
that eventually leave him with no sexual life at all.
Study the culture of any country—art, biography, drama, history,
movies, novels, philosophy, poetry—and keep in mind eating habits.
You will soon see the close connection between nourishment and
love. You will understand why those who grow up macrobiotically
can control their sexuality.
This is but one practical application of the yin-yang theory; the
“Unique Principle” of macrobiotics.1
 Chapter 2

Marriage
Marriage has been called the graveyard of love. I myself have seen
so few happily married couples that I am inclined to agree. Since
love is often only blindly emotional or instinctual, marriage usually
ends in sadness and bitterness.
We all seek happiness in our lives. Yet most of us forget that
married life—the wellspring from which the family grows—can and
must be the factory that produces this happiness. What makes a fam-
ily happy? Mental and physical health, first of all. Macrobiotics is
the most practical, easy way to fulfill this requirement. Out of my
small fund of experience and knowledge I have concluded that:
1. the fundamental material for the factory of married life is food,
and
2. the principle that guides us in dealing with this material and
gives it order is the Unique Principle.
The Unique Principle has its basis in the orderliness of the uni-
verse in which we live. It is fundamental not only to politics, eco-
nomics, and the arts, but to physics, chemistry, industry, agriculture,
and commerce as well. It is the primary principle of creation, growth,
and all religion.
With the Unique Principle as my basis, I have come to believe
that for married life to be a source of happiness for both male and
female, the following must prevail:

Physical Condition of Men

The ages most suitable for marriage are approximately twenty-
four to twenty-eight. The individual’s physical condition must be
good from the standpoint of macrobiotics, or, at the very least, he
must have an understanding of this ancient wisdom. If a woman
14
 Marriage 15

wants to choose a suitable husband, she had best test his attitude
toward or reaction to it.
The easiest way to diagnose a man’s condition is as follows:
first, look at his ears. They are not a barometer of present health but
one’s destiny or fate. If a man has been raised macrobiotically he
will have large ears that lie flat against his head; the earlobes will be
soft. If the lobes are exceedingly long, he will be a successful leader
or very rich. There will be a happy ending to his life. A man whose
ears stick out or have small lobes or no lobes at all will often suffer
both physical and mental difficulties in his life. This general rule
applies to Occidentals and Africans as well as Orientals. The impor-
tance of this part of the body has long been recognized throughout
the world and has found expression in the widespread custom of
wearing an earring. Primitive peoples have long honored those who
possess the ear described above. (Note statues of Buddha and native
African sculpture.)

Physical Condition of Women

Females are best suited for marriage during the years from eigh-
teen to twenty-two, although there certainly are many women who
make good wives after they have reached the age of thirty. The ear
is just as important for them as it is for men. In addition, however,
we must consider the eyes, nose, lips, and teeth. If a female has bad
teeth, her organs are bound to be worse; to marry her can be tragic.
Since she is the original source of nourishment for the children she
may bear, her ability to chew—so vital for everyone—is of even
greater importance. As the mothers of our sons, women must be
healthier than their men. Nevertheless, please do not be worried,
discouraged, or feel that all is lost if you see yourself in the above
description. You can change all things through macrobiotics.

Mental Condition of Men

The most important characteristic for a man is bravery. In ad-
dition, he must also have the following traits: strength, reliability,
firmness, adaptability, courage, and tolerance. Such a man wakes up
early in the morning with a clear head and bright outlook. He is not
an eater of sweets nor a big drinker of alcohol.
16 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

The brave man must have a well-supported body; his feet must
be surely and firmly on the ground. He wears the bottoms of his
shoes evenly. If he wears the toe or heel on either side, he does not
fulfill the above conditions.

Mental Condition of Women

The most important characteristics for women are self-denial,
tolerance, sweetness, and punctuality—in a word, womanliness. I
do not imply that a woman must be obedient. I simply mean that she
should not be stubborn. If you are interested in changing a stubborn
woman into a sweet girl, you will have a very interesting marriage.
A French poet once said, “Never hit a woman, not even with a
flower.” Unfortunately, the woman who merits such treatment is rare
today. In Japan, they say “You must hit a woman, and with a stone
if necessary.” Do not marry such a woman, however. If you find the
need to hit her, she will never be a good woman even if you do.

* * *
Before you marry, study your future mate’s character and that
of his or her parents; consider their viewpoints and family life. A
strong family heritage and tradition is much more important than
knowledge or education. Better that people be poor and steeped in
tradition than rich and without a heritage; they are more likely to be
deep and serious-minded.
If we compare life to a voyage, man is the pilot of the ship—the
captain who at times must fight a raging tempest. Woman is the en-
gineer or fireman. Her job requires tolerance, punctuality, and gentle
strength.
Even if we marry with care we often end in sadness because of
poor judgment. It is the combined judgment of husband and wife,
working together, that goes into building a happy family. Together-
ness is most important, for only through the cooperation and effort
of both husband and wife can a happy family result. Epictetus said,
“Everyone is happy. If not, it is his own fault.”
The choice of raw materials is a fundamental consideration in
the building of any structure; in the case of the family it consists
of what we eat and drink every day. I recommend macrobiotic eat-
 Marriage 17

ing and drinking because it can lead to absolute health, and is eco-
nomical as well. If you have a successful marriage but do not follow
macrobiotics, you are courting disaster. If your marriage is already
unsuccessful, you can change it radically for the better through
macrobiotics.
Men tend to lead women mentally and theoretically; women
tend to lead men physiologically. Men must try to love while women
must strive to be loved; one is aggressive, the other passive.
To make one’s self lovable sounds simple but in reality it is quite
difficult. Many women have the idea that men have a natural obliga-
tion to love them, i.e., that women have the natural right to be loved.
They don’t consider whether or not they deserve love, nor do they
make any attempt to make themselves lovable. I think this attitude
is wrong for this reason: prior to the right to be loved comes the re-
quirement that you make yourself someone to be loved. Love comes
only to those who try to be loved; only a very unhappy person does
not even make an attempt. The woman who tries to be loved will be
happy in the end even if she marries a bad husband because the effort
itself brings great happiness.
Our life looks short at times but in reality it is quite long. If after
one or even five years you are tired of the chore of building a happy
marriage, you are not macrobiotic.
All of us readily agree that tolerance is a virtue. Since we are hu-
man beings and not as tolerant as God, however, we find it difficult
to turn the other cheek and like or love what we have come to hate.
Such a high degree of understanding in our practical, everyday life
is hard to achieve.
Macrobiotics can be of great help here. It teaches that bad char-
acter and behavior are only superficial; if we judge a man by them,
it does not give us a true picture of the individual. They are simply
the product of a long period of bad eating and poor living condi-
tions—environment. If we understand this, we can transmute hatred
into sympathy, bitterness into pity.
So...for a happy life, women must strive to deserve love; men
must endeavor to love. Since the prerequisite for both is eating and
living according to the order in nature—macrobiotics—I feel it nec-
essary to make clear the method whereby this can be done.
 Chapter 3

Family
The family has always been a primary consideration in traditional
cultures. Because it is the basic building block of society, much de-
pends upon its condition. If it is unhealthy, the nation is sick; if it is
unhappy, the nation is miserable.
The creation of a healthy family is very difficult because in addi-
tion to the material, practical factors involved, there is the spiritual,
intangible aspect to be considered. A strong will and a great amount
of effort are required.
Man’s first step toward becoming a social being was his creation
of the family unit. With this, he unknowingly entered the realm of
art, because the growth of a happy family is dynamic, never static.
There is incessant activity, constant change, and the need for endless
creativity.
I deeply admire those who have been successful at this task—
a warm, bright family is the resting place of the soul, the root of
life, and the spring of vitality. If our household is gloomy, sad and
cold, life is so miserable; we are bound to search elsewhere for joy,
pleasure, and comfort. How often have the strongest and most de-
pendable men been forced into this position! No matter how brave a
man is, if his wife is not gentle, their home will always be cold and
without joy and their children will be unhappy.
William Pitt, the British politician, once said, “My success to-
day is due solely to the efforts of my wife. She has made my home
lovely and joyful, a place in which I find rest and a source for my
activity.” The wife of Socrates, by contrast, threw buckets of water
on him while he was thinking. Confucius, in turn, felt that “women
and small-minded men are hard to communicate with.”
The wife of Jinsai Ito (the Shintoist scholar who brought Chi-
18
 Family 19

nese philosophy to Japan one hundred years ago) never bothered her
husband with financial matters. During the time that he was thinking
and studying, she did not disturb him even though she never knew if
they would eat the next day. In spite of the fact that their life was a
struggle and full of hardship, the whole family lived with hope and
confidence because of her. There was happiness and joy, no matter
what was lacking financially.
Whether a home is happy or not depends upon the health of its in-
habitants. Emerson said, “Health is the first condition of happiness.”
If we are without it, we cannot achieve anything even though we
have money, knowledge, good children, or a good mate. A healthy
family is a happy, joyful one.
Here the importance of the mother or wife cannot be overem-
phasized. In her hands lies control of the life source, the well-spring
of power—the kitchen. She must be willing to acknowledge the im-
portance and dangers of food. She must have clarity of mind and
be gentle, careful, tolerant, clever. She must know and understand
macrobiotics and be capable of applying her knowledge at all times.
Some people understand macrobiotics very quickly; others take
time. Scientists of repute have found it difficult to understand and
apply while poor laborers have understood quickly and applied it
very easily. In the field of macrobiotics, it does not matter whether
you are well-educated and successful, or just a workman. All must
start from the beginning.
The individual who understands macrobiotics knows and is
thankful for:
a. the wonder of living,
b. the value of living,
c. the joy of living,
d. the aim or purpose of living, and
e. that which is the greatest happiness of living.
He is always considering important things such as the value, the
aim, and the joy of existence. He is happy to be alive.
No schooling is needed for us to be able to think about such big
questions and reach valid conclusions. Formal education actually
stands in the way of our considering them. There is no specially-
20 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

learned method by which to deal with matters like these; all that is
needed is a gentle, humble, and unassuming mind, and the answers
present themselves.
Today, however, no one has the time or inclination to consider
such questions even superficially. We are too busy worrying about
health, security, or unpredictables like the stock market or the pos-
sibility of revolution.
But even if you are a millionaire now, you can be a beggar to-
morrow morning as the result of earthquake, storm, riot, panic, theft,
or betrayal.
To understand the importance of food—macrobiotics—is essen-
tial if we are not to become inextricably involved in the petty details
of living. Without macrobiotics, our families and lives are miserable
even if we have the good fortune to achieve high honor or position.
In fact, the greater the honor or position or fortune, the greater the
misery.
My belief is that an understanding of macrobiotics is fundamen-
tal to living; it is a study that must be undertaken by both husband
and wife. Only thus can the family be joyful, bright, restful, and a
prime source of energy.
First of all, the wife or mother must establish her own health;
the health of her husband and children will follow. The kitchen is
the pharmacy of life, and she is the pharmacist. She is the planner of
culture, the director of the play. She determines whether it is tragic
or joyful. Though her husband may be cruel, stubborn, or stupid,
the wife who understands macrobiotics well enough can change him
even if it takes three, five, ten, or twenty years. The longer it takes
and the more difficulties there are to overcome, the greater the sig-
nificance of her achievement. The biggest task always takes the lon-
gest time.
In this sense, the evolution of humanity depends primarily upon
the judgment of women. If women only realized their own signifi-
cance, if they could only see that happiness or unhappiness for all
depends primarily on them, their everyday difficulties would lend a
very large joy to their lives. The wife who marries a stupid husband,
therefore, is that much more happy because she faces a bigger task.
If I were a woman, I would clean house with love. I would think,
 Family 21

“How joyful, how rewarding is our life!” Whether cooking or scrub-

bing, polishing or dusting, I would think, “I am creating life.”
I remember Mme. Nutron, wife of a doctor of science, in whose
home I lived while on a visit to France. When she cleaned her three-
story house from 8:00 to 11:00 each morning, she was always sing-
ing. She understood that the act of changing something that is dirty
into something that is clean is real joy; it is creation itself. Pleasure-
seeking, by contrast, is not joy for there is no true creativity in it. Joy
is the result of change, and women are in a position to bask in this
kind of joy.
 Chapter 4

Expanding the Family

Sex
I have not discussed sexual life for good reason. If you follow
the Order of Nature, your sexual life will become orderly. If it is out
of order, we can conclude that your whole life is the same, and espe-
cially in the realm of eating.
The consequences of disorder in diet and general living are many
and varied. One sad result is the need for birth control on the part of
men or women by internal or external means. Another is the overly
masculine young lady who has an excess of hair on various parts of
her body or the feminized young boy who has no hair at all. Such
people are certain to be unhappy.
If a husband and wife are healthy and have a proper balance of
yin (expansive) and yang (contractive) factors in their diet and sur-
roundings, they will give birth to equal numbers of boys and girls. If
all the children are girls, the family is too extravagant and eating too
richly. Such a family will see tragedy or unhappiness. It is a better
indication if all of the offspring are boys. Alternation, however, is
best—boy, girl, boy, girl, etc.
The apparently healthy woman who cannot conceive is not bal-
ancing her food well. Her diet is usually very high in fruit or sugar
and other confections. Yet she need not give up hope even if she has
not conceived for ten years. If she starts eating macrobiotically, she
will soon be able to have a baby.
Many women today submit to abortion in spite of the fact that it
can spoil their health. Poor health and sadness are the guilty burden
of those who go against the law of nature. This is true Justice.

22
 Expanding the Family 23

Heredity
At this point I should like to discuss the modern theory of hered-
ity and criticize it from the standpoint of macrobiotics.
Modern baby care is based on the theory of heredity, a hypoth-
esis and as-yet unproven concept. Darwin’s theory of evolution is
similar in that we cannot accept it as a positive truth—it is also in
the hypothetical stage. Just as Malthus’s theory of population has
disappeared, so will both the heredity and evolution theories fade
into disuse because they are not based on a concrete, fundamental
principle. How can we discuss life or health on the basis of such
flimsy suppositions?
The heredity theory, for example, proposes that we marry a ge-
netically sound individual in order to produce a healthy baby. In
theory, a person’s faulty genes demand that he choose a mate who
is as unfortunate as he is; he may even decide not to marry at all if
he takes this concept seriously enough. Thinking of this sort is too
egoistic and produces tragic results—for example, a mother killing
the baby that she feels is basically unsound.
The same theory suggests that character is inherited, that weak
parents make a weak child. But even healthy parents can produce a
weak child, while weak parents have produced many a healthy one.
If weak character is inherited, if such is the legacy of an infant, God
must be unfair because such an infant has trouble all his life without
deserving it. He is punished without having ever committed a crime.
I believe that God is absolutely fair in every sense of the word.
God gives us life, and health is the true condition for that life. God
gives everyone health. Just look at nature! All creatures seem ca-
pable of adapting to their environment and remaining healthy; they
never create unnatural things or deformity. Only human beings, the
conquerors of nature, lose their health and produce these things or
situations that are unnatural.
There is no proof whatever for the dogmatic assertion that cer-
tain illnesses are inherited. Myopia (nearsightedness) is a case in
point. It would seem that the whole idea of heredity serves as noth-
ing more than an elaborate camouflage for a fundamental ignorance
of the cause of illness. I cannot agree with the theory, simply because
24 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

I have seen so many of the diseases labeled as hereditary respond to

natural food.
It is said that an individual’s constitution is inherited, be it weak
or healthy. Yet a healthy person can produce a weak child. Why?
Modern medicine, without having given the subject the deep thought
it merits, has grasped at the opportunity to avoid the whole problem
by calling early weakness in the human being congenital. But after
all, what is “congenital”? Is it hereditary? What is “hereditary”? Is
it congenital? I patiently await the time when someone will explain
the mechanism of heredity. I have not yet met the man who could.
The genetic theory suggests that a child’s character is inherited
from its parents. If this were true, every scholar’s child would be
wise, a beauty’s child would be lovely to look at, and the son of
a nearsighted man would have bad eyes. Our lives, predetermined,
would always be as miserable as those of our parents. We can, how-
ever, be happy in the thought that a scholar can produce a dullard, a
criminal can sire a saint, and a blind man can father an infant with
perfect eyes.
In most cases, a baby has no knowledge of delinquency, is im-
mune to sickness, and is never nearsighted. On the contrary, he is
farsighted and can see the stars and sun very clearly. With growth,
however, his line of sight shortens and he progressively sees best
those things that are closest to him.
All people start from the same point. It is only through diet and
much effort that they become scholars, saints, or big businessmen.
Modern medicine is alarmed by birth defects but the macrobiotic
person is not; he knows that diet can correct them. Furthermore, he
knows that the child of a macrobiotic woman will not have them. For
example, if a baby has sores that run continuously, modern medicine
suggests treatment that alleviates the symptom but never actually
cures the patient. The macrobiotic diet, however, heals diseases at
their source.
Experience over thousands of years indicates that all congenital
weakness is caused by the mother since it is the food that she takes in
that determines how her baby will develop. This is true for syphilis
as well as any other disease the baby may have at birth.
My sole reason for mentioning heredity at all is to do what I can
 Expanding the Family 25

to quiet the fears of those women who are so anxious because of

prevalent scientific theories.

Pregnancy
Life becomes more complicated as the factory of happiness ex-
pands. It gives birth to its first product—a lovely baby. The creation
of new life is so difficult that to take care of that life is our most
important job. Should we fail at this task we can know no happiness
at all.
Preparation for the production of a strong and happy baby begins
before pregnancy. About forty years ago, the mortality rate for in-
fants in Japan was 255,000 per year—one death every two minutes.
The generally accepted cause for this tragedy was birth defects. Yet
the fact that these birth defects went hand in hand with the careless
diet and disordered life of the mothers, both before and during preg-
nancy, was complete overlooked.

Death Rate from Birth Defects in Osaka, Japan

(Note that the increase in birth defects parallels the popularity
or acceptance of Western nutrition in Japan.)
Year Number of Deaths
1925 1598
1926 1604
1927 1547
1928 2283
1929 2085
1930 2107
1931 2200
1932 2230
1933 2622
1934 2663
1935 3117

Macrobiotics is not merely another point of view regarding nu-

trition, or just another opinion in a field overrun with theories about
calories, vitamins, minerals, and economics. Its essence is humble
gratitude and appreciation for that which produces food—sun, earth,
26 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

air, water, energy, the metabolism of the universe, and the effort ex-
pended by all of humanity or society.
To feel this gratitude and have such an understanding of nature
and the source of life during pregnancy has always been consid-
ered of fundamental importance in the Orient. It was called taikyo
or “education for pregnancy” by the early Chinese saints, and was
known by the same name in Japan. This education has been for-
gotten in the modern world because people have grown to be more
concerned with pleasures, taste, or calories. Their outlook on life
is predominantly materialistic; they have forgotten about gratitude
and spirituality. This is why the modern generation rarely produces
offspring whose mental and physical conditions are well-balanced.
One of the basic precepts of taikyo deals with the atmosphere
that surrounds a pregnant woman. The understanding is that she
should read a book of religious or moral teaching each morning.
She should not look at strong colors or come into contact with other
strong stimuli. She should not look at cruel things or read stories
about cruelty.
It is interesting that even in France it is said that pregnant women
had better not go to the cinema or drama or read novels of any kind.
In modern times, unfortunately, both the Orient and the Occident
have forgotten this ancient wisdom. If you deeply desire to have a
happy, healthy baby, you would be well-advised to follow this teach-
ing.

* * *
During pregnancy, a woman’s diet must be more strict than ever
because the destiny of her child is being determined. In nine months,
the primary cell multiplies three billion times. (By way of contrast,
our weight multiplies only twenty times from birth to the age of
twenty.) All the evolutionary biological transformations are re-en-
acted during that period: monocell, plankton, algae, fish, slug, leech,
invertebrate, reptile, monkey, etc. During this time, the fetus is fed
only by what its mother eats. If that food has been correct, a strong
baby will be born.
Since the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and all other physical charac-
teristics are being formed at this time, they are directly affected by
 Expanding the Family 27

the mother’s diet. If the mother eats fish every day, the baby’s nose
will be flat. If she eats more vegetables than grains, or if she eats
meat very often, the ear is small and without a lobe. This is called a
“poor man’s ear” in Japan. The person with such an ear can become
very unhappy and at times very destructive. A good ear is large, has
a lobe, and is flat against the head. The baby with an ear like this can
become a great man.
The woman who produces a child with a triangular nose which
has a base equal to the width of the mouth; deep, quiet eyes; and
large ears has good reason for being happy.
If a woman bears twins, triplets, or quadruplets; if her baby is
born feet first; if a woman cannot conceive, she can only blame her-
self and her poor diet.
If you follow the macrobiotic principle and encounter any one of
these problems, you can easily correct it. Best of all, it is not likely
that they will ever arise in the first place because you will have made
yourself immune to them through macrobiotics. This even applies
to those diseases that a parent carries. They will not be transmitted
to the child. Modern medicine cannot explain what is referred to as
“immunity.” Macrobiotically speaking, it is produced by righteous
food. He who eats righteous food never worries about syphilis or
gonorrhea. Babies are free from all such diseases if the mother has
eaten correctly. Fortunately, those infants who do suffer from them
can be healed completely by macrobiotic food.

Diet During Pregnancy. The main food should be brown rice, or-
ganically grown in your immediate area if possible. If there is no
brown rice available, use rye, millet, buckwheat, corn, or any whole
grain cereal which has been eaten traditionally in that area.
The side dishes should consist of vegetables in season, sauteed.
Eat four to five mouthfuls of cereal for each mouthful of vegetables.
It is best to avoid potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant.
Never use fruit (raw or cooked), sugar, candy, ice cream, or dairy
products.
Have miso soup once each day.
Never use meat.
You may eat fish occasionally. When you do, choose small fish
28 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

and eat them whole. Discard no parts and always cook three times
more vegetables than fish. When cooking either fish or vegetables,
do not discard any part. Use the skin and bones of the fish, the root
of the vegetable.
Use Koi-koku (carp soup) or salted salmon cooked with hiziki,
kombu (two varieties of seaweed), and a very small amount of bam-
boo shoot (available in the United States in canned form only); plus
the dish called kinpira. A combination of aduki beans and kombu
seaweed would also be very good.
Pickled foods are acceptable provided that they have been in
brine (salt only, no vinegar!) for a very long time, e.g., daikon rad-
ishes that have been pickled for three years, umeboshi plums that
have been in salt for three years, or raw vegetables that have been
pickled in miso (soy bean paste) for two to three years.
Eat new pickles only during the hot summer; even then take only
one or two ounces per meal. Some people recommend fresh pickles
or fruit salad as a source of vitamin C. I am very sad to hear this be-
cause they can be a source of great danger to both mother and fetus.
Do not eat desserts that are very yin (expansive), i.e., those con-
taining sugar, honey, or artificial sweeteners. If you like desserts, eat
the following:
a. brown rice mochi (pounded rice cake) dusted with soybean
flour;
b. brown rice mochi baked with tamari soy sauce;
c. brown rice mochi combined with mugwort (a wild grass);
d. sweet rice cooked with aduki beans;
e. sushi (rice rolled in nori seaweed) without vinegar;
f. thick aduki soup with added salt, mochi and winter squash.
Do not eat between meals with the possible exception of items
listed directly above.
Do not drink more than sixteen ounces of liquid per day. Brown
rice tea, brown rice soup, grain coffee, and grain milk (kokkoh) are
very good.2
The following foods should not be taken: tuna, sardines, shrimp,
crab, and mackerel (cooked, canned, or fresh) since they are too
yang (contractive); all fruits, sugar, cakes, tomatoes, potatoes, egg-
plant, and ice because they are too yin (expansive).
 Expanding the Family 29

When eating, posture should be good—sit erect. Before begin-

ning a meal give thanks for everything including your food.
Chew all foods very well, especially brown rice—100 times per
mouthful.

