Macrobiotics Today, November/December 1994, Vol. 34, No. 6
"Learning Life Macrobiotically" Cecile Levin
A wise person might ask: Who knows where macrobiotic life practice begins or ends? Is not all life macrobiotic? We live within the ebb and flow of change, of cause and result. We live, we learn, within the endless movements of a changing world. We look for what works, and what doesn't. Even if we find what works, do we all follow it? Even if we find what doesn't, do we drop it, or change it? What motivates us as we pass through the endless tides of this life?
Socratic Teaching
Over the more than thirty-three years that I have attempted to know the macrobiotic way, my view of life has matured, deepened. In the beginning, the vast and profound philosophy of macrobiotics enthralled and captivated me, especially as presented by George Ohsawa, Michio Kushi, Herman Aihara, and others. Those were days of inspiration, revelation, and radiance. In the early 1960s, we were involved in consciousness development. George Ohsawa emphasized the necessity to "jump in judgment," to awaken, to excel. Time was taken for Socratic teaching, for asking questions of the students rather than giving answers. We were trained in dialectics, a more intuitive, realistic approach to using the mind than logic, which is a more conceptual, linear approach, often arbitrarily imposed upon our perception of reality.
No matter how long the student took, she/he had to find the answer alone, through contemplation, experimentation, exploring the nature of yin and yang, and direct experience. This type of teaching and learning impressed me deeply. We had to learn by doing, to come to our own understanding, to make the knowledge our own. If not, if the answer were simply given, we would never be free and independent, but always dependent on others to guide us, to tell us what to do, like sheep. Ohsawa called this "slave mentality."
Ohsawa gave us koans, many koans; questions we had to answer ourselves. For instance, why do we have seven holes in our head? Why do we have five fingers? Why are all things formed in spirals? Why are penguins white in front and black in back? How do you boil an ice cube without melting it?
You cannot ask the teacher any question, but you can give the teacher your answers. The teacher's only obligation is to say "yes" or "no." The teacher is a reflection of our own mind. The more we grow in understanding, the more deeply we see the teacher. Everyone is our teacher. Life, itself, is the ultimate teacher.
One day, one year, ten years, a lifetime - it doesn't matter. The question is ours. In time, the answer will be ours, too. This was, and is, the way of training our judgment. Judgment is based on knowledge, intuition, and experience. These take time to cultivate.
Those early days were the times of $1.50 lectures, in broken English, that lasted from 7 p.m. to midnight. Those who ate too much dinner fell asleep and missed a lot. Those were the days of high group spirit, high motivation to eat little and chew well, and volunteering to do anything to help the teacher. Previously unknown worlds were opening up to us, and we were anxious to explore them.
Myriad Distractions
Alas, the days of Socratic exploration are almost gone, for all practical purposes. People have become too sick in recent years to have time to attain their own answers. Now, answers must be given, and quickly. Moreover, a degree of common sense and basic intuitive judgment has been all but lost among many people, blotted out of their daily minds by the erosion of television, fast foods, and chemicals contaminating the air, water, soil, and food. These same chemicals are eroding our bodies, our organs, nervous systems, and brains. So many people cannot think clearly, concentrate long enough to focus on their goal, to see it through, to practice with consistency until the goal is reached. The myriad distractions of the material world challenge our ability to maintain a simple life and a clear and calm mind.
Today, fewer people want to cook for themselves, or even learn how to cook. Now that the "health" food stores have presented so many prepared foods, and there are cooks here and there willing to do the cooking for others, people find it easier to depend on others to fulfill their needs. They do not realize how much they are losing by this practice; they are not aware of the great price of this convenience. They lose the opportunity to develop their own judgment, to develop their own thinking and understanding of food, and of how to adjust their food to suit their daily needs. They also think macrobiotics is only about food and healing symptoms, and do not see the greater life view and spiritual path toward consciousness and freedom.
