Mastering macrobiotic medicine means becoming a man who devotes himself to the 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 medicine.
The more expensive the medicine becomes, the more unjust, unfree, and unhappy it becomes. Air cooled by an air-conditioner is more expensive and harmful to us than air in the woods.
Sunlight 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 necessity. Excess water makes the blood thin, which in turn weakens the immune power and also thins nutrition, weakening the heart and kidneys as a result.
In short, excessive and greedy eating and drinking are the cause of all sicknesses. True medicine must be cheap; it can be acquired any place at any time. Lao-tsu 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 the Universe through sickness. In this sense, macrobiotic medicine is more religious than modern religions.
In fact, macrobiotic people acquire real religion, and not superstitions.
In other words, when you realize that you are the cause of the sickness and that sickness is the benefactor of your life; when you like everyone and reach the mentality of Will Rogers who said, “I never met a man I didn’t like”; and when you appreciate anything including sickness, misfortune, and difficulties; then you graduate from macrobiotic medicine.
To reach this state of mind, I recommend the following practical method:
●Eat 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 only what is necessary.
●Work hard physically.
After three years of observing the above diet and way of living, you can firmly establish health.
After that, teach macrobiotic living to others for seven years. Then, devote yourself to whatever you want most in your life.
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 the 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 acknowledge God or infinity is a good thing. Not to know or acknowledge either one is bad. The consideration of good or bad in reference to all other things is by comparison insignificant and inconsequential.
It is the product of a superficial concept of the world.”
In macrobiotic thinking, we say that sickness comes from food. This can be proven to be true. Our choice of food, however, is actually determined 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 Far East, 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 macrobiotic thinking 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 macrobiotic living is merely a cure for physical ailments, however, can never really be helped.
It is not a new medicine 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 effected, the disease will never recur. Consequently, macrobiotic consultation 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 macrobiotic philosophy is no more than the teaching of a diet—the eating of brown rice, carrots, and gomashio (sesame salt).
Others imagine that it is summed up in the statement, “Don’t eat cake and sugar.”
How far from the truth!
Macrobiotic living 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, giving thanks to the infinite, and always having a feeling of wonder and gratefulness towards 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, without 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 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 judgment.
True health is that which you yourself have created out of illness.
Only if you have produced your own health can you know how wonderful 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 joyous 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 macrobiotic philosophy is to provide the means for establishing a joyful attitude. In the face of it, all arrogance, complaints, fear, insecurity, sadness, and suffering fade into nothingness.
Happiness, love, freedom, and faith remain.
In such a state there is infinite gratitude.