Staying Well During Pregnancy. Physical activity every day is a ne-

cessity—any sort of housework will do.
An occasional hip bath with the dried leaves of daikon radish
can be very helpful. Cook two or three bunches of dried leaves plus
a handful of salt in one gallon of water. Sit in a tub filled with enough
hot water to cover the body to the waist. Add strained cooked mix-
ture at intervals so the bath will remain strong and hot.
If you follow the macrobiotic diet, you will suffer from neither
morning sickness nor swollen legs. The individual who has not eaten
carefully and who has developed swollen legs can use a ginger com-
press on them two or three times a day. Kinpira, kombu, and aduki
beans are specifics for such a condition.
If morning sickness does occur, the treatment depends upon the
woman’s constitution. Women with yin constitutions (very white
skin, low body temperature, slow pulse, those who cannot stand hot
baths, and whose movements and speech are slow) should prepare a
special drink in the following manner:
Scrape the burnt-on carbon from an earthenware frying pan. Put
one teaspoonful of the scrapings in one cup of boiled water and
allow to settle for ten minutes. Drink the top liquid only—do not
drink the sediment. This is a Chinese medicine called fukuryukan.3
Yang women (red skin color, short temper, quick pulse, those
who have a liking for hot baths) had better drink three or four ounc-
es of fresh orange juice once or twice a day until their condition
changes.

Delivery
Since delivery is a natural physiological phenomenon, it should
not be painful. If you carefully follow the macrobiotic way, you can
have a beautiful baby quickly and easily. It is even likely that your
child will be born long before the midwife has arrived on the scene!
30 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

The woman who does have a painfully difficult delivery has

been eating incorrectly; the child born of such a delivery may very
likely be an unhappy one.
We have all heard of farm women both in Japan and in other
parts of the world who easily give birth while working in the fields.
This is difficult to comprehend if one is unaware of the importance
of good diet.
The best positions for delivery are sitting and squatting. They
permit the baby to emerge naturally in its own way. You can stay in
bed two to five days after delivery. It is best to tighten the belt4 after
delivery and sleep with a low pillow under the head.
Women should wear light clothes before, during and after deliv-
ery.
After delivery, the mother should eat strengthening foods such
as miso soup with mochi; rice kayu with umeboshi (salted plum) or
miso; and rice balls with sesame salt. Three or four days after deliv-
ery she should take tekka. Vegetables should include scallions and
daikon radish. In the morning she should eat miso soup with mochi.5
Experience in Japan has shown that the above kind of food pro-
duces the rapid healing and return to normal of the ovaries.
 Chapter 5

Baby Care
There is no special knowledge or study required as preparation for
taking care of a baby. Even animals care for their young without
a doctor or any special training, yet their offspring are strong and
rarely die while young. Modern medicine teaches that we should
take special precautions such as keeping the room warm and pro-
viding warm clothing. This is a very big mistake that weakens the
child. A baby should wear light clothing and go outdoors for one or
two hours each day even during the winter. Its room should not be
especially warm.
The care given a child by its mother is the first step in its educa-
tion, the foundation of its character.
Even though a new baby is fragile and difficult to handle, only its
mother should bathe it—not a nurse, midwife, or relative. This activ-
ity will give the mother a great and unforgettable pleasure.
The most important thing to remember is not to pamper the
child. Even if it is crying, a child should not be held other than to
give it milk. (Ohsawa’s writing on baby care is based on theory and
not on actual experience and should be taken more figuratively than
literally—use common sense in all situations. Ed.)
While nursing, the mother must study, read, or think. Above all,
she should not allow herself to be controlled by her child. When it
has been fed, the baby should be left alone. A child that cries when
it is not hungry must be ill; again we find the fault in its mother’s
incorrect diet.
Never allow bed-wetting and dispense with diapers after the
child is three days old. You will learn to recognize the signs of its
need to eliminate—they usually occur after waking, and if you be-
come aware of them you will encounter no difficulties. Give your
31
32 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

child as few toys as possible. Never give inflammable toys.

The best type of clothing for a child is cotton because it strength-
ens the skin. If the cloth is dyed, the dye should be natural and never
of the harmful type. White cotton cloth that is light and loose is best.
Children should never be bound tight like a package. They are
yang (active and aggressive) and must have the freedom to move.
A macrobiotic child is free from toothaches, diphtheria, pneu-
monia, and the other usual children’s diseases. He is usually easy
to raise—a joyful, happy jewel in the family. His young mother is
happy because by raising such a child she is contributing in a large
way to the process of building a happy life.

Appearance of the Infant

A healthy baby should be red and small. If its skin color is
white or green, it will have an unhappy and troubled life. If you are
not macrobiotic, there is a good chance that you will have such a
baby. Nevertheless, you have no need to worry. An understanding
of macrobiotics will enable you to change your infant’s color to a
healthy red.
Recently, a large French newspaper analyzed a phenomenon that
no one can explain: the human race is growing progressively taller.
The average length and weight of babies at birth is also increasing.
Why is this? Anyone who has studied the Unique Principle has the
means of solving this problem. Large babies are more yin, reflecting
an increase in yin foods in the diet of the mothers.
Up to the age of six years, the macrobiotic child is smaller than
others. He takes long in learning to walk, his body is thin and mus-
cular, and he is quick, calm and alert. From the age of six, he begins
growing at a normal rate.
A large body is not necessarily a sign of health. Remember:
spiritual growth can be infinite. Physiological growth has its natural
limits. The larger the body, the smaller the spirit.
An infant’s hair should be fair and soft at birth. If during preg-
nancy, however, the mother has taken much fruit, tomato/cucumber
salads, or other yin foods, the hair will be hard and dark. The body
must be small, red, and hard. If there is a birthmark it should be on
the buttock. Fingernails should be long. The infant should weigh be-
 Baby Care 33

tween four and one-half and five pounds and must cry strongly—the
louder the better. It is not good, however, for a baby to cry unneces-
sarily as it will when left alone. Hunger should be its only reason for
crying.

Feeding the Newborn

There is no need to feed an infant during the first twenty or thirty
hours after birth, so do not be alarmed if it cries during this time.
Under most circumstances the crying is only an expression of the
need to eliminate.
The breast-feeding macrobiotic mother does not need to sterilize
her nipples, and usually produces just enough milk for her child. If
for some reason she does not have enough, cow’s milk is not advis-
able as a substitute. It is impossible to grow a strong child on the
milk of another animal. The milk of a cow is designed specifically
for her calves.
The woman with insufficient milk should eat macrobiotically,
taking koi-koku (carp soup),6 as well as miso soup with mochi. West-
ern medicine, in this case, recommends fruit and much vegetable
and animal protein in order to increase the quantity of milk and raise
the vitamin level. Please do not be deceived by this erroneous idea.
Excess fruits or vegetables may produce more milk but it will be
thin, watery, and not very nutritious.

* * *
The popular belief is that nursing will ruin a woman’s figure;
the macrobiotic viewpoint is that a woman who ages as a result of
nursing is not eating correctly. A macrobiotic mother becomes pro-
gressively more feminine. Figures notwithstanding, what is of prime
importance is the fact that even a sick mother’s milk is better for her
baby than cow’s milk. Only a cold-hearted woman could resist nurs-
ing in the face of this knowledge.
If the mother is unable to nurse, the best substitute for her milk
is special rice cream or kokkoh.7 An infant can have as much of these
foods as it desires.
34 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

Weaning and Solid Foods

Nursing is to be stopped after one year or when the child begins
to teethe since the emergence of teeth indicates that the time has
come for baby to begin chewing. Those mothers who allow a child to
nurse after this time will weaken its character and cause it to become
egoistic and exclusive.
When breast-feeding is stopped, grain milk without salt will be
the best substitute. Grain milk, cooked in a covered pan for at least
one hour on low heat and an asbestos pad, will be easily assimilated
by the child.
After the fifth month, one of the daily meals should be a cereal
cream made of rice, barley, wheat, oats or millet, cooked three to
four hours without salt, in four volumes of water. If salt is needed, it
is better to add two or three drops of tamari soy sauce or a pinch of
gomasio to the bowl after the grain is cooked. To the cereal cream,
add ten percent of vegetables steamed in their own juice in a covered
pan, and very lightly salted. Onion, carrots, leeks, pumpkins, and
cabbage may be used. Finish with a tablespoon of carrot juice or a
small amount (one teaspoon) of raw apple, a tablespoon of apple-
sauce or a small piece of baked apple.
If the infant does not gain weight due to poor digestion, the
mother will have to chew and salivate thoroughly each meal before
giving it to the baby.
At seven months, the baby will be taught mastication by chew-
ing on whole grain bread crust or a rice cake. (Incidentally, it is very
bad to give a six- or seven-month old infant crackers or biscuits con-
taining sugar or any sweetening.) During teething, a rice ball or a
piece of daikon pickle to chew on is very helpful.
In the evening, the baby will enjoy strained vegetable soup
thickened with some barley cream, wheat cream, rice or oat cream,
some whole wheat spaghetti or a well-cooked whole wheat bread
soup. Break whole grain bread in pieces and cover with boiling wa-
ter, cook for forty-five minutes, and add a small amount of strained
or pureed vegetables, or a small amount of grated apple.
A small amount of raw vegetables is a valuable source of yin
which will give the child strength and will help his growth. At the
beginning, give a tablespoon of carrot juice with a pinch of gomasio
 Baby Care 35

or a drop of tamari soy sauce. Later, when the baby has teeth, substi-
tute raw grated carrot for the juice, two or three small radishes, three
or four slices of cucumber, chopped lettuce, parsley, or dandelion
when in season.
At a later age, children may be served dandelion, spinach, wa-
tercress, turnips, oyster plants, string beans, or fresh soybeans, cut
small and cooked for a short time (nitsuke style). Some recipe varia-
tions make for easier menus.
Oven-baked vegetables are suitable for the whole family. It is
only necessary to yangize them more for the adults by adding, at the
end of cooking time, a small amount of tamari soy sauce or diluted
miso.
Place pumpkin cut in one-quarter-inch cubes, whole carrots, and
whole onions in a Pyrex dish. Sprinkle a small amount of sea salt on
the vegetables. If the vegetables are too dry, moisten at the start with
a tablespoon of water. Bake in medium oven (350 degrees) for forty-
five minutes to one hour. For a child, puree the cooked vegetables
with a fork. For the adult, cut into small slivers or slices.
Side dishes for youngsters consist of vegetables—never fish,
meat, eggs, milk or other animal products.
However, there are times when the baby will refuse all vegetable
dishes and only accept cereals. The mother should not worry or try
to force some vegetables. This will prove useless since the child is
not at all interested.
As the child grows, his food horizon may be broadened. From
the time his teeth appear, he will chew drier rice (cooked with less
water), waffles, pancakes and cakes made at home with whole grain
flours, and wheat or rye breads. Liquids should be offered only after
the meal: rice tea, three-year tea, spring water. Mu tea should not be
given to children.
When the child is one year old, the proportion of vegetables in
the main meal may be increased to twenty or thirty percent. A des-
sert may be made of cereal cream to which is added a few raisins or
currants or one-fourth of a chopped apple.

Order of Eating
To begin a meal by drinking fruit juices is very detrimental. Even
36 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

though it is now in fashion, it kills the natural appetite. Soup may be

taken at the beginning of a meal as it is always slightly salty.
A meal must begin with yang food and end with yin food. X-rays
have shown that if a meal is started with yin—salad, fruit, coffee,
cakes, juices, etc.—all of these foods remain undigested. Often these
will be forcefully eliminated by diarrhea or vomiting. If only a lump
of sugar is eaten before a meal, the whole meal goes undigested; as
it passes into the intestine, it creates gases and bad odors.

Salt
The most important of all considerations in the feeding of a child
is the amount of salt given. Caution should be exercised to make cer-
tain that it is no more than one-tenth of an adult’s daily requirements.
Too much or too little salt retards the development of the child.
But how does one determine the right amount? Bowel movements
are important. They should be yellow-orange in color. If they are too
light, white or green, a salt deficiency is indicated. If they are dark
or hard, there is an excess of salt. The feces should come away from
the diaper by simple soaking and should never be sticky.
If you coat the end of your finger with finely crushed sea salt and
the baby sucks that finger with relish, he needs salt. You have not
been salting his bottle enough. On the other hand, if a child craves
too much water or too much yin food, it only means that his food is
too salty. At this point, instead of refusing the yin or the water, you
only need to reduce the child’s intake of salt.
Remember, a few grains of salt can change everything.

Illness in Children
A child’s condition is reflected in the condition of its stool. Elim-
ination should be punctual and of a good consistency—never soft
or green. Diapers should be easy to clean without soap. If a nursing
child has diarrhea or bad-smelling green evacuations, its mother’s
diet must be checked immediately.
If the top of a baby’s head, the fontanel, has not closed after a
year and a half has passed, its mother’s milk has been imperfect. I
know of one boy whose fontanel had not closed after nine years with
the result that he could not attend school. After six months of macro-
 Baby Care 37

biotic eating, he recovered completely.

It is very seldom necessary to give specific “remedies” to chil-
dren. At all times, it is better to remember which food was consumed
on the preceding day. If there was an excess of yin given—desserts,
fruit or drinks—it is only necessary to eliminate these and every-
thing will return to normal. In extreme cases, a kuzu preparation can
be given.
Excess yang can also cause a cold. In that case, give rice without
salt, cream of rice, or, in extreme cases, a small amount of cooked
apple.

Diarrhea. Feed the child polished white rice for a day. Be sure to
wash raw rice to remove sugar or glucose coating. If diarrhea contin-
ues, dissolve a tablespoon of kuzu in a bowl of cold water, add one
small umeboshi plum or half a large one, two tablespoons of tamari
soy sauce and cook gently until liquid is clear. Give one-fourth of the
bowl for infants and one-half for an older child.

Constipation. Give well-cooked aduki beans, pureed.

Worms. Once a month, give strong mugwort tea. Boil a four-inch

twig for one-half hour in one cup of water. Boil until liquid is half
evaporated. The child should drink this tea upon arising in the morn-
ing.

Earaches. Mix one part sesame oil and one part ginger (powder or
juice). Heat the mixture until lukewarm and use a spoon to drip into
the ear. Relief is instantaneous.

Fever. Give the child a bath with water at the exact temperature of
the child, e.g., body temperature of 101 degrees, bathwater at 101
degrees.

Bruises, Wounds and Scratches. Apply boiled salted water. Out-

doors, for small scratches, clean with saliva.

* * *
38 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

In healing a sick child, the mother must rely on the infant’s in-
stinct, on the nature of its bowel movements and on her own good
sense. Above all, it is her judgment that counts. Good intentions,
sentiment, and the mechanical application of macrobiotic knowl-
edge are not enough. One must think, know what life is and under-
stand the Unique Principle.

The Joy of Parenthood

How joyful it is to witness the growth of new life, be it that of
a child, a plant, or an animal. The growth of a human being is most
amusing, however, since this tiny being plays with you, understands
you, studies you, and gives you courage and strength when you are
troubled.
You can enjoy a truly happy life only if you have a child. This
is so obvious if one spends some time at a sanitarium like one that I
visited in Europe, an old-age home for childless, lonely people. It is
very depressing.
How sad it is to give up having children only because you do not
want to take the trouble to raise them. The individual who avoids
parenthood because he wants the freedom to enjoy himself or be-
cause his income is low is a coward. True, child care is a large re-
sponsibility and very often a lot of trouble, but if you avoid such
responsibility or difficulty, you will never understand or enjoy plea-
sure, gratitude, or happiness.
Happiness only comes to those who tolerate unhappiness.
 Chapter 6

Childhood
From the very beginning the mother should not yield to the whims
of the baby. He should be allowed to play by himself, left to cry if
he does not succeed in his attempts, etc. When the child begins to
talk, to understand, his games and everyday experiences must be
utilized to teach him the Unique Principle of yin and yang. Later on,
this teaching will be continued from the questions he will ask on his
own.

Co-education
In schools, it is imperative that boys and girls be kept separate.
When boys and girls are taught together, sexuality is destroyed.
Sex is yin and yang. This yin and yang must stay separate in
order that one day they may be attracted to each other and combine
very strongly.
If hunger is physical appetite, then sex drive is biological ap-
petite. We know that appetite is caused by absence of food, thirst by
lack of drink. It is necessary to be without love in order to love.
Also of importance is that the young male child should not touch
his mother’s clothing. The young boy should always be seated next
to his father. This not only strengthens his masculine sexuality but
also helps the child break the bond with his mother and begin his
relationship with the world at large.

Diet for the Older Child

If the mother has eaten properly during pregnancy, and if the
child has had a balanced diet from birth to the age of six, he will
instinctively know which foods agree with him and will seldom take
more food than necessary. If one offers sugar to a child who has been
39
40 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

nourished macrobiotically during the embryological period, he will

spit it out. He instinctively understands the harmful effects sugar has
on his organism. If one offers him fruit, he will choose those that are
most yang: apples, strawberries, and cherries. He shows faultless
judgment.
Children should not be given animal products until they have
reached the age of fifteen or sixteen years. In fact, it is better not
to give any animal food at all to insure the highest development of
thinking power.
Modern nutrition recommends fruit and dairy products without
reservation. This is questionable since these foods in quantity are
too yin (expansive) for the average human organism. But there is
still another consideration—the social one. All the land area of our
globe is not sufficient to produce enough of these things to feed the
population of the earth. Sooner or later we will have to face the con-
sequences of the bad judgment that gave birth to this idea.
Cattle grazing and the growing of fruit are far less economical
than grain and vegetable cultivation. From the social standpoint, the
theory is unfair—it is without social justice.
There are no animals in nature other than man that take milk af-
ter they have begun to teethe. They seem to understand instinctively
that milk is only for an infant with no teeth. The child who contin-
ues to take milk until it is four or five years old will have a mineral
deficiency—weak bones.8 Excessive use of cow’s milk renders the
human child prone to meningitis in adolescence.
Modern nutrition theories advise that our diet should provide an
abundance of vitamin C, vitamin D, and calcium, but our ancestors
(especially the scholars and monks) never took such things and en-
joyed wonderful health.
I do not deny the importance of vitamins or calcium; I am not
against the theories of modern nutrition in the least. I merely say that
such a concept of nutrition, physiology, or life is incomplete and that
we cannot rely upon it as the basis for establishing health. Surely
no important scholar in modern physiology or nutrition can say that
modern nutrition is perfect; most of them, in fact, have observed that
it is quite the opposite. Within ten years, therefore, present theories
are sure to change dramatically if what has occurred in the past ten
 Childhood 41

years is any indication.

Modern nutritionists do not even agree on the amount of vita-
mins necessary for health, despite the fact that it is common knowl-
edge that such things can be dangerous if taken in too large or small
a quantity. Oxygen, for instance, is very important to life, but if it
is taken in insufficient or excessive amounts it can be fatal. Magne-
sium, too, is important, but an excess of one-half gram is lethal.
Modern science does not yet fully understand nutrition or physi-
ology. It does not know what life is; science is therefore incomplete.
For us to rely on such incomplete theories as a guide to health and
full life can be extremely dangerous.
Even if the correct amount of vitamins, magnesium, or calcium
necessary to sustain life were ever to be decided upon, we still could
not live on these alone. Life is larger than just the analytical under-
standing of its parts. For example, the airplane is an important strate-
gic weapon, yet an army cannot rely upon it alone. It is but one part
of a fighting force that consists of many components—men, ships,
tanks, guns, supply sources, etc.
It is very simple to care for a child if we follow macrobiotic eat-
ing and drinking habits. Sugar, bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, etc., are
not traditional food in the Northern Hemisphere; they are of tropical
origin.

Exercise and Play

There exists a modern superstition to the effect that tall, fat peo-
ple are healthy and that short, thin people are weak and sick. I call
this a superstition because vigorous athletes with magnificent phy-
siques and enlarged muscles seem to die early while the short, thin
weaklings often go on and on. Size apparently is not one of the main
criteria of health.
Gymnastics and exercises are unnecessary for children because
family life can provide sufficient activity to make them strong. They
can be given chores such as sweeping, mopping, or helping mother
in whatever way is possible. In this way, a child learns tolerance as
well as how to care for and respect his environment.
In France, I had a writer friend named Kukyu whose wife was a
school principal. Of their two children, the daughter always played
42 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

alone. She had few toys but was happy. Her greatest joy was a piece
of cloth that she changed into an endless number of playthings
through the use of her imagination. She played with this cloth so
much that she was called “Chiffon.”
Training such as this is good for children because it develops
harmony and unity within the home. I feel that it is most necessary
because it is so practical. In rich families where there are servants,
where the children have too many toys and no practical training like
chores, inventive playing, or hardship, they develop into melancholy,
nervous, sentimental, unhappy, weak adults. Such tragedies are the
direct product of a mother’s sentimentality in raising her children.

* * *
Scholars have written at length about child care and diet but their
methods are usually very involved and difficult to put into practice.
What we suggest in macrobiotics, by contrast, is plain and simple.
Many people wonder, “Can this be true? Is it so easy?” All I can
offer as an answer is this: look at animals in their natural surround-
ings—they live simply and eat plain, unadulterated food. Consider
the men who come from poor background and have little care as
children—they manage to become strong, important people. Indi-
viduals from rich backgrounds who have had many things given to
them, including fancy food, tend to become weak and spoiled.
Birds never plant or harvest. They are always busy, joyfully fly-
ing about and singing, yet they are always fed. In autumn they eat
dry grass; in winter they find food in the snow. They are healthy even
in the coldest weather, never troubled by heart disease, tuberculosis
or colds.
There is an old saying in China: “The best wood does not grow
in rich soil.” Strong wood thrives in the mountains where the soil
is poor and it is windy and cold. Wood easily grown in rich soil
is weak because it is not subjected to the changes in weather that
foster strength and endurance. Human life is the same. If you want
your child to be a strong man who can bear the burdens of life in
this world, give him natural food and simple surroundings. Lincoln,
Franklin and many other great men were raised in this manner.
This is the secret of child care. You will be well rewarded if you
 Childhood 43

use it.
How wonderful it is if we are poor. In the words of the Bible,
“The rich cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Give up the desire
for wealth, comfort, and pleasure, for true happiness comes only to
the humble, simple, just people in this life.
We are children of nature. In macrobiotics the belief is that to
follow the Order of the Universe is happiness itself. The unhappy,
the sick, and the ignorant are criminals who have disregarded and
violated that Order.
I believe in the orderliness of nature. To follow it is to pay the
premium on one’s life insurance. One can become the eternal child.
 Chapter 7

The Age of Activity

During our early years, our comprehension and judgment are weak
and unclear because of sentimentality. When we begin to be active
in society, near the age of twenty, we must study the principle of Life
that can establish our judgment securely on all levels, since it is vital
that we be able to think clearly about food, profession, and life itself.
If we have been raised macrobiotically, there is no need for spe-
cial instruction—our development will be in the right direction, and
our judgment will be good enough to handle any circumstances that
may arise.
Today’s public education, unfortunately, is far removed from
this kind of teaching. The job falls to the parents, as it always has, to
provide the child with a conception of nature and of the universe; to
point the way to an understanding of the relationship of nature and
the universe to Life—the relationship of the parts to the whole. If a
child has been taught these basic fundamentals, he can be depended
upon to judge capably for himself in his everyday living.
The kind of education that I advocate has two phases:
a. providing the right food and drink, and
b. teaching the principle by which health and happiness can be
established and maintained.
Any other knowledge must be acquired by the individual through
specific study on his own.
In view of this, it would be interesting and valuable for high
school history classes to investigate the relationship between food
and the rise and fall of nations.
Since modern education deals largely with the assimilation and
memorization of facts, the individual loses his ability to think and
act independently. It is thus not a true education.
44
 The Age of Activity 45

Young people of twenty must develop a confident attitude that

says, “I will never be sick.” With it they can lead strong lives, take
any job, and happily meet any difficulty whatsoever.
If they are brought up in a macrobiotic household on a balanced
diet but do not have an understanding of the fundamental principle
involved—the relationship of food to life—they will encounter great
difficulties. This is particularly true if it becomes necessary for them
to change their environment or function in a different culture. The
Japanese are an example of this. Traditionally, they ate a good mac-
robiotic diet but, along the way, they lost or forgot the guiding prin-
ciple from which that diet developed. The result was that with the
introduction of Western medicine into Japan, they abandoned their
tradition and lost their health at the same time.
If a person is raised macrobiotically until the age of twenty, he
can eat anything after that, because his judgment will enable him to
choose his food carefully, easily, and without worry.
A man’s diet must change according to his profession. In Ja-
pan, for example, people eat grains and vegetables primarily. Those
who do physical labor, however, take some animal food, principally
fish—about ten percent of the total food intake. This is not an ab-
solute essential, however, even for laborers. Rather than being an
actual necessity, it is more a pleasure item to satisfy the taste.
Those who do mental or intellectual work should eat only grains
and vegetables—no animal food. This includes office workers, writ-
ers, scholars, students, executives, men of religion or leaders in any
field.
Do not make the mistake of considering macrobiotics to be
merely another variety of puritanism or dogma; it is neither pro-
vegetarianism nor anti-carnivorism. We do not deny one kind of food
or praise another. We teach the relationship between man and the
Universe, and offer the principle that is essential if we are to under-
stand and become one with the Infinite, God or nature. Macrobiotics
might more correctly be called a new interpretation of naturalism.
The person who is macrobiotic appears to be highly selective in
his choice of food. In his own eyes, however, he eats anything that
he desires of God’s food and really desires none of the man-made
variety.
46 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

Just consider fruit trees—they are no longer God’s product. They

are forced by men to produce long after they might either have died
naturally or have been destroyed by insects. They are kept alive past
their prime by artificial methods that render them unfit as food for
human beings.
Macrobiotics offers a practical way of establishing health in
one’s life. Its fundamental idea is that as long as nature exists, health
is possible. Since food is given by nature (God), if we eat in accord
with nature, we are inevitably healthy and happy. Nature gives many
things but we must choose what is good for us. The art of making
such a choice is macrobiotics.
Some people will wonder how such a simple principle can en-
sure health, cure sickness, and help us to enjoy life. Such people
must look at nature; it is all around them. Any animal, bird, insect,
flower, tree or plant is full of health and happiness, eating only what
God has made.
Animal foods, fruit, and sugar are not essential to life and should
be used only for pleasure or medication. They are all enemies of
activity, with sugar being by far the most destructive.
It is easy to become addicted to these foods, so if you crave
them, be careful. Those who always want coffee or alcohol are not as
far removed from the plight of the drug addict as they might like to
believe. Strict macrobiotics have no need for such taste stimulation;
they do not want such foods and are not addicted to them. Those who
are not free from such cravings and sensations are not happy; they
are sick. If you are not free, you cannot be healthy. A healthy person
accepts the most simple food as having the best taste. This kind of
acceptance is the aim of macrobiotics. With this flexibility, you can
be most active in your adult life.
 Chapter 8

Old Age
We have all heard people say, “I am getting old.” As a child I thought,
“What a strange thing to say!” The same phrase later on in my life
made me think, “How poor man is!”
At the age of forty, I was startled to feel weakness in my body. “I
am beginning to get old,” I thought, since in Japan it is said that old
age begins when pain and stiffness appear, somewhere between the
ages of forty and forty-five.
My feeling of age was not the result of macrobiotics but of the
circumstances of my early life. As a youth, I had lived and eaten
poorly, studying all the time. Later I worked as a sailor on the Indian
Ocean. My Arabian crewmates, raised in a tropical country and pos-
sessing very strong constitutions, thrived on the hard work we did.
I had grown up in a much different climate so the combination of
ocean, labor, and diet not only made me very sickly but caused what
I felt to be “old age.”
After a very long voyage, I returned to Japan and recovered my
strength by eating delicious brown rice. From that time on I have
never felt tired, nor have I ever had the need to rest. In fact, as long
as I am awake I am at work. I easily fulfill three conditions for good
health:
1. no fatigue
2. good appetite
3. good sleep
How could I feel anything but gratitude for my twenty years of
macrobiotics?
The first ten years were full of mistakes. Sometimes I took too
much salt; at other times, not enough. I experienced much failure.

47
48 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

Though the last five years of my long stay in Paris were spent un-
der the poorest of living conditions, I have now reestablished good
health. Whereas long ago I could not smoke or drink, I can now do
either as I like. I enjoy any cuisine—Western, Chinese, Japanese,
or Indian. I like fruit, candy, chocolate, and whiskey very much. If
I choose to use these things now, I am able to avoid harm because I
can balance yin and yang.
I have told you this because many people think that macrobiotics
is a twentieth century variety of stoicism. But he who cannot drink,
smoke, eat fruit or meat is a cripple. Macrobiotics is a way to build
health that enables us to eat and drink anything we like, whenever
we like, without being obsessed or driven to do so. Macrobiotics
is not a negative way of living. It is positive, creative, artistic, reli-
gious, and philosophical.
I never get sick now. I do not wear an overcoat in cold or wet
weather and I sleep with an open window the whole year round. My
only trouble is that I do too much work, yet it is very hard for me to
stop because I take much salt every day.
Since I am only fifty years old, I am not sure that I am qualified
to speak on the subject of old age. Because of my years of experi-
ence in the realm of macrobiotics, however, I will at least try.
Macrobiotically speaking, old age begins at seventy. At this time
an individual should
1. reduce his salt intake;
2. make certain that his food is as simple as possible;
3. take vegetable oils daily in small amounts.
There is no special diet in old age for the person who has had
a macrobiotic childhood and youth. He can eat anything because
many years of macrobiotic living have left him well balanced physi-
ologically, psychologically and economically. He is not pushed or
driven; he is relaxed and fulfilled.
The macrobiotics of old age amounts to simply this: live in na-
ture. Enjoy cold in winter, accept heat in summer, admire flowers in
spring, and write poems in autumn. Live in nature with a calm, quiet
spirit. Give to others of your happiness, for old age is the most happy
time of life.
 Old Age 49

I recall a very fitting poem by the German poet Lautenbach. It

describes an oak tree that has withstood several hundred years of buf-
feting by all kinds of weather—wind, rain, storm, frost, and snow. It
is a very tall tree with wide, strong branches and many leaves that
sparkle in the sunshine and flutter in every breeze. It gives much
shade and provides a fine resting place for travelers. It is an image of
God, a joyful achievement. It is the product of a life of hammering
by nature’s hardships. Its quiet magnificence whispers the secret of
life.
The privilege of having an old age such as this is given only to
those who have lived macrobiotically.
 Chapter 9

Sickness
The Most Difficult Disease
I have almost never met an illness that has resisted cure by way
of macrobiotics—its healing power has amazed me time and again.
All patients become well, and especially those who are most seri-
ously ill.
After thirty years of experience, however, I recognize one ail-
ment as being truly unique and difficult to handle. It is one from
which most people suffer.
If this ailment is not overcome completely, the patient is always
a potential victim—he becomes ill again and again. In this sense it is
like the tapeworm that plagues most Japanese, but it does infinitely
more damage.
Western medicine cannot cure the basic condition that enables
the tapeworm to develop; it only prescribes a medicine that expels
it. Sooner or later the worm returns. More medicine is then adminis-
tered and the cycle repeats itself. After having been used once, twice,
five times, the medicine no longer works; the dosage must be in-
creased. Too much of it, however, and blindness is the result.
Macrobiotics eliminates this condition in just a couple of weeks.
Either the worm is regurgitated or expelled through the bowels.
Recently a young boy vomited a cupful of tapeworms five days
after starting macrobiotics. At first he thought that he had brought up
noodles but changed his mind when they moved. Since then, he has
not been able to pass a noodle shop without getting ill.
Although macrobiotics can eliminate tapeworms, dropped stom-
ach (gastroptosis), tuberculosis, asthma, pneumonia, diabetes, and
kidney illness very easily, the ailment that I spoke of earlier is harder
to deal with.
50
 Sickness 51

Not too long ago, I sent out about three hundred inquiries to peo-
ple whom I had helped through my teaching. The inquiry included a
stamped, addressed answer card printed as follows:
I have completely cured my sickness ‪
I am partially cured ‪
I have quit macrobiotics ‪
The recipient of the card had only to check his answer and write
in his name. After two months, I had received only 109 replies.
Here is the disease that plagues two out of three people—the
most difficult of all maladies. Although it might be called idleness or
stubbornness, it is nothing more than arrogance. Its victims know no
gratitude or thankfulness; they miss the excitement and joy of living.
They live a sad, dark life. The know no happiness—only coldness
and living death. They always complain and give nothing but trouble
to others. Even a dog expresses joy when he sees a friend or his mas-
ter, but these people never emerge from the darkness. They become
sick again and again, and usually die early.
I was once consulted by a woman who had been suffering for ten
years. Macrobiotics gave her the help she had not found anywhere
else. One year later she came back to see me and said, “I have for-
gotten my sickness since my consultation with you. I have forgotten
what sickness is. My suffering has disappeared completely.”
The fact that after her recovery she did do her best to teach oth-
ers the method that had cured her reveals at least a bit of gratitude.
The average person never returns or expresses thanks. He forgets
about everything as soon as his pain is gone.
Those who know true gratefulness never forget that they were
once ill; they always remember who or what healed them and are
eternally thankful.
The most difficult person to cure is the arrogant one. He is the
egoist who knows no joy and who does not mind bothering others as
long as his needs are satisfied, the man who lives but has no real life.
Unless we cure this fundamental illness, it is useless to consid-
er anything else that might trouble a patient, for such a person can
never be happy. If I cannot change him, I have no right to teach
macrobiotics; better that I give it up. Many people think to them-
52 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

selves, “I am healthy,” or “I understand.” They are the worst offend-

ers—the sickest; the man who is certain that he is wise is actually
the stupidest.
Macrobiotics can be summed up as the way that gives happiness
and thus cures such arrogance. This, not the elimination of specific
disease, is our aim.
Everybody is healthy; if not, it is his own crime.

The Healing Power of the Mind

I am convinced that a sick man is a criminal and that sickness
is his punishment. Small children are exceptions since they are not
old enough to judge for themselves. Their punishment is meted out
instead to their parents in the form of anguish they suffer when the
children are ill.
Anyone who becomes ill or has ailing children knows neither
God nor the Order of the Universe.
Our bodies—knowable, seeable, touchable—are part of and
bound to this relative, material world. Our minds, by contrast, are
absolutely free to go anywhere at any time in the absolute, infinite
world. We have the power to look into the past or future in an instant.
The world of mind is in reality the world of God; it is Infinity or
Oneness. Since all of us possess a mind, we are inhabitants without
choice of the absolute world of God. We cannot say, in all honesty,
that we do not know it. He who says, “I do not know God,” or who
behaves as if he does not know Him, is the biggest criminal of all.
Compared with him, all other offenders are petty.
He who cannot live in the infinite world—the world of mind—
will never be happy or achieve anything of real worth. He always
ends in sickness and sorrow.
Epictetus has said, “Of all the things to be known, there is only
one that is worth classifying as either good or bad. To know or ac-
knowledge God or Infinity is a good thing. Not to know or acknowl-
edge either one is bad. The consideration of good or bad in reference
to all other things is by comparison insignificant and inconsequen-
tial.” It is the product of a superficial concept of the world.
In macrobiotics we say that sickness comes from food. This can
be proven to be true. Our choice of food, however, is actually deter-
 Sickness 53

mined by the mind. If we know God, or Mind, we never choose bad

food. He who does not know God and cannot see the Order of the
Universe cannot find the right food and becomes sick.
Physical illness is an indication of illness of mind or illness in
thinking.
Mind and God being one and the same, it is easy to see that what
overcomes illness is Mind. If one does not enter this world of Mind,
one can neither cure disease nor be happy. In the Orient, mind means
absolute or Tao or discipline. In this light it is understandable that for
God it is not difficult to cure sickness and unhappiness.
Since in macrobiotics we understand that sickness of character
or mind is caused by food, we naturally feel that its cure as well is
rooted in food. From this fundamental point, it is a simple thing to
eliminate physical illness.
He who thinks that macrobiotics is merely a cure for physical
ailments, however, can never really be helped. It is not a new medi-
cine to stop pain or suffering, but rather a teaching that goes to the
source of pain and eradicates it. Once this kind of cure has been ef-
fected, the disease will never recur. Consequently, macrobiotic con-
sultation is given once in a lifetime. I consult with an individual one
time; those who return again indicate that they have never sought out
the true cause of their difficulty.
Some people think that macrobiotics is no more than the teach-
ing of a diet—the eating of gomasio, carrots, and brown rice. Others
imagine that it is summed up in the statement, “Don’t eat cake and
sugar.” How far from the truth!
Macrobiotics is the process of changing ourselves so that we can
eat anything we like without fear of becoming ill; it enables us to
live a joyful life during which we can achieve anything we choose.
It is knowing the Infinite, living in the Infinite, giving thanks to the
Infinite and always having a feeling of wonder and gratefulness to-
wards the Infinite. Without this we do not have real health; our lives
are spent in the contemplation of suffering and trouble.
Should an individual happen to have physical health alone, with-
out being on intimate terms with the Infinite, he will never feel great
joy or security. If he observes the macrobiotic way of life, however,
he will inevitably acquire the mentality with which to live a happy
54 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

life, in peace always.

The person who has never been sick is not truly secure because
his health is a gift from his parents. They have provided him with a
strong foundation that he can eventually destroy through bad judg-
ment.
True health is that which you yourself have created out of illness.
Only if you have produced your own health can you know how won-
derful it actually is. For this reason, many healthy people squander
away their health; through ignorance they spoil it without knowing
its true value. He who knows the real worth of health spreads his joy-
ous knowledge by telling others what he knows. If you are healthy
but do not try to give to others of the happiness it brings, you are
unaware that happiness is priceless.
The aim of macrobiotics is to provide the means for establish-
ing a joyful attitude. In the face of it, all arrogance, complaints, fear,
insecurity, sadness, and suffering fade into nothingness. Happiness,
love, freedom, and belief remain. In such a state there is infinite
gratitude.
We give thanks to and for everything. The man who is at this
level radiates gratitude; his world is full. Even if he becomes ill or
has great difficulty, such a man can change his suffering into hap-
piness immediately. If someone attacks him with a stone, that stone
changes into a flower; if the weapon is a sword, the sword becomes
a mirror. If he is given poison, the poison is medicine.
Macrobiotics teaches us to translate this ephemeral, narrow, rel-
ative, sad, unfree world into an infinitely joyful heaven.
If you have neither the intention to understand nor the desire to
enter this Seventh Heaven, you had better not be macrobiotic. He
who does not want to enter Seventh Heaven has the biggest sick-
ness of all—egotism. He is no better than those who seek only fame,
wealth or position. Here is the biggest crime—the foundation of all
unhappiness. What greater unhappiness can there be than to think,
“Now I am rich” or “I have nothing to worry about—I am healthy.”
Wealth or health of this variety can change to poverty or sickness
overnight.
Macrobiotics is as necessary for healthy people as it is for the
sick; in fact, the so-called healthy ones must be helped first. But
 Sickness 55

since they are usually content with their small good fortune and are
not seeking anything more, they are difficult to reach. People who
are suffering are easily helped because they have a reason to seek
health—pain.
He who is sick and still understands Infinity is much happier
than he who is healthy but cannot enter Seventh Heaven. I am thus
grateful for illness.
Western medicine cures the symptoms of illness by artificial
means such as an injection or a pill; the patient’s understanding nev-
er enters into the whole process. Those treated in this manner lose
their chance to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe that Western
medicine does man a great injustice in this way.
Healing power is in our minds. The material for opening our
minds and for healing disease, however, is food, the qualities of
which we distinguish through our minds. If we cannot clear our
minds, we cannot distinguish correct food. Healing power is in the
mind. Sickness is given to us so that we may discover this mind. If
we cannot, we had better remain ill until we do. This is the order of
God.
We must be grateful to Western medicine. Through the suffering
it gives us, we have the motivation to change, to understand God
and the Order of the Universe. We are thus given the opportunity to
achieve the fullest health and happiness.

Thankfulness for Sickness

“Behold the fowl of the air, for they sow not, neither do
they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet, your Heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not better than they?”
(Matthew 6:26)

Our search for health and longevity begins either when we fall ill
or after we reach the age of forty and begin feeling weakness. Thus
sickness and weakness are necessary in this world. It is through our
efforts to change them into health that we learn gratitude. How dull
life would be without the challenge they present!
A great scholar named Toju Nakae, the Saint of Ohmi (a prov-
ince near Kyoto, Japan), was scolded often by his mother during his
56 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

youth. He usually accepted the scolding obediently, without protest

or complaint. On one particular occasion, however, he burst into
tears. “Why do you cry?” his surprised mother asked. “Because your
scolding has become weak,” he replied. “It tells me that you are get-
ting old and I am very sad.”
The parents of this sort of child have much cause for happi-
ness—he will be an important man as a direct result of the strict
discipline with which he has been raised.
Scolding by our parents is part of our training for life and we
should look up to them with gratitude for it. Either we get this train-
ing from them when we are young or from life itself later on; we can
not escape it, nor should we try. By the same token, we should not
attempt to side-step the scolding of God—sickness. It is this punish-
ment that causes our minds to seek Him out.
To overcome sickness by means of injections or operations is to
evade God’s punishment or scolding. Just as we should be sad if our
parents have died and there is no one to scold us, so should we be
sad if we do not get sick. We must be grateful for it; if we hate it, we
reveal our egotism and cowardice.
We must accept everything given by God with pleasure, includ-
ing sickness. In winter we must enjoy cold, in summer heat. Animals
in their natural environment accept nature as it is without using ar-
tificial means to change it; as a result they are healthier than men.
Man in his search for pleasure and comfort finds only weakness and
disease. To forsake artificial civilization and return to nature is to
find the macrobiotic way of life.
This Second World War will continue for longer than we expect
with the result that the necessities for living—food, clothing, hous-
ing—will become very scarce. Our food supply will dwindle to less
than one-third of what it is now, as happened to the Germans during
the First World War. Furthermore, this scarcity will make prices go
up. At that time it will be easy to be macrobiotic because there will
be less food of all kinds, particularly expensive ones.9 We will be
limited to grains and thus have a good opportunity to practice the
macrobiotic way of living. Whoever observes macrobiotics has no
need to worry about food problems. He will be as free as the birds
in the sky.
 Sickness 57

The following statement was made by the Meiji emperor of Ja-

pan, conqueror of both Russia and China:
Rather than take medicine when I am ill,
I prefer to take righteous food every day.
Japan was very macrobiotic during his reign. It was at this time
that Admiral Perry opened the Orient to the West. The Emperor was
a man of wide interests guided by a deep sense of order. He felt that
certain things did not merit being placed high on the scale of values.
Contrast this with the Japan of today where the worst is accepted as
being on the same level as the best.
Since the time when I cured my own illness with macrobiotics
twenty years ago, I have never been sick. If I have suffered, I have
been very thankful. For instance, I once hurt both my heels and the
pain lasted for sixty days but I applied no treatment.
This year I developed a sore throat after staying too long in a
warm, heated room. I took no treatment because this suffering was
a warning that let me know that my body had become weakened.
As long as I am suffering, I am careful with my eating and drinking
habits. For this very reason I avoid treatments. Surely you see that
with this attitude, even if you have a sickness, you are not really sick.
It is more important to reach a similar level of understanding or
state of mind than it is to learn to apply any treatment, no matter how
effective.

Rigidity
In your attempt to practice macrobiotics, you may encoun-
ter many difficulties. A place to buy the food may not be readily
available; if you find the place to buy, the price may be too high;
your family, friends, community, society or the whole world may be
against the idea.
In any event, do not worry. The first task that faces you is this
one: understand the principle. You can then apply it no matter what
the difficulties may be.
Animals, birds, and flowers live macrobiotically without money.
Study and think about them and their lives, about primitive peoples,
about the experiences of Robinson Crusoe. Look at the world around
58 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

you; there are innumerable sources of encouragement and hope upon

which to draw.
If you have allowed yourself to believe that your illness is incur-
able, that there is no hope left, you will not be able to summon up
the energy for such investigation and work. Your drive is gone. You
are defeated, you have conceded the victory, you have given up the
ship; you had better stop living. Even if you live a long life under
such circumstances, you will be half asleep anyhow. Human life is
not much when compared with the universe, and we did not come
here by our own will, so why cling to it so hard? No matter how long
we live we must die sometime; we all leave this world eventually.
We are only passengers on an express train called Earth, and when
we reach our destination, we must disembark.
For those who follow macrobiotics, it is not much different. Sup-
pose they manage to live for one hundred years; that length of time,
too, is only a second compared to the life of the universe.
Achieve this kind of understanding and free your rigid mind.
Then you can live. Without a free mind you die very quickly. With
it you can study and think. You will have something to do. And with
something to do in this world we can live; with nothing to do we die.
Idleness is a killer.
The individual who no longer has a rigid mind has found free-
dom. He has given up his vice-like grip on his own mind; he has giv-
en up the prerogative, the illusion that there is a freedom of choice;
he does not care whether or not his mind is his own; he can freely
accept the decisions of nature.
Life can be so easy. Refuse to let go and you are a person drown-
ing; the more you struggle, the faster you sink.
Nature...she brought us into being, she has nurtured us. We are
obligated to humbly and gratefully obey her. When it is time to die,
we die. If it is not our time, nature will preserve us by showing us
the way.
Whoever cannot be macrobiotic because of poverty is very for-
tunate and has cause for much happiness. Difficulties of any kind
will make him the happiest of all men because he will have more to
be grateful for when he finally does become macrobiotic. He who is
able to be macrobiotic with ease cannot know gratefulness. The poor
 Sickness 59

person is grateful for a penny. The millionaire is never grateful; even

a gift of one thousand dollars leaves him unimpressed. So, he who
has more difficulties is more happy. His gratitude makes him happy
and healthy.
He who says, “I cannot practice macrobiotics” does not under-
stand it fully. But suppose that we observe macrobiotics to the let-
ter, repeating everything that we have heard like a phonograph. We
are still not macrobiotic. We must reach the point where we can eat
anything without fear of losing our health and happiness. We must
control our lives by ourselves. If we adhere to a diet that has been
devised by someone else, our lives are not our own. We must not be
rigid. Here is a striking example of what I mean:
A mother once came to me for some advice regarding her sick
son. I suggested a diet for him to follow and he recovered his health.
Years later I met him again—a small, very tense boy of dark com-
plexion. I inquired as to what he had been eating. His mother replied
that she still fed him the very yang (contractive, rich in sodium) diet
that I had prescribed six years earlier when he was ill. Although he
had been healthy for most of the six years that I had not seen him,
she had mechanically continued to feed him food designed for an
invalid! The result was that this boy became over-yang. He looked
just like the kinpira (sliced, sauteed carrots and burdock root) that
he had been eating for six years—small, dried-out, shrivelled. This
is the end result of macrobiotics that has been mechanically applied
with no knowledge or understanding of the basic principle involved.
Great difficulties arise when one’s mate or parents are against
macrobiotics. If, however, you are humble they will soon yield and
accept your way. If your husband is against macrobiotics, your at-
titude is wrong and you do not love him enough. You love your ego
more.
Another woman came to me with the following story:
“My husband doesn’t allow macrobiotics in our home. He gives
our children meat and candy. What’s more, he keeps another woman,
a professional. He contracted a disease and passed it on to me. That
is why I have tried to start macrobiotics but he has never permitted
it. As soon as I cure one sickness, he brings home another because he
changes girls so often. I have been living such a life for twenty years.
60 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

What should I do? Where shall I turn? Sometimes I have thought of

suicide but I cannot bring myself to it...we have five children and
another on the way. I can’t go home to my parents because I am so
ashamed; furthermore, they will not accept my return because tradi-
tion in our country does not permit it. I don’t care for myself but I am
very worried about my children. Worst of all, my husband has had an
affair with my youngest sister. I know it because she is both ill and
pregnant. Life is hell. Yesterday I asked him to please confine himself
to one mistress. He told me to be quiet, that he would decide what
to do for himself. I asked him to at least be careful and keep himself
free of disease. He said, ‘I am a professional soldier. How can I be so
cowardly as to worry about disease?’ Then he hit me. What should I
do? Where shall I turn?”
I have heard many cases such as this—at least six this year alone.
Generally, they involve the wives of educators and doctors, rarely
those of businessmen. All these women seem to have the same weak-
ness...they have all been eating bad food with the result that they
are ill, either physically or mentally. That is why their husbands are
not satisfied and look elsewhere. They give no joy and inspire no
confidence; their husbands consequently refuse them most anything
including the freedom to follow macrobiotics. These women seldom
realize that all their difficulties are of their own making.
When I explain this to them, they understand quickly and with
great joy. As a result their families have become much happier and
their husbands more gentle than ever before. The discovery of the
primary cause of their difficulties produces miracles.
I cannot change the mentality of a woman but I can help her
to change her physiology through macrobiotics. If her physiology
changes, she becomes healthy and enjoys her work; she is more effi-
cient and more happy. Her husband and family reflect this happiness.
In a case where the bulk of the trouble lies with the husband, it
is easy to overcome because the wife controls the kitchen. She deter-
mines what her mate is like by what she feeds him.
The greatest difficulty arises when the wife is against macrobiotics.
No matter how hard the husband tries, it is almost hopeless. For ex-
ample, twenty years ago I told a friend about macrobiotics but his
wife was dead-set against it and he died soon after.
 Sickness 61

A wife who refuses to even try macrobiotics will eventually de-

stroy both her husband and her family; she is a detriment to society.
A man had better divorce such a wife as soon as possible for time
will not change her mind. Her husband will have perished long be-
fore that happens.
Confucius said, “Women and small-minded men are hard to con-
trol.” I feel very sad for him—his wife must have been very difficult
to get along with. The wife who does not understand and accept
macrobiotics makes it difficult for her family and herself to avoid an
unhappy end.
Without a basic principle to follow, any sort of practice is no
more than superstition. The principle and spirit of macrobiotics lie
in the recognition, experiencing, and understanding of nature. This
is Tao—the return to and contemplation of God.
 Chapter 10

The Secret Medicine

Severe tuberculosis eliminated in two months by Mr. Wago; a thirty-
year-old case of leprosy overcome by Mr. Tsutsumi; colitis cured by
General Matsui in three weeks; a combination of asthma and skin
disease that had lasted for forty years gone in one month; cancer of
the womb, cancer of the breast, rheumatism, arthritis, poliomyelitis,
female baldness and infertility, the inability to speak, tuberculosis of
the spine and kidney...I have been witnessing the disappearance of
these and many other diseases for over twenty years in those indi-
viduals who have deeply understood natural living.
The thought of all the people who have been saved by
macrobiotics in the past, plus the fact that I too was rescued from
certain death over twenty years ago, makes me feel nothing less than
endless gratitude and thankfulness every day.
Experience has shown me that the more severe the illness, the
shorter the cure. A slight illness is more difficult only because the
patient does not take his problem too seriously.
A very few people, possibly one in ten, do not respond in the
usual four to eight weeks. They have come to macrobiotics too late
and unfortunately cannot be helped. They have waited much too
long before seeking help and are regrettably destined to die.
It is usually so easy to help the sick that I am amazed when I
think about it. I then wonder why so many people (including myself)
fall ill in the first place, why they tolerate suffering for so long.
The answer is a simple one: we are all ignorant of the simple,
clear relationship between food and life. Anyone who understands
this basic teaching of macrobiotics knows how foolish it is to be-
come ill; with such knowledge he can be sick no more. Yet at times
I think that it would be fun to be sick once again because it has been
62
 The Secret Midicine 63

over twenty years since I suffered last!

In macrobiotics we never use medicine; our pharmacy is the
kitchen. Our method is based on the potency of daily food—simple
things like brown rice, carrots, onions, radishes, burdock root, miso
and sea vegetables.
How such commonplace foods can affect so many strange ail-
ments and eliminate them in one or two months is very puzzling to
people with a scientific orientation. “Why do so many desperately
weakened victims thrive on it?” they ask. “What is the secret?”
When a man falls ill, his friends offer the usual sympathetic ad-
vice. “Take it easy, eat some good food, rest...”
But illness is not a precious jewel. If we nurture it, we preserve it
for a long time. The disease—not the human being—must be thrown
away like the useless thing that it is.
In theory, we all know that we live because we eat. Not one of
us, however, seems to have a practical answer to the important ques-
tions:
What is the right food?
What is the right quantity?
What is the right method of preparation?
What is the right manner in which to eat?
Given the right food, we can live a happy, healthy, peaceful life.
Given food that is not right, we are no longer right men—we are
inhuman beings. We become weak, sick, poor, incapable of work-
ing—joyless.
What then is right food?
If our approach is analytical, this is a very difficult question to
answer. Protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, calories—
so many things to consider. No one as yet has given a concrete, liv-
able answer to our question in this way, not even scientists, scholars,
and specialists.
Take protein, for instance. Are there two experts who agree about
the kind and quantity needed by human beings?
Vitamins and minerals are in the same category. People say,
“Apples are good for you.” But who tells us how many ounces to
eat, when to eat them, and how to prepare an apple properly so that
it is fit for us to consume?
64 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

I know of one boy who ate too many apples and eventually died
of children’s dysentery. An elementary school teacher died after eat-
ing thirty-two apples in four days on the advice of her physician.
One famous doctor of nutrition, a great believer in the effectiveness
of apples, died recently from an excess of them. I could go on and
on—the list of casualties from food abuse is a very long one.
There obviously is a right amount for everything. “Too much of
even a good thing is not wise.” But who knows what is too much?
Vitamin C is supposedly very important for good nutrition. How
much and how often? Since no two people have the same constitu-
tion or character, since everyone’s physical condition is different,
can we establish a standard amount that would be practical in every
situation? We suspect that whoever seeks this answer is running a
fool’s errand.
But what if by some strange miracle the experts were able to
determine the right amount? Some nations might not be capable of
producing enough of it to supply an entire population. Some places
could not store enough for everyone. And many individuals could
not afford the price of their basic needs.
It is so difficult to apply such a theory practically and even theo-
retically. There must be a simpler way.
Throughout history, men have lived happy lives without compli-
cated analytical concepts of nutrition. Although our ancestors gave
little thought to apples, they were healthier, happier, and wiser than
we are. Even beasts seem to be able to live joyfully without concern-
ing themselves with chemistry or scientific detail. Perhaps there is
hope for us too.
We are so far removed from simplicity! We hear and read things
like this: “Lack of scientific information and illness go hand-in-
hand.” “Health is the result of research; research costs money; mon-
ey is therefore essential to health.”
But what about the millions of people in the history of the world
who led full lives long before science became so important, and on
much less money than we spend today?
“Animal protein and calcium are basic to good nutrition.” Isn’t
it curious that a cow can produce not only the meat and milk that we
feel is so essential for us but her own massive bone structure as well
 The Secret Midicine 65

from a diet of grasses alone?

If the modern, superstitious belief in science, money, and meat is
a valid one, how miserable we are. A poor man is forever excluded—
he can neither be healthy nor enjoy his life. Existence is no more
than a game of chance in which the cards are stacked in favor of the
rich, the educated, the knowledgeable.
It cannot be that God would create anything so unfair. Anybody
can live joyfully in health.
If we compare the food that we eat today with that of our ances-
tors, we are struck by the vast difference between the two. So impor-
tant a staple as rice was once cultivated with natural fertilizers while
today the laboratory supplies them. We begin to suspect that the big
problem lies in the area of what is natural and what is unnatural.
Few of us question the fact that it is natural for man to be born,
to be active, to grow. And we agree that it is natural to depend upon
food for life and survival. At this point, however, we fail to see the
obvious.
Of all things that grow on a farm, the strongest seem to be the
natural grasses—the weeds. The farmer easily spends as much time
and effort eliminating them as he does cultivating his produce—and
still they grow again and again naturally, by themselves, in the face
of every chemical obstacle. Any farmer who has battled weeds will
agree that they are more resistant than anything he grows for human
consumption.
Here is the clue to successful existence. The ingenuity of science
is juvenile as compared to the quietly irresistible force with which
nature animates the entire universe.
To live and be active, man depends upon food;
To live naturally, he must eat natural foods;
If he lives naturally, a man can be healthy and happy.
Since man is a natural product of a natural environment, he must
live as close to nature as possible; to be healthy and happy he must
eat natural foods. This is the secret of macrobiotics.
But what are natural foods? They are the ones that our ancestors
have used for a thousand years. And they differ from one country
and climate to the next. This is why there are so many nationalities,
religions, societies, and customs.
66 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

What was most natural for Japan, for example, was determined
long ago through experience over countless generations; it consisted
of over 800 foods that grew on mountains, in the sea, in rivers and
fields. (This is the largest variety in use by any country in the world.
France has but 300, Mongolia a mere five!) and they are still avail-
able today—one has only to look.
The Japanese diet was originally divided into two separate cat-
egories—principle foods and secondary ones. Evidence of such
early awareness of the importance of food and value of some kinds
of nourishment over others is not found in the culture of any other
country.
The Japanese language as well reflects a similar depth of under-
standing. Gohan, the word for eating, refers to the taking of principal
(not secondary) food. It symbolizes all eating but specifically per-
tains to whole rice. In the broadest sense, it means grain.
In traditional Japan, rice—principal food—was called the God
of toyo-uke. (Toyo-uke means “receive plenty.) It was accorded the
highest respect and enshrined as a national symbol.
I agree that to follow any teaching blindly, even that of our ances-
tors, is unwise. Merely to eat as we have been taught is not enough.
But to reject that teaching without trying to understand it is equally
foolish. The result is what we have today; the keen insight of our
ancestors has been completely forgotten. It lies ignored, discarded
as old-fashioned.
One might say that macrobiotics is the teaching that is rooted in
the concept of principal food. It is a reaffirmation and reapplication
of the ancient wisdom and has produced the miraculous results that
lead to an inevitable conclusion: we must re-evaluate, relearn, and
apply the concept of principal food in our daily lives. We must know
that food is important and know the reasons why it is vital to our
present and future well-being. Otherwise, we are unqualified to be
healthy, happy, and peaceful.
This is the secret of macrobiotics.
 Chapter 11

The Truth is Simple

That which is simple:
wholeness and nature
That which is complicated:
the parts of the whole
those things that are human or produced by man
thinking
activity

Leaves of grass—green, simple, beautiful, natural—shapes endless

in variety yet never strange, unfamiliar, or artificial...
No one can duplicate this naturalness. We can analyze its parts,
imitate its color or form; but its vitality, its physiological and chemi-
cal activity, its power to grow—all of this eludes us. Human under-
standing cannot encompass it.
There is no factory in existence that can remove carbon dioxide
from the air, produce its own oxygen, and then change the whole
thing into carbohydrate with the addition of a little sunshine. Yet
this complex process occurs simply and with little effort in a blade
of grass.
A tree—fifty or even seventy feet tall with roots that go deep into
the earth; branches that reach out in every direction, that bow to the
ground in the grip of a storm and then spring back to their former
shape and position with the ceasing of the wind. Rain is its sweet
bath, snow its wrap of ermine. No complaint or protest—it gratefully
accepts both good and bad.
Seen at a distance in its totality, the tree that has stood for a hun-
dred years or more is a thing of natural beauty. It is so simple. If we
approach more closely, if we examine its detail under a microscope
67
68 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

or analyze it chemically, we find a complex miracle forever beyond

our comprehension.
The living human, God’s natural product, has a deceptively sim-
ple exterior: two arms, two legs, a torso, a head. But examine them
closely—what complexity! A hand consists of only one palm and
five fingers, but its wonderful power has made history through an
endless variety of acts, both virtuous and criminal. This seemingly
elementary tool has produced all of civilization.
Biologists and anatomists have found what they have labelled
heart, lungs, nerves, and intestines—small, quiet mechanisms cov-
ered by skin. The life that causes them to function, however, is a
complexity that resists analysis.
And what of memory? We easily remember things that have
happened thirty or forty years in the past and enjoy singing songs
learned in childhood. What device can record, file away, and instan-
taneously replay memories from so long ago? Perhaps someone will
eventually construct one but it will be far more complicated than our
human function, just as the finest camera cannot compare with the
complex simplicity of the human eye.
Human productivity always appears complex on its surface. A
house, an airplane, a watch, a radio—each is a mass of detail that
proves to be very simple upon close scrutiny.
Health or true life, a natural state of being for living things, is
simple. It is soundless—no motor runs so quietly. When we attempt
to discover and analyze all its details, however, we undertake the
same impossibly useless task we faced in probing the mysteries of
the blade of grass or the tree.
We had best do the only thing that we can: give in, accept this
wonderful gift of nature and enjoy it. We must give thanks and live
happily and joyfully. We can do no more.
The apparent simplicity of nature that is revealed to be infinite
complication itself requires only earth, sunshine, wind and water for
full existence. A man needs no more to be assured a joyous life.
In the morning he awakens easily to find that he has visitors—
a breeze that is the breath of God, sunshine that is the glance of
the Mother of Life. He eats naturally—grains, seeds, leaves, roots,
grasses in all forms. He adds a few grains of salt—a reminder of his
 The Truth is Simple 69

briny origin. This and some clear spring water. Nothing more. How
simple and uncomplicated a breakfast table!
Macrobiotic cuisine has the taste of the primitive, the flavor of
haiku10 and the tea ceremony. Its final product is simplicity itself yet
it holds infinite complexity within. It has the taste of nature. He who
cannot distinguish it from that of the artificial, elaborate food found
in restaurants and supermarkets will spend a sad life because he is
caught in a web of artificiality. He will surely spoil his health and
end tragically.
Of late, many people have become enthusiastic about hiking,
mountain-climbing, skiing, and camping. Most of them are trying
to find or maintain health through some kind of contact with nature;
they seek her out with a vengeance. Meanwhile, their rucksacks are
bursting with chocolate, candy, wine, butter, fruit, canned goods,
ham, sausage—all artificial foods. It is hard for me to understand
how they can devote themselves so energetically to the pursuit of
nature and still bring such unnatural foodstuffs into her presence. It
is like working long hours to buy a plane ticket to Tokyo and then
blindly boarding the plane that flies in the opposite direction.
Natural food is so very important because it is the condensa-
tion or crystallization of sunshine, air, and water—the source of life.
Sunshine, air, and water are not too difficult to find in their original
forms but the search for natural food involves problems.
Most of what we eat today comes to us from remote places; it
grows in one season and we use it during another. It is consequent-
ly frozen and/or artificially preserved in order to be salable. Even
those things that are produced in nearer places have been grown with
chemical fertilizers and insecticides to protect them and stimulate
growth. They are all unnatural foods.
The majority of the fish eaten in the Tokyo area comes from
foreign places like the South China Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the
South Pacific. They travel a distance of at least 1500 miles to reach
the consumer.
The same is true for fruit. It grows far from the consumer and
is the product of a season other than the one in which it is used. If
it reaches the market in winter, it is summer produce; if used in the
spring, it grew in the fall.
70 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

All fruits today are grown with strong insecticides and chemi-
cal fertilizers that are harmful to human beings and are inevitably
poisonous. They are unnaturally cultivated products that are far re-
moved from what nature intended as is indicated by their lack of
flavor, their exaggerated size, and their excessive potassium content.
Commercially prepared cakes are no different. They are made
with tropical sugar grown 1500 miles away and chocolate that origi-
nates at a distance of 4000 miles. They contain artificial coloring and
preservatives that, while they do not kill a man instantaneously, will
wear him away in time.
To eat such foods is to commit slow suicide. To produce them is
to be guilty of slow murder.
Saints and wise men have long advised, “Return to nature.” And
because they have been so abstract and mystical about the means
whereby this is achieved, it has been the rare individual who has
succeeded in living by their words.
Some have tried forsaking the conveniences of the civilized
world—cars, radio, telephones, steam heat—and have only changed
the external, superficial part of their lives. Even if we live like our
animal cousins—unshaven, unwashed, unclad, sleeping on a bed of
pine needles with a blanket of leaves as our cover—nature eludes us.
Yet the method that makes a return to nature possible is so very
simple. There is no other way than by making ourselves, our organ-
ism, one with her. We must eat natural foods.
The world of life is governed by the law of God: the body and
the land are not two. Whoever ignores this suffers just punishment—
sickness, deterioration, degeneration—because he cannot adapt to
his surroundings. Neither individuals, nor races, nor man as a whole
are exempt.
The healthy, happy man has understood that to live a joyful life,
no matter where on this earth, he must first of all make himself one
with his environment. He must eat, drink, and behave in a manner
that does not alienate him from the orderly, simple truth of nature.
He must discover natural food—that which grows in his imme-
diate area—uncontaminated by the imposed, artificial protection that
science misguidedly offers through insecticides, pesticides, artificial
fertilizers, preservatives, and additives.
 The Truth is Simple 71

If we want to live in this world—so joyful and yet so severe

because it offers no way out of the punishment that is dealt out to
those who swim against the current of life, the orderliness of the
universe—we must look to and never forget nature.
In our material world, two viewpoints exist side by side, again
reminding us that yin and yang are ever present everywhere.
The mechanical, analytical, scientific viewpoint sees all things
as separate—separated from themselves, separate from men. Not
only are they apart from man, in this sense, but they are created to be
subservient to him, subject to his every whim.
With this as justification, men arrogantly impose themselves
upon one another and their surroundings in a vain effort to find hap-
piness, health, and peace. The end result is disease, tragedy, and war.
The spiritual viewpoint that originates in Seventh Heaven or In-
finity sees all things as being one. Nature is God; God is Truth; Truth
is the eternal order that simplifies infinite complexity to the greatest
degree.
If you comprehend this, you are a poet. Your understanding of
the consummate beauty of nature is such that your life itself becomes
poetry. And all that you write is poetic without your having set out
to make it so.
Everyone without exception has the right to know Truth. For
that very reason, Truth has the responsibility to be uncomplicat-
ed—simple. For the same reason, the principle of life and health—
macrobiotics, the nutritional path to longevity—is Truth because it
is so simple.
Health—not merely the absence of disease, but the dynamic bal-
ance that nature maintains so effortlessly—is a usual state of being
in the universe. It is natural and simple; it is identical with order; it
cannot be produced artificially with machines or pills, science not-
withstanding.
If health is natural, what could be more fitting and orderly than to
achieve a state of well-being by following the simple way of nature?
Intuitively, without material proof being necessary, we know
that nature or God or the Whole exists. Our spirit, our soul, our mind
intuits or recognizes it by a method that is beyond logic, a way that
is superlogical. In reality, intuition is the manifestation of Wholeness
72 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

itself.
Our human body is part of the Whole. It owes its very existence
to it. The Whole is nature and Whole Nature is our spirit.
To know God, to recall nature, to acknowledge Wholeness is
the highest wisdom to which a human being can aspire. The highest
form of discipline with which to achieve such wisdom is the macro-
biotic way of living.
 Chapter 12

No Incurable Disease
Belief
No matter what method we use in the attempt to overcome sick-
ness, we must first of all have a strong will to cure. This is particular-
ly true for the macrobiotic way since here the individual must cure
himself by himself and for himself, through his own comprehension
of what is the true cause of his suffering.
We must be filled with the belief that our sickness can and will
be cured through macrobiotics. This is neither a rigid, mystical, re-
ligious, unfounded belief nor a blind superstition. It is, rather, deep-
est understanding—the realization that justifiably and by all that is
right, macrobiotics should cure illness for us because it has done just
that for thousands of years in the Orient. It has simply and practical-
ly taught what is righteous food and natural living. It has inevitably
led towards health, beauty, wisdom, and happiness.
I do not say dogmatically that those who believe in macrobiotics
will be cured while the nonbelievers will suffer. I merely say that if it
is not too late for a real cure, macrobiotics will achieve one because
it is the way of nature.
I believe that illness is the crystallization of an error in our judg-
ment, the tangible sign of a lack of natural orderliness in our lives.
In allowing this condition to arise, either through poor thinking,
ignorance, or apathy, we have done something wrong. To be healthy
again, we must make a change—we must do something right. We
must re-establish the orderly kind of existence that underlies and
guarantees health.
By becoming macrobiotic you undertake the rewarding task of
putting your life in order, starting from its most basic point—eating
and drinking. As a consequence, God will release you from all sick-
73
74 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

ness. In the same manner, a man who has been unjustly accused of
a crime will eventually be freed simply because it is right and just
that he be freed. To see this clearly and distinctly is to know what it
is that constitutes true belief.
Righteous food is the materialization of God. He is revealed to
us in it and by means of it. Our body—converted food—thus con-
stitutes a speck of God Himself. The very reason that we can even
live in this universe is that we are a speck of Him. And the reason
that this speck becomes sick or unhappy is that it forgets its origin; it
loses sight of the totality of which it is a minute part.
If we know God or Wholeness and at the same time are deeply
aware of our own personal speckness, we cannot avoid being beauti-
ful, healthy, wise, and happy. To realize this and then to live with that
realization as our motivation is macrobiotics.

Will
Will is vastly different from the impulse to escape from the
symptoms of a disease, an urge prompted by pain and suffering. The
person who seeks a palliative or pain-killer, who believes that his
salvation lies in the right kind of surgery or in finding the right doc-
tor, is motivated by short-sighted, wishful thinking—not will. True
will is the relentless drive to discover the law of life—the origin,
mechanism, structure, value, and end of Justice. If this is what stirs
you to action, then all your ills are curable.
You must be able to say:
I will cure my sickness. I will live in Justice; I will live in God.
I am fearful and sick because I have violated the law of nature. To
discover and correct this violation is more vital to my existence
than the cure itself.
If I understand righteous macrobiotics—the materialization of the
law of nature—my sickness must be cured.
If I cannot cure, then both my understanding and my way of mak-
ing the law of nature a practical part of my life are superficial.
I must study more deeply.
This will.
 No Incurable Disease 75

Physical Miracles
I believe in our miraculous bodies and in physical miracles that
are beyond science and human knowledge, beyond explanation.
The first unicell that is conceived in a mother’s womb becomes
two, four, eight, one thousand, a million...it becomes a nervous sys-
tem, stomach, intestine, lung, nose, hair, skin, teeth. How wonderful!
Blood circulates, we move, sleep, eat, digest, the brain thinks,
we speak—all miracles. As long as that which makes these things
occur—the power of God or Life—is moving within us, we are alive
and can cure sickness.

Mental Miracles
I believe in mental miracles and wonders.
About twenty years ago, I was employed by a trading company
where Mr. Fukishima was my superior. I can never show enough re-
spect for his memory because he has done me a great favor. Through
him, I have had one of the most profound experiences of my life.
I vividly remember the time that he traveled to the South Pacific
to negotiate a contract and left me in charge of the main office. I was
so grateful for his faith in me that I worked from dawn to midnight
every day, taking time out for only an occasional nap on the office
table.
At midnight on September 30th, during a heavy rain, I lay nap-
ping and had the following dream:
I was at a pier in the port of Kobe. As I stood in the bright
sunlight, a cargo train stopped in front of me. Its center door slid
open noiselessly, revealing my superior clad in a white summer
suit. “What has happened, Mr. Fukishima? You have returned
so unexpectedly that your welcome party isn’t even prepared.”
I cannot describe the sensation I felt as I shook his hand.
It was unbelievably cold. “What is the matter?” Tears rolled
gently from his eyes and he smiled.
At that very instant my dream was broken by a knock at the of-
fice door. It was a telegraph messenger with a cable that read, “FUK-
ISHIMA ILL STOP ADMITTED ARMY HOSPITAL SAIGON
STOP.” The following day I received notification that he had died.
76 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

I immediately packed my things and boarded an old French

steamer, the S.S. Manchu, bound for South Vietnam. At noon ten
days later I was in Mr. Fukishima’s suite at the Hotel Rotunde.
Since offices, shops, and government agencies in Vietnam are
customarily closed from noon to two o’clock, I decided to lie down
a while to rest. I stretched out on the bed that Mr. Fukishima had oc-
cupied only a few days before and fell into an exhausted sleep.
An instant later, it seemed, Mr. Fukishima’s voice woke me. My
first impulse was to stand up but I could not move a muscle. I lay
immobilized for an hour listening to him speak about me with Mr.
Baba, my fellow employee.
His voice broke off abruptly at the sound of a loud knocking at
the door. Only then did I manage to jump up from the bed. The room
was empty.
I was so dazed by what had happened that it was some time be-
fore I realized that the knocking had not stopped. I ran to the door to
find Mr. Baba.
In the next hour, he repeated exactly what I had heard from my
bed earlier. His description of Mr. Fukishima’s last moments of life
completely unsettled me:
“Mr. Baba, I have just seen Mr. Ohsawa...” With that, Fukishima
smiled and was no more.
All of what I had heard in the room—Mr. Fukishima’s conver-
sation—had apparently occurred at the time that I had seen him in
my dream at our Japan office. He and I had both gone through the
telepathic experience of seeing one another at the very same time.

* * *
Such mental or spiritual interplay is not new to me. I have ex-
perienced it several times in my life but especially since becoming
macrobiotic. It happened again only recently.
On my return from Formosa, I visited the sickbed of my friend
Mr. Natori and then boarded a Pullman train for Nigata. Soon after I
had retired, Mr. Natori stood before me.
“Ah, you have come to say good-bye. Don’t worry, I will take
care of everything,” I said. He said nothing and disappeared.
Before my lecture the next day, I received a telegram from To-
 No Incurable Disease 77

kyo. Mr. Natori had died at the very moment when he appeared be-
fore me on the train.

* * *
The human body, a minute part of the wholeness of the universe,
is bound by time and space. The spirit, Wholeness itself, is not. It
is free; it moves unfettered in dimensionless Infinity. Of this I am
certain.
Our organism is comparable to a radio receiver; it can pick up
the radio waves that fill the entire universe. What is even more mi-
raculous is that we are transmitters as well. We can send messages
to and from any place at any time provided that we are not bound
by matter or body. Whenever we engage in real thinking or become
purely spiritual, we de-limit our minds—we can transmit waves. At
such times we possess a wonderful power.
The food that we eat can be likened to either the material out of
which our receiver is constructed or the electricity that powers it.
The quality and quantity of food that we take determines the amount
of waves that our receiver-transmitter can pick up or send.
I accept this miracle and at the same time I want to know and un-
derstand it as deeply as possible. This is the way in which I live my
life. If a healthy, long life were reflective of only the physical aspect
of things, it would be an insignificant, pitifully sad yet troublesome
consideration.
If, however, you delve so deeply into the spiritual world as to
be able to use your physical body as a radio receiver, and if you live
joyfully and happily as well, life is most wonderful. You can feel at
times that you have lived a lifetime in no more than a few seconds.
The physical life is the false one. One hundred years of it are as
nothing. It is the spiritual life that is real—one instant of it is price-
less.

* * *
Let us make our bodies healthy with righteous food. We can thus
enter into the miracles of the universe and enjoy a profound eternal
life.
78 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

* * *
Regardless of whether we protect our body or abuse it, it will
endure anywhere from forty to one hundred years. Good or bad on
the physical level makes little difference.
To cure the body, to heal sickness, therefore, is not our aim. It is
a worthless goal—it is nothing.
The important thing is joyfulness, happiness, and amusement in
life from morning to night, from night to morning. A million dollars,
a strong body, and/or social position are meaningless without them.
The biggest, longest spiritual life—that is eternal.

* * *
Because the spirit is larger than the body, we can be happy in
spite of illness. As difficult as it may seem to achieve, the ability to
cure that illness is the certification that we know and understand the
Order of Nature, the Law of God—the eternal, infinite world.
Essays
When Will You Be Cured?
A medical doctor wrote me a criticism after one summer camp:
“Regarding any criticism of yourself, professor, we
are all trying our best to learn of Oriental philosophy and
medicine. Whatever understanding or use we can and will
make of your teachings, it must be realized that this will oc-
cur within the Occidental culture we live in; therefore, we
must be dependent on criteria which are compatible with our
circumstances. When we say a patient is completely cured,
their circumstances of cure must be such that any physi-
cian would examine the patient and accept them as being
in good health, not just mentally at peace and happy, but
still evidencing on physical examination or lab examination
the same findings which might have been originally present.
It does not suffice to say that our method and techniques
of examination are inadequate and inaccurate. Whatever er-
rors they represent are constant and relative. I would like to
see you more willing to interpret your opinions in terms that
would satisfy our Occidental culture.”
When will you be cured? I often answer, “You will be cured in
ten days to two months.” And yet you do not find yourself cured
within that period. Why? I have stated repeatedly that macrobiotics
cures all diseases within ten days, that it changes the body’s orienta-
tion toward health, away from disease. Disease is the exact barom-
eter of our mistakes, of our abuse, of our ignorance of the Order of
the Universe. It is therefore said that there can be no cure unless we
recognize our own faults, our own ignorance, and, above all, the Or-
der of the Universe, the key to our health, freedom, and Justice. But
what is Justice? Everyone thinks he knows, but in reality...

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82 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

According to Oriental philosophy, Justice is absolute, infinite,

eternal and universal—a larger concept, by far, than that of West-
ern justice. The commonly understood meaning of justice is relative,
personal, finite, and conditional. Democratic justice as defined by
John Locke is only known by the majority. In actuality, there is no
single concept in Western thought that is the equivalent of the Ori-
ental concept of Justice. Justice is another name for happiness that is
infinite and eternal. A macrobiotic individual is a student of the way
to such infinite happiness. The Unique Principle or, in other words,
life itself, is the only teacher of this all-embracing Justice.
Most of you look for a rapid cure, and make large statements
about your willingness to pay any price to achieve it. Still, you only
attempt to understand basic yin/yang functioning where it concerns
your immediate diet. Worse yet, you allow others to tell you what to
eat. You abandon all pursuit of the Unique Principle as soon as your
physical difficulties have disappeared. In short, the patient is never
willing to pay the true price.
Two persons come to mind, both of whom were not cured by
macrobiotics. Each had been crippled for a long time previously.
Neither could understand that disease cannot leave the patient until
he discovers and acknowledges his own mistakes. So many indi-
viduals are relieved of their anxieties and suffering by following the
macrobiotic diet, yet become ill again because they do not probe
ever deeper into the Unique Principle, the Law of Life.
I have understood, once and for all, that one must not cure any-
one. Everyone must do it for himself, by himself. If your wish is to
gain a reputation, to have a good income, to enjoy a sentimental
self-esteem, then you can, of course, make a career of taking care
of people.
When will you be cured? In ten days, most assuredly, if you
sincerely admit to yourself your own mistakes. The kind of disease
makes no difference, since all diseases are a variation of man’s loss
of balance—biological, psychological, or spiritual. If you are not
cured in ten days or two months, you have no right to criticize my
teaching. You have only to regret your own poor understanding of
infinite and absolute Justice.
Curing the Man
Macrobiotic practice can cure disease symptoms easily. The diffi-
culty lies in curing the patient. He must learn how to unfetter him-
self, cast off his shackles, and walk upright, unafraid, a natural man,
a free man. But learning to be free requires the total involvement of
heart, imagination, faith, and will.
The technique to cure sickness is called medicine. To cure, one
must know the cause of sickness. However, modern medicine does
not know the cause. What modern medicine calls cause is merely
symptoms, or the results of sickness. The reason modern medicine
cannot cure so many diseases lies in the fact that it does not know
the cause of disease.
Then what is the cause of disease? In my opinion, the cause of
disease is the condition in which one’s Supreme Judgment is clouded
or eclipsed. All animals other than man have lower judgment only,
which is the first, second and third stages of judgment, and are lack-
ing the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of judgment. Therefore, they
reveal the Supreme Judgment more easily than man. In the case of
man, who has the fourth through sixth stages of judgment, the Su-
preme Judgment is eclipsed. But why do the fourth, fifth, and sixth
stages of judgment eclipse the seventh stage or Supreme Judgment?
Judgment is a compass giving us directions and decisions in our
travels through life. One who makes a wrong judgment goes the
wrong direction, and the result is unhappiness or sickness. Sickness
is the first warning that we have made a wrong judgment. A healthy
person never is unhappy. If he is, his health is only physical, not total
and real health; or his health is “given” health from parents or others.
For example, we may analyze a painting by the amount, qual-
ity, and cost of color used. But by improving these, we can never
83
84 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

improve the picture. The skill of the painter must be improved. For
that, his thinking, idea, or concept of life must be improved. Modern
medicine tries to cure sickness by analyzing the color. It is forgetting
the painter completely, who uses the color and designs the picture.
Most medicine aims at curing symptoms. When it realizes that
the symptomatic cure is useless or endless or dangerous, it turns to
other ways. One of them is psychic, psychological, and religious
healing, and the other one is social and preventive medicine. How-
ever, these tend to be symptomatic cures. Macrobiotic medicine aims
at curing man, and not sickness only, because man is the producer of
sickness. Without curing man, no sickness is cured.
Western medicine must develop to be a preventive medi-
cine. Preventive medicine must develop into the way of health—
macrobiotics. The way of health must reach to a way of living. The
principle of such a way of living must be simple and universal. Such
a principle should not be a difficult and sophisticated concept, but
must be an easy and practical one which can be applied by anyone
in daily life.
Mastering macrobiotic medicine means becoming a man who
devotes himself in search of infinite freedom, eternal happiness, and
absolute justice, and being a man who doesn’t worry about money,
power, knowledge, status, and fame. However skillful you are in any
technique, you will be far from real freedom, happiness, and justice
if your aim is money, status, or fame. This is true in the case of medi-
cine. The more expensive the medicine becomes, the more unjust,
unfree, and unhappy it becomes. Air cooled by an air-conditioner is
more expensive than air in the woods, and it is harmful to us. Sun-
light is cheaper and healthier than any artificial light or radiation.
Water from mountain streams without pollution is much cheaper and
more health-giving than soda, factory-made orange juice, or beer.
All plants grow with only sunshine, air, and water, and they
are beautiful, strong and gentle. Animals are the same. The Angora
rabbit of Peru has immunity to all bacterial diseases. This finding
has made the animal important in medical study. It lives in the high
mountains of Peru where sunlight is weak and air is thin. The secret
of its immunity is that it doesn’t drink much. It drinks only for ne-
cessity. Excess water makes blood thin, which in turn weakens the
 Curing the Man 85

immune power and also thins nutrition, weakening the heart and kid-
neys as a result. In short, excessive and greedy eating and drinking is
the cause of all sicknesses. True medicine must be cheap and can be
acquired any place at any time.
Lao-tse said, “Winning without weapons is the real winning.”
Macrobiotic medicine is a medicine without weapons such as knives,
needles, drugs, chemicals, and radiation. Macrobiotic medicine is a
teaching of awareness of the reality or the Order of Nature through
sickness. In this sense, macrobiotic people acquire real religion, and
not superstitions. In other words, when you realize that you are the
cause of the sickness, and sickness is the benefactor of your life;
when you like everyone, when you reach the mentality of Will Rog-
ers who said, “I never met a man I didn’t like”; when you appreciate
anything including sickness, misfortune, and difficulties; then you
graduate from macrobiotic medicine. To reach this state of mind, my
practical method is the following:
Live with whole grains and local, seasonal vegetables, using a bit
of salt, oil, and traditional condiments.
Chew each mouthful of food fifty times or more.
Drink as little as possible.
Work hard physically.
After three years of observing the above diet and way of liv-
ing, you can firmly establish health. After that, teach macrobiotics to
others for seven years. Then, devote yourself to whatever you want
most in your life.
The Education of the Will

Education—East and West

Modern Western education is scientific. Its ideal is the extension
of understanding through data derived from the senses—second lev-
el judgment. This education has become professional and conformist
technique.
The result of modern education is apparent in the behavior of the
180 million people who populate the world. Our nation, for exam-
ple, continues aerial bombardment of Vietnam fifty or sixty times a
day, throws atrocious poisoned gar, uses modern chemical weapons
daily that are the most murderous ever used up to the present day,
and spends more than $10 million a day on this warfare.
Thus hundreds of Vietcong are killed each day. They live only
on whole brown rice, and own almost no weapons. Hundreds of in-
nocent, barefoot, wretched, pacifistic women and children die as
well each day, victims of war, in this distant little country more than
10,000 kilometers from its aggressor.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Western education
was founded on the idea that science creates superior conditions for
human life. The great dream of science is that, one day, what is re-
garded as the greatest of all calamities—poverty—will be banished
from the earth.
Far Eastern education, which originated 5,000 years ago, was
completely opposite from Western education. It taught that one
should enjoy poverty and consider it a blessing; that one should re-
gard difficulties and suffering with gratitude, as a help or guide; that
a simple roof sufficed for shelter and that a handful of rice and a few
vegetables were sufficient as food.
86
 The Education of the Will 87

It taught that one should consider cold and heat as teachers which
fortify, rather than treat them as enemies; that it is not necessary to
kill animals, and even less necessary to kill bacteria. It also taught
that one should adapt oneself to everything and everyone, that one
should treat others like a spring breeze while strengthening oneself
with autumn frosts; that one should pardon others, respect others,
and love everyone in the conviction that all is given inexhaustibly;
that one should not hesitate to give one’s life for others; that one
should devote oneself to the search for truth—that is, the Unique
Principle—and practice in daily life peace, purity, and respect for
principles underlying macrobiotics.
Education in the Far East was profoundly spiritual, and taught
that adaptation to nature is the way to arrive at Supreme Judgment.
Later this was degraded by conformist and conceptual educators,
who advocated a system which pretended to teach seeds and buds
how to immediately become fruits and flowers. This new education
produced a nationalistic robot-like people, obedient imitators, with-
out the spirit of independence. It taught the youth of humanity to
imitate the ideas and methods of the sages, which is impossible even
for adults.
That’s why, since the arrival of the seductive Western civiliza-
tion, people immediately became slaves, not only materially but also
spiritually. Thus it created a colonized people.
For the past one hundred years, Japan has accepted Western edu-
cation with enthusiasm, and has put all its energy into becoming an
imitator of Western civilization. This has led to the total defeat of
Japan, without precedent in the history of humanity. In the schools
of America, the world’s biggest stronghold of Western civilization,
as well as in the Japan of today, one sees an extraordinary rise of
criminality, mental sickness, allergies, heart disease, cancer, iatro-
genic diseases (diseases caused by medical treatment), the loss of the
critical spirit, the inability to think, and the increase in retardation
and uselessness in children.
Thus Far Eastern education, like that of the West, has made the
Earth into a big spaceship in the form of a sphere, which flies at
10,000 km/hr carrying three billion individuals toward the depths of
unhappiness, slavery, war, disease, suffering, and uncertainty. From
88 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

this comes the necessity of discovering a new method of physiologi-

cal and biological education.

The Fundamental Basis of All Education

At seventeen, I was struck with tuberculosis, and my condition
was so serious that I was abandoned by modern medicine. I saved
myself at the gates of death by the macrobiotic method, which is
5,000 years old. I would like to communicate to everyone the joy I
feel that I have finally arrived at seventy-four years of age, at the end
of my work, which for fifty-four years, since I was twenty years old,
has been to spread this method to the entire world. This has been a
self-education, as well as an education of the public.
Far Eastern medicine, originating 5,000 years ago, was not a
medicine of symptoms, but a fundamental method of cure which
was based on natural causes. This is why it was also a method of
health, longevity, and happiness. It was not concerned with the dis-
appearance of symptoms, but it was an educative medicine, which
had as its end the development of man’s judgment. This is revealed
in the original theory of education of the old Chinese medicine; in
the three great imperial disciplines of Japan; in the Code of Manu;
in the Ayurvedic medicine of India; and in the dietary disciplines of
all the great religions of humanity, such as Buddhism, Jainism, and
Christianity.
The five great religions of humanity were born in the East. They
are the guiding fundamental conditions, the synthesis of theory and
practice, the testimonial by its own life of the unity or monism which
permits the establishment of a world of peace, and the realization of
the happy life that humanity desires. That is why it is quite evident
that humanity must include a method of health, physiology, pathol-
ogy, and medicine. But this understanding has grown dim over thou-
sands of years, until it has been eclipsed finally and has disappeared
before the importation of dualistic, materialistic, atomic, technical,
modern civilization, whose judgment is based on brilliant and seduc-
tive appearances.
The primordial problem for man is the establishment of health.
This is why we must give the greatest emphasis to the education of
health and hygiene. All living creatures know how to control their
 The Education of the Will 89

own health except for man. Western medicine attaches all impor-
tance to the disappearance of symptoms. It does not search for the
cause, and never tries to build up the source of vitality. Consequent-
ly, it has become a simple, specialized technique; it has fallen into
mere formality, and its educative spirit has completely disappeared.
That is why modern medicine vegetates in an impasse, in spite of
formidable technical progress. If, in days of old, one believed in
this omnipotent medicine which today is represented by the Ameri-
can Medical Association, the dictator of America that even Presi-
dent Kennedy could not control, one must recognize its total defeat
before these four sicknesses: cancer, heart disease, and mental and
allergic conditions, which are the cause of 70 to 80 percent of all
deaths in America.
But the reality is worse, for not only are the doctors incapable
of curing these four great sicknesses, but they can only postpone the
death of men who suffer from general sicknesses and maintain them
as patients, just as they cannot cure the common cold or rheumatism,
or diabetes, or eczema, or any other chronic disease. As Claude Ber-
nard said, “The true medicine does not yet exist”; or as Bergson said,
“The greatest fault of science is the ignorance of life.” Dr. Rene Al-
lendy also declared, “Pasteur, whose glory exceeds Napoleon’s, has
in reality weakened humanity by destroying the system of natural se-
lection, and blemished the history of French medicine and France.”
In the Far East, ancient education was, before all else, a way of
independence—the study of self, physiologically and biologically—
and its goal was to follow a free and peaceful way, through establish-
ment of health by oneself, for oneself, and under one’s control. The
Orientals made a single way of medicine and education.
Thanks to the death of three of my nearest family members by
the time I was ten years old, I vowed to discover the true cause of
this absurd unhappiness, and by chance I found it. However, when I
began to spread this practical method of life, I immediately encoun-
tered the second great problem of my life: the will.
Marx discovered that all the evils of society originated with
bad distribution of food and drink; he wanted to teach the establish-
ment of a correct system, by revolution. Scarcely sixty years after
his death, this idea has become the guide of the greatest part of the
90 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

world’s population, yet one can see that social problems have not
diminished. On the contrary, they are continuing to grow, they are
taking on a horrible aspect, they have escalated to the greatest de-
gree, and all humanity trembles in uncertainty and lives in the fear
of future war.
Health, liberty, peace, and individual happiness are menaced.
The hospitals and psychiatric clinics become establishments essen-
tial to city life, as temples and schools were in the past. The progress
of medicine and medical paraphernalia are an indication of the in-
crease in sickness and suffering; police reinforcement indicates the
growth of criminality. This means that, although the theory of Marx
has marvelously changed the structure of societies, it has forgotten
the spirituality of man, the conception of the universe, and its will;
that is, everything which is most essential.
If one practices macrobiotics, incurable sicknesses are eliminat-
ed and uncertainties disappear with a single blow. The four physi-
ological and biological scourges according to Buddhism—life, sick-
ness, old age, and death—are problems resolved. Young students
amuse themselves with their studies, adults succeed in their work,
all become more and more happy each day, family life is gratifying,
and all life becomes more and more interesting. If one lives correctly
according to macrobiotics, all will go well and world peace can be
rapidly realized. But the difficulty is that most people, especially the
sick, don’t have the will to hold to such a simple macrobiotic life.
They lack will to such an extent that they prefer to submit to sick-
ness and poverty, and are driven to crime. It is therefore necessary
that the spiritual education, the education of the will, precede the
reconstruction of society. Even after this revolution is made, if one
neglects the education of the will, one will add to the production
of salaried conformists, slaves to their machines, a dependent race
which passes laws for playing with the machines for all who remain
passive, robot observers and live blindly. Thus, in place of the cre-
ative spirit, the spirit of imitation is substituted, because those who
create themselves and their own destiny are very small in number.
The fundamental basis of education is: (1) the self-control of
health, and (2) the establishment of will. The first condition is re-
solved by applying the macrobiotic method. But by what educative
 The Education of the Will 91

method can one fortify the will? This second condition is the great
problem. What is the great secret?

What is Will?
“To want is to be able,” says a French proverb.
“Clear thought leads to saintliness,” says a Chinese proverb.
In all times, great men—the free men, the sages—have pro-
claimed the importance of the will. No one denies it; everyone agrees
that this so. Nevertheless, most of humanity fails to use the will in
everyday life, and life ends tragically for man after having known
only “the glory of the bindweed” (a brief, ephemeral existence).
What are the reasons for this? What is the will? Are there many
kinds or levels of the will? Are there other conditions than the will
alone for changing the destiny of man?
Science keeps an absolute silence on these questions. This is
normal. In the conception, or rather, techniques of Western studies,
the end of research is relative, limited, ephemeral, and physical. In
other words, the focus is on the material world.
I posed these questions to the Far East, which has researched
principally the infinite world—absolute, eternal, and constant; that
is, the spiritual world. The response was the following:
1. The will is the progressive form of judgment.
2. There are seven levels of judgment, and therefore seven levels
of the will:
1. Mechanical or blind
2. Sensorial
3. Sentimental or emotional
4. Intellectual
5. Social
6. Ideological
7. Supreme
3. The seven steps reflect the natural development of life. For ex-
ample, in a plant the development is from seed to sprout to stalk
to branches to leaves to flowers to fruits. Judgment or will is
vitality itself. However, the first six steps have value only in the
relative, limited world. Only the seventh is valid in the absolute
world, as well as the relative world.
92 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

4. Vitality, or the principle of development in nature, and the prin-

ciple of the universe are the same.
5. Vitality increases by the mutual sympathy of the two opposing
elements, yin and yang: darkness/light, humidity/dryness, dila-
tion/compression, centrifugal force/centripetal force, etc.
6. The greatest mission of education is to make known the will, or
“infinite expansion.” When it is strong, it creates the man who
has absolute health, who can “try without trying,” “convince
without speaking,” “order the mountain to enter the sea,” “con-
quer without fighting,” “govern the strong with gentleness,”
“transmute the impossible into the possible,” and “accept dif-
ficulties with joy.”

Educating the Will

Since the will develops naturally and freely through seven levels,
an artificial and exterior education is useless. Even though animals
do not go to school, they develop in a perfect and sane way. They
lead a free life, without sickness, without worries, without poverty,
without scandalous pleasures. Instead of continuing the present sys-
tem of education, it would be wise to discover a method of help-
ing everyone to raise their judgment and change their thinking to
one of deep appreciation and gratitude for their bosses, friends, and
enemies. With this attitude it doesn’t matter what we do—we are
happy any time, anywhere, without the crimes and wars that men are
practicing now. A small seed, which has neither force nor arms, ac-
cepts conditions of darkness, pressure, cold, and dampness. Instead
of complaining or blaming others, it uses these conditions as sources
of energy. It is trampled on and eaten by insects and worms, but with
each difficulty it fortifies itself and develops more and more. Thus,
man can lead a free life and be at peace with himself if he accepts it
as a grain does; but, on the other hand, if he looks for artificial ease,
comfort, pleasure, assistance, wealth, and security, or if he has an
Epicurian conception of life—in the current degraded sense of the
word—he will weaken his natural vitality.
It is therefore important for education to give the opportunity and
the chance to know the natural origin of health—to teach the way to
achieve health in every sense of the word. This way consists of using
the correct foods, combining them properly, cooking properly, and
 The Education of the Will 93

eating properly. As a consequence, one can discover and master by

himself all the fundamental knowledge necessary to the social life
of man, since judgment follows the process of its natural develop-
ment. Those who, unhappily, have not received this education are
the victims of natural selection, and will know only the suffering
and difficulty of the world, the darkness of the seed and sprout. In
time, many will fall in discouragement and become more and more
unhappy, and manifest this unhappiness as criminals, slaves, and pa-
tients. The unhappy, the slaves, are the heavy burden of civilized
society, and they can become the cause of war. The responsibility
for the existence of unhappiness belongs to the low judgment of par-
ents and educators. However, these difficulties and sufferings are the
indispensable touchstone for those who have Supreme Judgment,
since only these social evils can transmute discouragement into will.

Education—Past and Future

During the fifty-four years that I have devoted to macrobiotics,
I have spent more than twenty of them observing the educational
programs of diverse Western countries. It is evident that their edu-
cation is founded on the scientific knowledge which has built their
civilization. For the most part, the teachings are techniques intended
to aid adaptation to life. This means that it is a materialistic educa-
tion, adapted to the physical world.
From its origin, science has been a study of the physical world,
following the research of Epicurus and Democritus. One finds sys-
tems of education founded on philosophy, religion, morals, and
ideas, but these seem to be only accessories to the royal world of
physics. Before the Renaissance, education was more blindly believ-
ing, mystical, and superstitious, but this approach was considered
nonrealistic by the rational educational leaders who followed, and
was rejected. This modern form of education is not concerned with
metaphysics, and does not study spirituality, life, liberty, happiness,
justice, memory, judgment, health, beauty, or art. It only treats them
technically. Consequently, modern education remains important be-
fore the increase in vandalism and cancer, which is the cause of thir-
ty percent of deaths among the scholar-students of Tokyo, and the
appearance of twelve-year-old diabetics! Likewise, it can only im-
94 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

potently remain with crossed arms before wars and massacres, and
likewise before the situation in America where one person in ten is
struck with mental disease at least once in his life. Neither Bertrand
Russell, Schweitzer, Toynbee, the Pope, Sartre, nor any politicians
can find a method which stops this miserable inhuman aggression
which is without parallel in history.
The leading articles in the newspapers of the “civilized” coun-
tries speak morning and night of crimes, tragedies, and accidents.
But they only expose the visible part of the great iceberg of crimes,
and the incapacity of modern education. The proof is that all this is
never (or hardly ever) found in the countries which have not made
a great profusion of this so-called education. The more civilization
and education develop, the more patients, unhappiness, and atrocious
professional crimes there are. Modern armaments, the biggest inven-
tions of science, have made possible great massacres and destruction
on a scale never before realized in the history of humanity. The mas-
sacres of Auschwitz and the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Naga-
saki have only been preludes. These bombs, costing $1 million each,
created by the scientist Oppenheimer, have killed 314,000 persons
on the battlefields of these two towns, and over the last twenty years
they have slowly continued killing the survivors.
Nevertheless, Vietnam is under bombardment, which costs more
than a million dollars a day! This condition of reality in Vietnam has
moved and aroused the concerned Japanese youth to form the “Com-
mittee for Peace in Vietnam” which is maintained and sustained by
tens of thousands of students, Buddhists, Christians, Shintoists, and
even by politicians. Their action has sufficiently influenced the New
York Times to make the appeal, “Can bombs bring peace to Viet-
nam?” Meanwhile, the H-bomb is capable of slaughtering 100 mil-
lion persons in one explosion and can at one blow wipe from the
earth whole countries like England, France, and Japan! One hundred
thousand of these H-bombs are ready, of which the total capacity
for destruction represents a slaughter of humanity seventy-five times
over and the disappearance of all human civilization!
Contemporary world history began with the East India Com-
pany, the hunt for slaves in Africa, the landings in Goa and Hong
Kong, and their occupation. The division and colonization of the
 The Education of the Will 95

countries of all races by the whites made paradise (which had been
discovered by Kipling, Stevenson, and sailors who mutinied on the
Bounty) completely disappear from the earth. That is, the “civilized”
have perpetrated scenes of slaughter and destruction throughout the
world, and are leading all humanity to its end, even though they be-
lieve they are capable of establishing a more beautiful and happier
world. It is the clearest result of scientific civilization and the educa-
tion which it founded.
It is necessary to say that there are a few rare persons among
Westerners who have the capacity to self-criticize, and who have
foreseen the end of humanity: Schupengrae, E. Carpenter, A. Carrell,
etc. They have bewailed and prophesied the coming tragedy and the
end of Western civilization and of its education, in works such as
The Failure of Western Science, Civilization: Its Cause and Cure,
and Man the Unknown.
W. Heitler, current director of the Institute of Theoretical Phys-
ics of Zurich—like Einstein, he fled Nazi Germany and took refuge
in free territory—has written and published a book entitled Man and
Science. Courageously, this wise man of modern physics insists on
the necessity of forestalling humanity’s demise, the biggest tragedy
in history, produced by science and contemporary education.
One can make the following resume of his book. “Scientific civi-
lization, after extraordinary progress, has resulted in spiritual insan-
ity. To save the world from this misery unparalleled on earth, and
avert the ruin which approaches all humanity, one must before all
save this science and this civilization from its stupidity and psycho-
sis. Scientific civilization has been deluded from the start. Its re-
search has only one end—occupation and dictatorship of the visible
world, the physical world of matter, elementary particles, etc....It has
forgotten that there is infinite spirituality and universal space beyond
the world of limited and ephemeral particles. But what is most pre-
cious for humanity is this invisible world, the world of spiritual-
ity. Immediately, right now, we must stop all physical research and
begin with all our force the dialectical research of the metaphysical
world, the world of the spiritual civilization, the Order of the Infinite
Universe! Here it is. The direction is given—the direction of the
method which will save the contemporary generation, all humanity,
96 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

all civilization, and all science.”

The research of metaphysics, spirituality, will, Supreme Judg-
ment, happiness, justice, peace, liberty, and Infinite Life was the
specialty of thinkers or sages of the Far East for five thousand years.
It is there that the five great religions of man were born, but these
religions have since become excessively antiquated mummies. Let
us lay all this aside completely and start a new edition of the world,
one that is neither physical nor metaphysical, but physical and meta-
physical at the same time. It must provide the simplest and most
practical method, which may be understood by all immediately, and
is applicable in the daily life of all races.
It is the new practical, physiological, and biological education.
Its unique instrument is practical dialectics: an amusing algebra
which resolves any difficult problem by employing yin and yang as
the unknowns. Even children can understand it in an hour.
For fifty-four years I have studied it, I have practiced it in my
daily life, I have taught it, and I have made many thousands of prac-
titioners in all corners of the world. I have adequately confirmed
this dialectic—otherwise called “the magic spectacles”—by my own
practice. I have grown firm in my conviction by the confirmation
that thousands of people of the scientific world, of the white race,
have given me as well, after having practiced it like myself. I put the
continuation of my discovery in the hands of the young people. To-
day, at the age of seventy-four, I am calm and free, for the first time
in my life. I receive each day letters of gratitude, soaked with tears,
from unknown persons, from unknown countries, from all over the
world.

Education For A Peaceful World

Humanity has now ended the first chapter of its history which,
from the beginning of the universe to the end of scientific civiliza-
tion, comprises many thousands of years.
Its last page conforms to the prediction of the Apocalypse, in
which all the predictions are realized, in order, from when the first
angel sounds his trumpet to the seventh. Now is the beginning of the
new world. The second chapter begins.
 The Education of the Will 97

A new world begins with a new Genesis.

The humanity of the first Genesis tried to adapt itself to the con-
ditions offered by nature and to create a free and peaceful life, as the
animals do—fish, insects, and birds. However, man is born with a
thinking brain, which is the difference between him and other living
beings. (Why does only man have this brain which thinks? It is an
important and interesting question, but I will not discuss it here.)
Because of this gift of thought, the manner of man’s reply to
nature’s offerings takes two antagonistic forms. One is harmonious
adaptation; the other is the conquest of nature.
The first begins with innocent surprise, and, passing through the
mysterious, ends with the discovery of the Order of the Universe. It
leads finally to the world of peace, infinite gratitude, and universal
identification. The second begins with fear rather than surprise and
takes the path of destruction, killing, and conquest by violence, all
by way of hate.
This parallel between the faith of the Far East (the first process)
and that of the West (the second) is very interesting, because both,
due to low judgment which dominates everywhere, have equally and
normally produced lies, illusions, fantasies, wildness, hate, and mal-
ice. An example is the division between East and West, which forms
an extraordinary antagonism! Finally, the time has come for East and
West to come together. The West, whose end is conquest, came to
conquer by violence the Far East, which considers adaptability as the
superior way. These aggressive conquerors have run into a mutual
collision of interests concerning each one’s own profit at the expense
of the beautiful prey which is the Far East. Thus, at present, the final
scene of the miserable end of humanity is manifesting itself accord-
ing to the prophecy of the Apocalypse!
But it is the time of the new beginning when all must be remade.
The history of humanity is now at the first line of the first page of the
second volume.
Let us re-establish a new world with our own hands. At first, re-
education must be the way. This education establishes health first of
all by its physiological and biological method. This is the setting in
which the will appears: “a healthy spirit in a healthy body.”
98 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

Peace Through Macrobiotics

The education which will produce the new world, a free and
peaceful world, begins with the creation of the healthy man. It is
purely physical education, the reappearance and reproduction, phys-
ically and biologically, of a total process of three billion years of
evolution. After fertilization, the product of the egg and sperm in-
creases itself three billion times in 280 days. Then the baby only
grows twenty times as much in the next twenty years. Therefore,
these three billion years constitute a condensed process of primor-
dial importance in the creation of man. I believe that it would be very
suitable to count this period of three billion years as the biological
unit of human evolution, as a generation of life or, in other words, a
“biological year.”
“You are what you eat,” said Francois Brillat-Savarin. From my
study of Far Eastern medicine, and my fifty-four years of teaching
it, I am more and more deeply and entirely convinced of the truth of
these words, and I have arrived at this conclusion: if the nourishment
is just, then the man is just.
Nevertheless, I had no way of knowing what was the correct
nourishment across the unfolding march of evolution during three
billion years on Earth. However, among the men who have practiced
and been cured by macrobiotics with me, miracles have been pro-
duced one after another. They have had marvelous children. Even
women who had never been able to have children have given birth
to boys or girls according to their desire. Childbirth has been without
difficulty and very rapid. The children are in perfect health, and par-
ticularly easy to raise, never catching cold. Everyone reacts with sur-
prise when seeing them. Thus, I have discovered, without a teacher,
the principle of embryology.
I know of nothing more important for a human life and for soci-
ety than the nourishment of the mother during the human embryonic
period. It is the time of the fundamental construction of man’s life.
It is the period where the three-billion-year process of evolution is
condensed! I see nothing which has a greater influence on human
life than this nourishment during the embryonic period. This is all
that needs to be said concerning the fundamental education of man
in the embryonic period.
 The Education of the Will 99

The physiological and biological education of childhood and

youth is of the greatest importance after the embryonic period. If one
gives macrobiotic nourishment from this age, one will make boys
and girls who fulfill the seven conditions of health. Moreover, who-
ever fulfills these conditions realizes, by himself and for himself, a
happy life. He becomes an independent man, who studies by him-
self. And a woman like this will be able to establish a happy family.
She will devote herself to the construction of a happy and healthy so-
ciety and country. If there is one such woman in ten thousand, their
country will become a country of liberty and peace. If there are but
ten such countries in the world, peace on earth will be maintained
forever, and one will see atrocities, mass murder, and barbarous wars
(which don’t exist among animals) disappear.
If all humanity desires peace—that is, a world where mass assas-
sinations have disappeared—then there is not any other education or
method more simple to realize it.

* * *
By conferences and writings everywhere in the world, I have
published this educative physiological and biological method for
fifty-four years. And I have obtained more than sufficient confirma-
tion of its efficacy; the examples of it are many. They have been
published in old reviews and books. Here are a few of them.
1. Mr. William Dufty, a fifty-year old American, holder of the
highest honors from England, France, and Switzerland, former offi-
cer of aviation, hospitalized for more than ten years after the second
World War, who no longer knew what to do with his body which
was like a living corpse, weighed 80 kilograms (176 pounds). He
began to practice macrobiotics two years ago by following the direc-
tions in my books. He lost 37 kilos in six months and looks twen-
ty years younger. In gratitude he has decided to devote his life to
macrobiotics. He has translated and published You Are All Sanpaku,
which required one year of work, but it has earned him a good repu-
tation. He has declared that he will translate all of my works in order
to present them to the West.
2. Miss Cuilitz of Brussels, after having found a new conception
of life through macrobiotics, has offered me a villa and apartments
100 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

which are worth 20 million yen ($80,000).

3. An American girl, Miss Pletersky of New York, saved by
macrobiotics from a miserable death, saved for two years the money
necessary for a pilgrimage to Japan, but she offered this money to
Vietnamese macrobiotics. This is a living example of the transmuta-
tion of the conception of life.
4. Mrs. Teal Ames, an American actress, quit her work to de-
vote all her fortune and herself to the establishment of a macrobiotic
food distribution center, Chico-San Incorporated, in America. In this
center, she worked on the production of a whole grain macrobiotic
bread, exactly like Cinderella (so well that a prince appeared and
took her away in his pumpkin coach!).
5. Mrs. Simon, twenty-four years old, a young American art-
ist, innocent as an angel or a child, was one among hundreds of
thousands of Americans who threw themselves too fanatically into
macrobiotics. The beautiful letters that she wrote me for the first
time, just before her death, teach us vividly of her character.
At the beginning of February 1965, she began macrobiotics with
her husband, and in nine weeks they were miraculously saved from
terrible incurable sicknesses, caused by bad eating and drugs they
had been using for ten years. Mrs. Simon had neurosis, allergy, and
heart disease; her husband had depression, tuberculosis, hardening of
the arteries, and narcosis. While following macrobiotics, they added
various other diets as well. She died in October! It is well known
in the East that often this type of woman-child, innocent and pure
as a white pearl, lacks self-reflection and ends her life tragically.
Her father was president of the lawyers’ association. He was against
the “macrobiotics of the Rising Sun” and triggered off a massive
campaign in the press, the magazines and the radio. The sale of my
books was forbidden and the macrobiotic movement condemned.
Mr. Dufty, as the editor of You Are All Sanpaku, was also accused, as
well as Mrs. Irma Paule, the secretary-general of the Ohsawa Insti-
tute. This was an undoubted advance for the movement in America.
Because of this event, macrobiotics in America was increased.
Mrs. Simon was an innocent, faithful, and well-loved woman.
But with her simplicity and honesty, she lacked judgment and deep
thought. Fatally, she came to this tragic end because she had no com-
 The Education of the Will 101

prehension of the theory, although she was so enthusiastic about the

practice.
Her case shows that philosophy without technique is useless and
technique without philosophy is dangerous.
When one introduces a new idea or theory, the danger of acci-
dents of this kind is inevitable. Theory without practice, philosophy
without technique are useless. Technique and science without theory
or philosophy are dangerous. It is the same with medicine, educa-
tion, politics, industry, and agriculture if there is no principle—
which means the First Principle: the Great Justice, the Principle of
Life (health, beauty, happiness, liberty, justice); in other words, the
Order of the Infinite Universe. It is unbelievable but true that modern
medicine ignores life! Politics has no other end than the monopoly
of rights, profit-making, and the use of violence. Industry, com-
merce, and agriculture are deluded in considering profit as primary.
It is especially unpardonable that agriculture, whose purpose is the
production of the sustenance of life, has profit as an end, and the un-
ceasing increase in financial returns. The first constitution of Japan
states formally that agriculture is the base of politics, and one of the
three sacred rules in the formation of Japan established the National
Order of Agriculture according to macrobiotic living.
The Unique State
Called Happiness
What pleasure you seem to derive from drowning yourselves in the
pool of sensory judgment! But do not fret—you are not alone. Even
the President of the United States, the leaders of Soviet Russia, Ber-
trand Russell, and Gandhi have made extraordinary strides in the
same realm. Be grateful that until now you have not been made the
victims of blind judgment, like the seven million human sacrifices
of the last war.
From the age of twenty, I have not ceased to follow the narrow
path. I am in a state of soul that is extremely calm and joyous. Sev-
enth Heaven, the universe of infinite development cannot elude us—
it is no longer out of reach. Courageous men and women! Be strong!
Step by step you can travel the unique way to the very summit.

Achieving Happiness
There are many methods for achieving a happy life. Many of
them come from the Orient and are spiritual. They run the gamut
from ascetic religious training to the physical gymnastics of Yoga.
There are hygenic and medical methods such as Occidental science,
yet there are few that have happiness as their final goal.
A Swiss scholar named Hilty has called his approach Happiness.
It is motivated, however, by spiritual, moral, Christian culture that is
difficult to apply consistently for most people.
Methods like Marxism that promise the establishment of happi-
ness in our material lives through social revolution or violent action
are offering false hope. Many people know this already. The others
will understand sooner or later.
We still have not found the scientific means to achieve happi-
102
 The Unique State Called Happiness 103

ness. On the contrary, what is called the happy life absolutely cannot
come into being by way of science. The end of scientific civilization
and the destruction of all of humanity can be the end result of ther-
monuclear war.
Nonetheless, you know that I do not make light of either social
or scientific revolution. Many of you can vouch for the fact that I am
likely to be in the forefront of either one. I openly declare that I am a
man who does not oppose social revolution, civilization, or develop-
ment of science. I have great respect for even an invention like the
atomic bomb, and I admire grandiose thermonuclear warfare.
I for one applaud both creativity and destruction. I would never
hesitate to support any effort, however misdirected, if its goal were
infinite liberty and eternal happiness.
I would not hesitate to offer all my admiration to even the medi-
cal conformist who earns his living by consuming the very life-blood
of the most pitiable people on earth—ignorant slaves. Conversely, I
proffer my sympathy and pity to those conformists upon such sci-
ence and medicine.
Yet I am content not to have played the game of these politicians,
doctors, and revolutionists. To tell the truth, I was born a tragic char-
acter destined to end in tragedy at the head of a catastrophically sen-
sational revolutionary movement. I inherited this character from my
mother, who died very young.
She passed away after having totally and gallantly followed a
way of life based on the new science. I firmly maintain this spirit of
my mother even now.
I believe that all men live with the spirit of their mothers as their
principal driving force. The influence of the father is much less im-
portant. Twenty years ago I wrote a long poem as a eulogy to my
mother. I live in the spirit of that poem even today. For seventy years,
all my words and achievements have been merely the actualization
of that maternal essence.
In short, this has been the behavior of one who hungers and
thirsts for Justice. I live from morning to night (at night in my
dreams) without being separated from my mother for an instant. I
have lived at each instant for the realization of my mother’s aims;
this will continue to the end of my life.
104 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

My mother had lived her poor life believing with all her heart
that scientific civilization, medicine and modern hygiene were in ac-
tuality Justice. All Japanese, for that matter, believe that Occidental
science teaches Justice and the essentials of life (the very things they
have come to take for granted in the traditional philosophy of the
Orient). In reality, Occidental methods are only techniques.
In traditional China, happiness is thought to depend on five con-
ditions:
1. Longevity—a long life
2. Detachment from money—not to be overly influenced by wealth
3. Security
4. Cultivation of one’s character and virtue
5. Thinking unceasingly of ways to achieve the greatest and most
marvelous thing, e.g.,
a. re-establishing the health of one’s body
b. re-establishing order in one’s family
c. establishing a peaceful government
d. guiding the whole world towards Justice.
Occidental happiness is quite another thing. Webster’s large dic-
tionary as well as the Larousse and the Littre Encyclopedia discuss
happiness at length and reach these surprising conclusions: that hap-
piness can never be achieved in this world, that it is a matter of luck,
that perfect happiness does not exist on this earth, etc., etc.
My conclusion about Occidental definitions of happiness is:
1. Wealth
2. Wealth
3. Wealth
4. Wealth
5. Wealth
In short, money is happiness. Gold, silver, fortune, the treasures
that Christ scorned have become the most important, precious things
in the world. Thus, it is natural that science has become the most
important study, that industry is most powerfully active. It is also
natural that they could lead humanity into total war. In other words,
intellectual judgment has replaced Supreme Judgment at the head of
the list in the Occident.
 The Unique State Called Happiness 105

I do not imply that intellectual judgment (the fourth level) is

evil. If the Occident, however, were to reach social, then ideological,
and lastly Supreme all-encompassing Judgment, science itself might
produce even more miracles.11
The Orient, which teaches Supreme Judgment from the very out-
set (considering the other six to be of little importance), has been
totally colonized by Occidental civilization, as we can plainly see.
In Japan, however, sentimentality (the third level of judgment) is
remarkably well developed. In matters of love, the guiding principle
is the law of Supreme Judgment: all or nothing. Even in popular
songs it is evident: “Fear not, I am yours even if it means plumbing
the lowest depths of hell.”
Paul Claudel, former French consul in the Orient, has left an ex-
traordinary collection of traditional popular songs of this type.
Love in the modern world is either at the first (blind) level of
judgment like that of amphibious plankton, or at the second (sen-
sory) level like that of cats or dogs: it is no more than superficial,
spontaneous, sexual.
If one does not have the emotional strength to live through this
blind and sensory love, one cannot come to that of the sentimental
(third) or intellectual (fourth) level.
To love is to make one’s mate happy. The happiness of which I
speak is really infinite liberty, absolute justice, eternal joy. This im-
plies loving all—humanity, animals, vegetables. It is the universal
love described by Erasmus—love at the highest (seventh) level.
If you have not tasted the joy of loving one person with all your
heart, with all your might, you cannot imagine the infinite joy of the
love of which Erasmus speaks—universal love or sadness. To under-
stand, one has to have experienced the unbearable sorrow of being
betrayed by his loved one.
In the spring, one falls in love—the miraculous product of the
yin-yang polarization of the Sixth Heaven. This should blossom into
unlimited, infinite, absolute love. Unfortunately, we arrest this de-
velopment and concretize it at the blind or sensory level.
If you want to know the true character of judgment of a man,
observe his behavior in love.
106 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

* * *
The condition that for me is the great, unique, characteristic of
happiness is not that of the Chinese definition, nor that of the Swiss,
Hilty, of Descartes, Schopenhauer, or even Erasmus. Summed up, it
is to be human.
It is the establishment of free will. To be human signifies that one
has mastered the logarithmic spiral of the Order of the Universe, to
which I have consecrated my whole life.
The different aspects of this world are due to the differentiation
of the One aspect of the Infinite or absolute. The origin of man is
universal soul or spirit, the functions of which are memory, judg-
ment, and will.
The six levels that manifest themselves between the nondiffer-
entiated world and the relative, differentiated world are the path or
way of the eternal, logarithmic spiral in which man must accomplish
a voyage in and out.
In other words, the true happiness of man is to explore precisely
his native land—Seventh Heaven or Infinity. It is to clearly know the
meaning of Oneness, to experience the fact that the soul is One, that
all things in this world are indivisible despite the fact that human
beings are apparently separate from one another, and made up of bil-
lions and billions of cells. Here is the meaning of Unity, the concept
of the identity of all humanity, the unification of the entire world.
Having arrived at that point, one cannot distinguish others, and
from then on, there is no separation. In the whole world all are re-
united in One; the term others no longer exists. There is neither
strife, jealousy, rancor nor envy. Therefore, if someone experiences
the sentiment of compassion or mercy towards others, he is an ex-
clusive dualist!

The Macrobiotic Bond

Those who breathe the same oxygen, who warm themselves at
the same fire, who drink from the same source, who live and nourish
themselves on the milk and blood of the same earth, who are born of
the same womb, are brothers and sisters. This brother and sister re-
lationship, not a product of law or violence to begin with, cannot be
 The Unique State Called Happiness 107

broken by law or violence. Even more strongly so, the relationship

between parents and children, between compatriots, between man
and wife, between master and disciple, between intimate friends,
cannot be broken during the length of one’s life. Even if there is a
clash of opinions or ideas, at the very most it is a contradiction pecu-
liar to the first six levels of judgment. On the seventh level, there is
no opposition and no need for separation.
In the realm of seventh judgment, there is no possession, no sep-
aration, no despair, no promises, no duties, no rights. It is a world
without contracts, the world of freedom, the world of the identity of
self and others—the soul of millions of individuals. He who speaks
in terms of opposition and separation is an opportunist and a dualist.
He attests to his ignorance of the absolute and of Infinity.
Macrobiotic friends through the world—friends who walk to-
gether on the road to infinite liberty, eternal happiness, and absolute
justice, who are joined by a stroke of fortune that is extremely rare
in this world—do not separate. Do not abandon one another. There
is no reason to discard a friend, even if his comprehension is of the
lowest sort, because infinite liberty, absolute justice, and eternal hap-
piness are One. There lies the realm of monism. If you abandon your
friends, family or teacher, it indicates that you are venturing into the
world of opposition, the world of low judgment and dualism. Never
separate, even if you are in conflict and struggling terribly with one
another.
A brother is always a brother even after death. If you find short-
comings in your friends, you can help them to change by seeking the
cause of the problem. If you cannot make them see the light, your
judgment has not yet reached the seventh level. You must redouble
your efforts to improve yourself.
Gratitude is always gratitude—even for a glass of water or a
bowl of rice. A debt of gratitude must be repaid ten thousand times
over or it will weigh you down forever. You are ungrateful, arrogant,
exclusive. Master Ishizuka [Ohsawa’s teacher of macrobiotic medi-
cine] rescued me from a mortal illness. Consequently, I dedicated
my life to saving ten million existences as a testimony of my grati-
tude: “One grain, ten thousand grains.” For me, ten thousand people
represent the world. One grain, ten thousand grains is not, in reality,
108 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

the mere discharge of a debt of gratitude. It is the realization of one’s

Self in happiness, liberty, and justice. Only those individuals who
follow this way can become citizens of the land of infinite liberty,
eternal happiness, absolute justice.

* * *
These reflections on the unique state of happiness are lengthier
than I had wished; I am so clumsy in expressing myself. Further-
more, it is sad that the unique state of happiness should of necessity
have to be described in a negative, passive way, with phrases that
begin with “it is not necessary...”
The path of macrobiotics and the Unique Principle, to which I
have consecrated my life, is not a discipline that requires admon-
ishments like “Thou shalt not,” in the manner of Moses’ Ten Com-
mandments. My path is without condition or limit. I have made a
point of not using imperatives. The only condition or obligation or
discipline that is more or less mandatory in macrobiotic practice is
chew thoroughly!
Nevertheless, just as in a moral discipline, I tell you, “Do not
abandon one another, there is no need to give up.” Obviously, this
is a recommendation that is absolutely unnecessary for people with
Supreme Judgment.
This condition is actually useless in any case; there is no choice
but to allow those people to leave who must. The ones who abandon
our monistic, unique path are dualists, inhabitants of the plankton
and animal worlds. Slowly, one after the other, they struggle upward
toward Seventh Heaven after having wasted several hundred million
years. It is absolutely useless to advise them to imitate those with
higher judgment. It is absurd and unhelpful. Such advice can be use-
ful only to those who are near Seventh Heaven, who single it out like
a beacon in the dark night.
To suffer from doubts as to the efficacy of macrobiotics is the
normal punishment for those who have not practiced it seriously for
ten years. One deviation erases the effectiveness of the preceding
practice.
A man of low judgment often concludes that the macrobiotic di-
alectic of the Unique Principle (the crystallization of Supreme Judg-
 The Unique State Called Happiness 109

ment) is a childish, simplistic concept. To him it is suspect since it

is not open to precise experimental study. This kind of opinion is
precisely a reflection of simplistic, infantile arrogance.
Nuclear physics, at the conclusion of precise experimental study,
has reached the conclusion that the fundamental unity of the uni-
verse is formed out of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. This is noth-
ing but dualism or pluralism. And here we stand at the brink of mass
suicide!
Here lies buried the tale of a long voyage on the road called Low
Judgment. Science suspects this. We can only hope that it will soon
find its way to monism.
The Way of Life
As you see, macrobiotic cures are very simple, but sicknesses are
very complicated. None of them can be cured with one treatment or
operation. They have many symptoms, may change form or loca-
tion, and even evolve into other sicknesses. Some people say that
bacteria and viruses are the only cause of disease. This belief is
based on ignorance and superstition. Even total destruction of dys-
entery, tuberculosis, or syphilis bacteria, say, does nothing to change
the patient’s vulnerability to these or other diseases. It is impossible
to live joyfully and happily at the expense of destroying some other
so-called harmful form of life.
Other people emphasize heredity. This is either an excuse, or an
unwitting confession of incapable doctors, or a cover-up for igno-
rance.
Furthermore, the act of destruction is cruel and violent. It reveals
dualistic thinking. Destroying living beings as a means to a peaceful
life is a logical absurdity. If you see all life as one, whole and inte-
gral, then you understand that destruction is a self-centered, schizo-
phrenic exploitation. Creation is not a self-defeating, perverted pro-
cess that leads man or other animals to mass slaughter.
A lion devouring a hare is first of all a rare occasion and one that
teaches the hare to understand instinctually the way of this world.
Note that the hare was becoming extinct for quite some time just
because he did not know how to defend himself. And the “lower”
animals never wage all-out wars on each other. Enough preaching
about the superiority of man. The essential thing is the simplicity of
following this oldest way of eating to heal any sickness without re-
sorting to brutal destruction. This way of eating means understand-
ing the biological and physiological basis of a happy and healthy
110
 The Way of Life 111

existence. Study this basic concept seriously and carefully.

In both theory and practice, training in macrobiotic medicine
with the aid of this book appears very simple. Actually, this oldest
and most dynamic philosophy is quite inaccessible to the profes-
sionally-educated Western mind. Absolute cure, I believe, comes not
with the disappearance of symptoms but with the understanding of
Vedantic life and the Unifying Principle. By following sattvic eating,
your life becomes an example of Krishna’s teaching, as it is shown
in the Bhagavad-Gita.
The way of eating is like raja yoga when it leads us to heal oth-
ers. The only way to become human—healthy, happy, and free—is
by helping others heal themselves, follow the way of eating and be-
come healthy, happy, free men and women. Only then is your life a
revelation of infinite freedom, eternal happiness, and absolute integ-
rity. You will feel infinite love for all people and you will be happy
anywhere, any time.
If you are a truly free man, all others should admire you, love
you, and follow your ways, including your eating.
With the compass of yin and yang, you will find the just solution
in harmony with the situation. There is no need for me to elaborate;
necessity is the mother of invention. Without this compass we rob
and kill ourselves and each other.
You have discovered the compass, the Weltanschauung (univer-
sal wisdom). Assimilate it and master it so you can use it to cure any
sickness and unhappiness. Your cup will flow over!

Giving
To eat is to live. To live is to give.
Remember the Order of the Universe: we of the animal world
were born of the vegetal. Animals are converted vegetables, hemo-
globin being a transmutation of chlorophyll. Just as plants take their
sustenance from the world of elements above them, so we in the
animal world below feed upon and are nourished by the multitude
of plant life.
What do we give? All things exist for the purpose of giving life
to higher beings. Just as the elements give freely to bring forth the
vegetal, and plants proliferate and give themselves to form the ani-
112 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

mal, so we of the animal world must follow their sublime example,

in utmost harmony with the Order of the Universe.
We must give. Give freely. Give everything. Give all, with plea-
sure in the giving. To give that of which you are possessed of plenty
is not a true gift. To give truly means to deprive yourself of some-
thing dear and necessary.

Accepting
Accept everything. Illness is a blessing, a guarantee of order.
Without order there could be no disorder. Accept your illness with
gratitude.
Accept misfortune as you do a bonanza, knowing that it befell
you because of some need or lack in you. Be grateful if your error
or omission is pointed out, brought home to you. Accept war as you
do peace, accept poverty like prosperity, foe like friend. He who
embraces an enemy is the freest of all men.

The Western Ideal

“You must change your life,” wrote Rilke in “Archaic Torso of
Apollo.”
You must change your life. Such was the import of an archaic
fragment of the Greek ideal upon a modern poet. Apollonian perfec-
tion once, but headless now, and without arms or legs.
“It is best not to be born,” the sages sang, on the crest of a Golden
Age. And little wonder. Athenian intellect grafted reason and logic
upon the natural tree of man, and material philosophy flowered; the
Western world is its fruit. The towers of Illium crumbled; Greek
civilization declined; the glory that was Rome could not temper the
barbarian’s sword. The elixir of life is not found in rationality.
Heraclitus spoke out, but his message was unheeded:
The way up and the way down is one and the same, and
wisdom is learning that all things are one. God is day and
night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hun-
ger; and He takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is min-
gled with spices, is named according to the savor of each.
What is at variance agrees with itself. It is the opposite
 The Way of Life 113

which is good for us. Cold things become warm, and what is
warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moistened.
It scatters and it gathers; it advances and retires.
The twentieth century is materialism’s legitimate heir. The Hel-
lenic tradition in the West obtains today, despite the continuing les-
sons of two millennia—strife, warfare, bloodshed.
Reason and logic are yet enthroned, but, in truth, over whom do
they rule? What is their domain, and where are their subjects? Where
can one single subject be found? Better the old pantheon of capri-
cious gods meddling in the affairs of men than materialism’s gross,
life-denying aims. Industrialization, science, technocracy, and prog-
ress are some of the new gods’ names, and each bears its own built-
in mechanical Vulcan for forging mankind’s glittering new chains.

Freedom
Detach yourself from anything and everything not actually nec-
essary for your bare existence. Vivere parvo. Do no depend upon
anything or anybody. Depend upon yourself alone. So long as you
carry a tin of aspirin in your pocket you are not free. Aspirin is no
cure, only a palliative. Each five grains of aspirin you take destroys
a million brain cells. Take no drugs of any kind.
A headache is the first signal of a yin imbalance in your body’s
chemistry. Aspirin, another yin, increases the disorder. Yangize
yourself, instead. Stop drinking for a day. The headache will disap-
pear and your system will welcome the return of its natural balance.

Macrobiotic Consciousness
All doors are closed to you. There is no place to hide. The solu-
tion is simple: become macrobiotic.
William Blake said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear infinite.” Be macrobiotic. The essences of
all things shine and sing; edges are sharp and defined yet all is one.
The quantity and quality of life are enhanced, a unique awareness
comes. The senses receive truly. How pure and perfect is the small-
est thing, and its counterpart; the yin and the yang—magnificent!
The liberty of imagination and impulse, the depth and breadth of
114 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

reality, the infinite, once glimpsed are never forgotten.

Half-beings become whole. One foot is forever in the Infinite.
See with the brightening glance, know the dancer from the dance.
Impressions are clear, clean, precise and joyous; the senses re-
ceive and transmit freely; the memory is liberated. The ruts of old
thought patterns are erased and direct action follows without jolt or
interference. Whatever you desire is yours. But note that your de-
sires have changed.
All is clear. Clarification of reality is man’s freedom. Absolute
truth, absolute justice reign, and no falsity exists. You will judge
for yourself everything forever after. No law, causal or man-made,
will command your adherence until you test it in the light of your
changed self. Old truths are re-examined and discarded if false; the
new truth is infinite.
When the doors of perception are cleansed, reality is sharp and
clear and perfect. Color is infinite; all things radiate it. Man’s his-
tory lies plain upon his face. There are no secrets. Light and dark
are interchangeable, are one; the cosmos is in flux, expanding and
receding tides of air.
Be macrobiotic!

The Secret of Macrobiotic Medicine

Mr. Chitarangia is sixty-three years old. He is one of the revolu-
tionaries of India. He was jailed several times. He has a strong will.
He practiced a pure vegetarian diet (nothing but vegetables, fruits,
and water) for twenty-three years in order to improve his health and
mentality.
After studying macrobiotics with me, two hours every day for
ten months, he changed the diet to the macrobiotic diet. He is ob-
serving a strict macrobiotic diet now, which consists of ten ounces
of millet, less than five ounces of vegetables, salt, and sesame oil.
He doesn’t urinate more than twice a day. It is I who worry about his
too-strict observation of the diet. One night, Lima did palm diagno-
sis on his shoulder while I was talking with him.
He said, with uneasy attitude, “Why do you put your palm on my
shoulder? If it is for healing, please stop it.”
Lima answered, “No, I am checking where the sickness is and
 The Way of Life 115

how your sickness is improving.”

After that he was contented. He didn’t want any symptomatic
cure because he knows his sickness is the punishment of the Order
of the Universe. His attitude is the secret of macrobiotic medicine.
There is no real cure except self-reflection and the realization
that sickness is one’s own fault. Punishment for the fault must be
accepted even though such punishment may seem unjust. No ex-
cuses. Even when you are resented, envied, or scolded by mistake or
misunderstanding, you should not make any excuses because there
is no excuse in nature. Only man makes excuses. There is no need to
excuse the Order of the Universe because it is perfect and makes no
mistakes. Justice reveals itself.
One who excuses does not understand the Order of the Universe
at all. Man was born in the world of freedom, love, and peace, where
the Order of the Universe is called Justice. We are living without
awareness of the Order. This Order can neither be disturbed nor dis-
torted. Millions of tons of bombs may destroy all the towns on earth,
and make the sky dirty for awhile. However, nature will clean up the
sky again.
Man creates dirt, poisons, and unhappiness. Man exhales poison-
ous gas sixteen times every minute. He secretes two to three pounds
of stinky liquid and waste every day. Some men are brave enough
to cause war, sickness, and social violence. Most of them consume
thirty million pounds of matter during their lifetime. The destruction
of man is huge and enormous. However, it is allowed.
God made man to be destructive and create unhappiness. How-
ever, God also made man to be aware and observe infinite freedom,
eternal happiness, and absolute justice. Man’s destruction is limited
and infinitesimally small compared with the greatness of the Whole-
ness—God. Man’s work is to join God’s creation. Other things, such
as making money, business, fighting, sickness, etc., are only things
to lead man to unhappiness. Once you understand the exactness and
justness of the infinite universe and smallness of man, you will not
dare to excuse any of your own faults.
Mr. Doger, the younger brother of Mr. Chitarangia, was jailed
because he marched at the head of the protesting demonstration
against killing cows. He was in jail for over 100 days without any
116 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

court action. With his status and money it would have been easy for
him to be released. However, he is a man of no excuse. He stayed
in an uncomfortable jail without any complaints or excuses, while
giving me permission to stay in his marbled mansion and to use his
luxurious car. Furthermore, he was helping me to get status so that I
could stay in India permanently.
Many famous people came to see him every day in jail to salute
him. However, he didn’t ask anybody to get him out of jail. He is a
man of no excuse.
These two brothers know the Order of the Universe which has
absolute justice. They have complete faith in the Order. This faith
and the attitude of “no excuse” are the secret of macrobiotic medi-
cine.
Your Biography Before Birth

Life Before Birth

When were you born? What year? What month? What day?
Where were you 300 days before your birth? What did you look
like? Where were you thirty years before your birth? When will you
die?
Who knows?
You will die in twenty-four hours!
Improbable...
Yes, in twenty-four hours you will die. In one hour, two hours,
five or six hours, in any event, in twenty-four hours, definitely. But
what I would like to know is, where will you be three years after
your death?
The earth will have reclaimed me.
Then you say that you have come from the earth?
No, I have come from my parents.
Then where did Man come from?
We do not know.
Where did you come from, Man, and where are you going?
Where were you, what did you look like, what did you think, what
did you do 300 days, 365 days, two years, three years or thirty years
before your birth? And 300, 3,000, or 30,000 years before, where
were you? Nowhere? We cannot answer in this way since down deep
we sense that Man was somewhere. And we feel that we will be
somewhere in a year, two years, five years, forty-nine years. Now
and then, one involuntarily lets slip, “I will be reborn seven times...”
Why do we say “seven times”? Why not “eight times,” “eighty
times,” or “800 times”? It is because the number seven signifies non-
117
118 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

fulfillment, eternal non-fulfillment. In the Orient, “eight” often sig-

nifies “realization.” The motto “eight volumes” is an example. Also,
the motto “seven and one-half volumes.” (There is the story of the
samurai Tawara-Tota. With a single arrow, he slew a great monster
that had entwined itself around Mount Oomi-Fuji seven times.)
Nevertheless, I know that Man is reborn seven times and these
seven times repeat themselves seventy times and these repeat them-
selves 700 times. Jesus knew it. “I will forgive you even if you sin
seven times—God will forgive you even if you sin seventy times
seven.”
True rebirth is the rebirth of Man; it is the rebirth of the spirit
or of an idea. If the spirit is not reborn, it is not a real rebirth. If
the spirit is reborn, the body is partially reborn and the appearance
changes. Everyone knows it instinctively.
The saying goes, “It is impossible for you to do anything without
being reborn.”
But the rebirth that one sees is that of the body. We sense that
rebirth of the body is difficult, whereas rebirth of the spirit is easy.
We often say, “By changing my spirit, I might be...”
Our body and spirit are reborn each day. Every day we eat fruits,
leaves, roots, vegetables and grasses. These plants, along with oxy-
gen and water, change into what we know as the human body. We
couldn’t live without them. Plants die, decompose in our bodies and
are miraculously reborn as the human being.
Plants themselves are the outgrowth of the various earth atoms
that have finished their atom-life. The atoms, in turn, are the rebirth
of the elements. The elements come from energy just as energy is the
product of bipolarity.
Then what is reborn from Man?
Always Zen-nin, “the Virtuous Self,” Man—more and more
virtuous, more and more free, more and more righteous, more and
more happy. That is why Man, as long as he has not become perfect,
absolutely virtuous, infinitely free and eternally happy, looks for the
path of rebirth. In reality, every man wants to be reborn, the sooner
the better.
The objective of Man’s rebirth is freedom and happiness. Each
night’s sleep is the return to his point of departure on the voyage of
 Your Biography Before Birth 119

rebirth. If he does not prepare himself adequately during sleep, he

will fail. Conversely, with good preparation, time and space present
no difficulty.

* * *
The 300th day before Man’s birth is the last point of departure
from the other world to this one. He who has not understood the se-
cret of the trip cannot discover the technique of rebirth.
We are going to make a study of that 300 days before birth, the
starting point of life, by means of a text written by Margaret Shea
Gilbert, The Biography of the Unborn (Hafner, New York, 1962).
By examining in detail the growth process of Man in his mother’s
womb, we can know with precision what occurs behind the mystic
curtain that covers the true aspect of life.
To that end, let us study embryology with the Unifying Prin-
ciple—yin and yang. In so doing, we acknowledge, on the one hand,
the value of the analytical, microscopic technique of embryology,
medicine, physiology and anatomy as developed in the Occident. On
the other, we discover the special value of the philosophy of the Far
East, the principle of a free, peaceful, wholesome and happy life. It
is a technique for living one’s daily life which was developed in the
Orient over a period of some thousands of years.
Surprisingly, this valuable tool has not been fully exploited in
the realm of physiology and anatomy. Until now, it has not been ap-
plied to the study of the embryo.

Life in the Womb

The story begins with the egg (ovum) and the sperm.
From the day that she begins menstruating, a female produces
one egg per month—400 to 500 eggs during her entire lifetime (until
her menstruation ends at the age of forty-nine). If we could mature
all of these eggs in an incubator, one woman could be mother to 500
babies!
Since the human female is pregnant for nine months, however,
she can only bear thirty-five babies during her life, hypothetically
speaking.
By contrast, the male emits several hundred million sperm at a
120 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

time and is capable of this massive production beyond the age of

sixty.
If we sterilized all men and preserved the sperm of only one
male, all the women in the world could be certain of being impreg-
nated.
It is common knowledge that often only a single bull is put into
a pasture because bulls are greedy and violent and are not as useful,
economically, as cows or steers. In fact, at times we dispense with
the bull entirely and resort to artificial insemination. If we were to
apply this method to man, who in his greed and violence closely
resembles the bull, war and murder would decrease without a doubt!
In the realm of fish, the female produces several million eggs,
most of which are eaten or destroyed. Since, however, quantity fa-
vors the species, whether among men or fish, it would seem that
nature anticipated this situation.
In a typical human ovum, almost fully developed, the tiny cells
at the periphery are the nutrition cells. The shape of the ovum is
round (yang); that of the sperm is elongated (yin). The fact that the
ovum descends and the sperm ascends makes the former yang and
the latter yin. According to the Unifying Principle, it is evident that
the yang ovum comes from the yin female and the yin sperm from
the yang male. Yin produces yang and yang produces yin.
The yin female attracts yang; then she ejects that which is yang,
after having utilized it to the utmost, because her nature is originally
yin. The ovum and sperm are the evacuations of nature.
The egg ripens and descends once a month. If it makes contact
with the sperm in the Fallopian tube, it arrives in the womb at the
end of three days. Conception begins.
Embryology ignores the following questions:
1. How do the egg and sperm meet?
2. Why does the sperm travel ten centimeters in one hour while
the egg takes three days to cover the same distance?
3. Why is it that, under normal circumstances, only a single sperm
out of billions will penetrate the egg?
These unresolved problems are very exciting if studied in the
light of the Unifying Principle.
By the end of the first month, the egg becomes fifty times larger
 Your Biography Before Birth 121

and weighs 8,000 times more than it did at the start.

The day they unite, the egg and sperm form a single cell. At the
end of a month, an organism has been formed that is six millimeters
in length, with a head, a thorax, a tail and all the organs necessary for
life. The fertilized egg doubles and redoubles; it multiplies dozens of
millions of times.
All animals reproduce by division and this phenomenon is end-
less. Dr. Alexis Carrel was awarded the Nobel prize for his studies
of the heart of an embryo chicken. He found that the heart continued
its development indefinitely if one preserved it in a special environ-
ment.
The power of division is astonishing. When it has been arrested,
death occurs. The force of division is brought to a standstill by its
opposition—contraction and immobilization.
In actuality, the cell world is dialectic. It is an uncertain world
where these opposite forces interact. This is the fundamental mecha-
nism of life.
Sensation, emotion, thought and judgment also depend on this
interaction. Consequently, we can say that all existence is dialectic:
cold-warm, joy-anger, love-hatred, pleasure-discomfort, peace-war,
material-spiritual, good-bad, liberty-slavery, good fortune-adversity,
right-wrong. It is useless to seek the absolute (peace, justice, liberty,
and happiness) in the relative world since the absolute can be neither
limited nor uncertain.
Man, in general, was not able to unlock this secret during the
three billion physiological years spent in his mother’s womb.
In the Orient long ago, the few who were able to discover this se-
cret did not teach it to everyone. And they were right. It is something
that cannot be taught precisely. It can only be grasped when one has
discovered oneself.
Strangely enough, when an attempt was made to teach it, no one
understood! And yet, everyone instinctively knows the absolute, the
Infinite. Unfortunately, we seek without comprehension because our
judgment is veiled.

* * *
The first cell continues its division indefinitely, but it changes its
122 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

direction and its manner of progression according to circumstances,

and it stops on its own at a naturally determined limit.
Man grows three to five billion times during the 280 days of ges-
tation. He comes into the world when division can go on no longer
in the environment of the womb.
After birth, he grows only twenty times more. His total growth
is more than 60 to 100 billion times the size of the first cell. This
is the final growing point of the relative world. From that time on,
if there is a part of the body that continues to grow or divide, that
growth or division is abnormal—the malady called cancer. Under
other circumstances, this unnatural division manifests itself in tragic
behavior: arrogance, greed, treachery.
Mental illnesses are the result of this sort of body malfunction.
However, if the divisive, centrifugal force of the first cell is chan-
neled in a spiritual direction, it moves freely toward the absolute and
eternal world and settles in Supreme Judgment.
The two forces which between them produce cancer, stop cell di-
vision and determine the direction which growth follows, are called
yin and yang. Yin is the divisive force while yang is the contractive
force that moderates and changes direction.
Anyone can control left or right, contraction or expansion, if
he deeply understands the workings of these two forces. Centrifu-
gal and centripetal force are the causes of our birth into the relative
world. In the body, in diet, in existence, these forces take various
forms. We can make what we want of our lives by controlling them.
One can interpret this truth as either mystical idealism or cat-
egorical materialism since it appears that we blend the material and
spiritual world. That is why our starting point is embryology.

Diet and Fetal Development

Diet is the most important factor in the phenomena of life and
physiology and especially in the phenomena of life and physiology
in the womb of the mother. Its importance is inestimable. In the de-
velopment of the fetus we clearly see the influence of yin and yang,
expansion and contraction. The proportions of these two facts in
food determine the shape of all creation.
Salt, for example, is very yang. It toughens and brings things to-
 Your Biography Before Birth 123

gether. It can be used anywhere, at any time. If one cooks beans with
a little salt, it is difficult to soften them. If one adds some salt before
cooking potatoes, they do not lose their shape.
Many elements are antagonistic to the forces of salt—for ex-
ample, water, sugar, potassium, sulphur, oxygen, and nitrogen. If
potatoes are cooked with much water or some sugar, they become a
shapeless mass.
Today, radishes, sweet potatoes, rice and wheat are larger (more
swollen) than in former years because they are cultivated with chem-
ical fertilizers (sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, water)—all antagonis-
tic to salt.
Yet, without the elements that soften, disjoin and separate them,
vegetables and man become small, rigid and dwarflike instead of
growing abundantly. They are similar to radish miso-zuke (vegeta-
bles preserved in miso or salt under pressure for two or three years)
or dried codfish.
In the plastic arts, we call the balance of yin and yang the Golden
Proportion, that which creates the most esthetic form.
In physiology, the Golden Proportion is seven parts yin to one
part yang. A body that has this balance is a sound one.

The Child with A Hare-Lip

To demonstrate the effects of yin and yang on the fetus, let us
look at the case of a child born with a hare-lip. Official medicine
can offer no explanation or cure for this tragic affliction. Yet by the
Unique Principle of yin and yang it can be understood.
Everyone comes into the world with a hare-lip. Ordinarily, the
right and left halves of the upper lip are drawn to one another, join-
ing in the middle. The lip channel under the nose is the vestigial
remains of this split, the channel marking the line of juncture.
During the first month of gestation, every embryo has a hare-lip.
At the end of the second month, it is gone. If, during that period,
the prospective mother does not eat foods that give the lip parts the
power to unite, or if she eats anything that weakens that power, her
baby will have a hare-lip. This is independent of the quantity of food
she takes.
Even if the juncture occurs, it can easily be undone, since at first
124 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

it is soft and delicate. It can be undone if the mother eats foods that
upset the process that is going on.
Food that produces hare-lip is that which contains 10 or 70 times
more yin elements than yang ones. Evidently, it is not a problem that
involves one single food but a general problem of yin-yang balance
in all foods. Calculating for every food is very complicated. It is
not so difficult, however, to figure the proportion of yin and yang in
actual daily diet.
The following types of women are apt to have hare-lipped chil-
dren.
1. Those who urinate more than three times in 24 hours.
2. Exophthalmic women (protruding eyes).
3. Those who have an enlarged thyroid gland.
4. Those who have freckles.
5. Those who shed tears very easily.
6. Those who love fruit.
7. Those who eat melons, eggplant, and potatoes.
8. Those who like sweets.
9. Those who are sluggish and absent-minded and have poor
memories.
10. Those whose faces are loose and very dark.
The woman who has more than three of these peculiarities has
the greatest tendency to have a hare-lipped child.
One finds that a large number of hare-lipped babies are con-
ceived during August and September. Why? Because around this
period, foods which have the power to disjoin, to separate (yin foods
with a potassium/sodium ratio of more than 5:1) are produced and
sold in large quantities. Pregnant women unsuspectingly eat them
with delight.
As a rule, when a woman conceives in the month of July or Au-
gust and, in addition, has characteristics 1, 6, 7, and 8, she will bear
a child with a large mouth or a hare-lip. But even the woman who
conceives in November or December who continually eats orang-
es, apples, melons or other fruits, eggplant or potatoes, will bring a
hare-lipped infant into the world.
The Seven Stages of Judgment
Our happiness depends upon our judgment. Illness or health, intelli-
gence or foolishness, piety or vice depend upon our judgment. Judg-
ment develops upward toward perfection, in the way I show below,
from one to seven.
1. Physical judgment (mechanical and blind judgment).
2. Sensorial judgment (pleasant and unpleasant).
3. Sentimental judgment (what is desirable and undesirable).
4. Conceptual judgment (intellectual, scientific).
5. Social judgment (social reason’s judgment: morals and econo-
my).
6. Judgment of thought and thinking power (justice and injustice).
7. Absolute and universal love that embraces everything and turns
every antagonism into complementarism.
At the time of birth and for some time thereafter, we are unable
to form any judgment. Then the physical judgment, the lowest one,
awakens.
After some days the sensorial judgment begins to function and
to perceive cold and warmth, two poles of our relative world. It de-
velops from day to day, and gradually can distinguish all the degrees
between two extremes: colors, shapes, temperatures, agreeable or
disagreeable tastes, sympathy or hostility. This latter stage of devel-
opment occurs within a few weeks.
After some months, we reach the affective or sentimental judg-
ment. We discern what attracts us and what frighten us or may harm
us, etc.
In the fourth stage, judgment develops in us the true concept of
the two antagonistic categories: good and evil, nice and ugly, useful
and useless, healthy food and poison, just and unjust, as well as all
125
126 Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living

natural or scientific categories.

On reaching the fifth stage, judgment turns social and perceives
a wider horizon: economy and morality.
In the sixth stage, ideology develops (dualism, materialism, spir-
itualism, life’s affirmation or negation, etc.)
It is in the seventh stage, the very last one, that our judging abil-
ity reaches the constitution of the universe and life, where we are
able to embrace all opposites in order to establish the grand univer-
sal unification.
Such is, in my opinion, a general sketch of the natural develop-
ment of our judgment. It is innate and can be likened to memory,
the basis of our faculty for adaptation, and its expansion is but our
self-realization (or the realization of life itself). This realization can
be destroyed, deformed, and repressed under the influence of the
biological, physiological and social surroundings during childhood.
It is then the beginning of our misfortune and the reason why some
souls are detained and remain behind.
Their judging remains childish and primitive. This is the case
with all those who look toward symptomatic medicine, all those who
love wealth, strength, and authority, such as famous politicians, in-
dustrialists, soldiers, and physicians. Of course, they are not entirely
responsible for this state of mind; but their surroundings are greatly
responsible, for they impede and stop the natural and total develop-
ment of judgment.
Some people try to achieve the supreme judging ability by en-
deavoring to live like great men of history. But it is obvious that
imitation is a mistake. Being very pious, may not these people also
be very egoistic? If you are anxious to see what becomes of such
people, visit India, the great Buddha’s birthplace. There in the streets
of Calcutta you will see a poor clerk giving a copper to a beggar, or
a merchant placing one or several hundred annas (worth two cents
each) at his shop entrance every morning for beggars. There are hun-
dreds of thousands of beggars. As a matter of fact, there are in India
many philanthropic millionaires and beggars because it is a part of
professional religions. Poor officials or clerks distribute food every
morning, year in and year out, to hundreds of beggars. This food is
contributed by neighbors and by the rich. It is a social industry.
 The Seven Stages of Judgment 127

The Unique Principle teaches, “the nicer the front, the uglier the
back.” Such is the back of India, mother of great religions. Such
is the end of a country that was established according to altruistic
principles. But it is not to be forgotten that “the greater and wider the
face, the greater and wider the back.” This means that besides these
so-called philanthropists, there are some who are really benefactors.
In any case, one cannot possess the supreme judging ability from
the very beginning. One must first develop the lowest judgment.
Therefore one must endure heat, cold, hunger and the greatest dif-
ficulties, not only in childhood, but all during one’s entire life. And
as one grows older, life seems more agitated and full of difficulties
and sadness. One must love and be betrayed.
Without having lived such a life, one cannot and must not un-
fold one’s conceptual faculty of judgment. Later, the judging ability
expands, through social and ideological life to the supreme ability.
And the supreme judging ability must be strengthened, developed
and increased infinitely by training the lower categories of judgment
at the same time as the higher ones, since “the greater and wider the
back, the greater and wider the front.” The seven stages of judgment
are not alien to and independent of each other, but just different de-
grees of the same judging ability. They are the roots, trunk, boughs,
foliage, flowers and fruit of this ‘judgment tree.’ In order for boughs
to develop and for flowers and fruit to be produced in large quanti-
ties under a fine sky, there must be thick and thin roots reaching deep
into rich black soil.
The Order of the Universe
and the Unique Principle
The Order of the Universe is governed by seven principles which
constitute the universal logic.
1. What has a beginning has an end.
2. All which has a front has a back.
3. There is nothing identical.
4. The bigger the front, the bigger the back.
5. All antagonism is complementary.
6. Yin and yang are the classifications of all polarization. They are
antagonistic and complementary.
7. Yin and yang are the two arms of the One (Infinity).
These principles are, first of all, dynamic; that is why they are
opposite to formal logic, which is static. They can be applied to any
domain, at any level of life, and to all things existing in the universe
of relativity. Moreover, they can unify all antagonisms.
Formal logic is rigid; it is a simple snapshot of life in the infi-
nite universe, thus, infinitesimally analytical without intending or
knowing; whereas universal logic is a living image of all life and all
things. Formal logic destroys continuity: the principle of exclusive
environments, shows us only a static, finite image, an image impris-
oned in the static world, determined from appearance, built on our
senses or our instruments. In reality all things in this world change,
without ceasing, from one extreme to the other. Nothing is stable or
constant in this relative world. Those who do not see this fact look
for constants. And everything they think to be constant is only an in-
stantaneous “snap”—illusory, non-living, and infinitesimal—of the
infinite and eternal universe. Analytical eyes are blind in the infinite
universe.
128
 The Order of the Universe and the Unique Principle 129

* * *
The seven principles of the Order of the Universe are completed
by the twelve theorems of the Unique Principle: yin and yang. These
theorems define the functioning of the world relativity.
1. Yin and yang are the two poles of infinite pure expansion.
2. Yin and yang are produced continually by the infinite expan-
sion.
3. Yin is centrifugal (expansive); yang is centripetal (contractive).
Yin and yang produce energy.
4. Yin attracts yang and yang attracts yin.
5. Yin and yang, combined in variable proportions, produce all
phenomena.
6. All phenomena are constantly changing their yin and yang
components. Everything is without rest.
7. Nothing is totally yin nor totally yang; all is relative.
8. Nothing is neuter. Yin or yang is in excess in every case.
9. The force of attraction is proportional to the difference of the
components of yin and yang.
10. Yin repels yin and yang repels yang. The greater the difference,
the weaker the repulsion.
11. With time and space, yin produces yang and yang produces yin.
12. Everything is yang at its center and yin at its surface.
 Reference Notes
1
For further explanation of the Unique Principle, see “The Order of the
Universe and the Unique Principle,” page 128.
2
For recipes, see The Do of Cooking by Cornellia Aihara (G.O.M.F. Press,
1982) and The First Macrobiotic Cookbook (G.O.M.F. Press, 1984).
3
This is an example of how to apply the Unique Principle in medicine:
burnt carbon (extreme yang) is used to treat a yin condition. – H.A.
4
It is traditional in Japan for a pregnant woman to wear a wide cotton
sash (obi) tied firmly around the abdomen to support the organs and to
prevent the baby from growing too quickly, thus ensuring an easy deliv-
ery. – H.A.
5
For recipes, see The Calendar Cookbook by Cornellia Aihara (G.O.M.F.
Press, 1979).
6
For recipe, see The Calendar Cookbook by Cornellia Aihara (G.O.M.F.
Press, 1979).
7
For recipes, see The First Macrobiotic Cookbook (G.O.M.F. Press,
1984).
8
Recent studies confirm this. For further discussion of milk in human
diet, see Don’t Drink Your Milk! by Frank Oski, M.D., Mollica Press,
Syracuse, New York, 1983 and Milk, A Myth of Civilization by Herman
Aihara, (G.O.M.F. Press, 1971).
9
Ohsawa was writing at the beginning of Japan’s involvement with World
War II, in 1941; what he predicted in fact came to pass. – H.A.
10
Haiku is a Japanese verse form consisting of exactly seventeen sylla-
bles. Each haiku offers a glimpse of nature itself, at a specific place and
season, but without any expression of human emotion. – H.A.
11
For further discussion, see “The Seven Stages of Judgment,” page 125.

131
 About the Author

George Ohsawa (Yukikazu Sakurazawa)

was born in Kyoto, the old capital of Ja-
pan, on October 18, 1893.
He is the author of over three hundred
books, ten of which have been published
in France since 1926. His work A New
Theory of Nutrition and Its Therapeutic
Effect, written and published in Japan in
1920, is in its seven hundredth edition.
Thirty years of his life were spent in-
troducing Oriental culture to Europe, while
simultaneously interpreting the culture of
the West for Japan. Among his many translations into Japanese are
Man, the Unknown by Alexis Carrel and The Meeting of East and
West by F. S. C. Northrup.
His passing on April 24, 1966 deeply saddened the countless
individuals who are eternally indebted to him for having given to
them of Life itself. Their infinite gratitude is expressed in a continu-
ation of the vital work he undertook and so ably pursued for over
fifty-four years.

132
 Other Books from the
George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation

Acid Alkaline Companion - Carl Ferré; 2009; 121 pp.

Acid and Alkaline - Herman Aihara; 1986; 121 pp.
Basic Macrobiotic Cooking, 20th Anniversary Edition - Julia
Ferré; 2007; 275 pp.
Book of Judo - George Ohsawa; 1990; 150 pp.
Cancer and the Philosophy of the Far East - George Ohsawa;
1981; 165 pp.
Essential Guide to Macrobiotics - Carl Ferré; 2011; 131 pp.
Essential Ohsawa - George Ohsawa, edited by Carl Ferré; 1994;
238 pp.
Food and Intuition 101 Volume 1: Awakening Intuition - Julia
Ferré; 2012; 225 pp.
Food and Intuition 101 Volume 2: Developing Intuition - Julia
Ferré; 2013; 243 pp.
French Meadows Cookbook - Julia Ferré; 2008; 275 pp.
Macrobiotics: An Invitation to Health and Happiness - George
Ohsawa; 1971; 128 pp.
Philosophy of Oriental Medicine - George Ohsawa; 1991; 153 pp.
Practical Guide to Far Eastern Macrobiotic Medicine - George
Ohsawa; 2010; 279 pp.
Zen Cookery - G.O.M.F.; 1985; 140 pp.
Zen Macrobiotics, Unabridged Edition - George Ohsawa, edited
by Carl Ferré; 1995; 206 pp.

A wide selection of macrobiotic books is available from the George

Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation, P.O. Box 3998, Chico, CA 95965;
530-566-9765. Order toll free: 800-232-2372. Or, you may visit
[Link] for all books and PDF downloads
of many books.