In the late 1970s and '80s more emphasis was put on healing, attending to the alarming increase in degenerative diseases. At the same time, as macrobiotics became more widespread, it became more diluted, at times unrecognizable, blending with the more general vegetarianism, as principle was neglected in exchange for popularity.
Importance of Principle
In response to this broad misunderstanding, I have never failed to emphasize the importance of principle, and to teach yin and yang in my classes, though others have dropped the terms altogether. When I talk with some of my longtime macrobiotic friends, we miss the old spirit that inspired us to purifying fasts of #7 [diet], ten glorious days of brown rice only. Oh, how we did shine! Thus, macrobiotics gained the reputation of being "that brown rice diet." One never knows how good a thing can be until he tries it. Daniel proved this in the Bible when he preferred ten days of pulses and water to the king's meat and wine and, as a result, became wise in all things, and interpreted the king's dreams. Over the years, we have come to taste this wisdom, more or less, according to our practice. (I do not often recommend #7 these days, as people's conditions are too toxic, and they would not be comfortable with such a strong cleansing. It is better to go gradually.)
The beauty of the macrobiotic way of eating is that the food preparation can be as broad or controlled as one desires, as long as it is done with principle, and is beneficial. I have prepared the most elaborate international gourmet meals that even healing people can eat, because I never compromised principle in preparation. Principle makes the difference. The principle of balancing yin and yang needs study and practice to master. And mastery never ends.
Those of us who have persevered over the years have become too busy taking care of others, or serving others through various macrobiotic businesses, to have much time for ourselves anymore. The days of child-rearing and developing our work have been all-consuming. But the time is coming for a shift in focus toward the next level of self-care, self-cultivation, and preparation to be more active in the world, especially as the world is crying out in despair for attention, for right answers, for care, and for a way that works.
Today's Challenges
The problems we face as Macrobiotic teachers and counselors have become much more complex than before. Society has become more complicated. Somehow, the concept of economic "success" has replaced the traditional values of human bonding, of communication with nature, of a deep knowledge of life, and of what is important in sustaining life and cultivating wisdom. Economic success has replaced what brings true happiness, and it has done so at the inconceivable expense of the land and the environment that supports life. Technological "success" has been at the unspeakable expense of the people, of whole cultures, and ways of life born out of the wisdom of the ages, which, for centuries, supported mankind, high cultural expression, and supreme spiritual life, especially among indigenous, pre-colonial, and pre-industrial people who lived close to the land.
Someone will say, "But look at their simple way of life, how poor it was, and look at the riches we have now." But they see only with their eyes, not with their hearts. Gone is the communion of people with each other, with the animals, the land, plants, trees, mountains, water, and spirits. Gone is the knowledge of invisible things, the greater part of ourselves. How small we have made ourselves when we focus only on the seen, the tangible. We see only what is outside, not what is within.
When the Kogi people, our self-designated elder brothers, of the Sierra Madre, warned us of the disappearance of the life-giving snows in the mountains and the subsequent death of the land, they warned us of our wrongful ways and the coming demise of the earth. The Hopi's have given the same warning. They know when the universal laws are trespassed. When the laws are obeyed, life flourishes; when the laws are broken, life, as we know it, is destroyed. Death is the great transformer.
Bill Moyers, in a PBS Frontline special, exposed the governmental blockage to curbing agricultural pesticides, through the Reagan administration's diminishment of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) offices from thirteen to two or three. Also revealed was the EPA's inability to test chemical toxicity, and the ten to fifteen years it takes just to read through all the reports on the few chemicals that are tested. Moyers revealed that the labs that do the testing are, in fact, owned by the chemical manufacturers themselves!
Meanwhile, the very chemicals that are creating cancer, birth defects, and deaths, continue to be used on the foods which the public eats, legally "innocent until proven guilty." That goes for the U.S.-banned and -exported DDT, contaminating foods imported from Mexico and consumed by the American public. What kind of judgment is this? Is this not a kind of criminal arrogance? How many more cancers, birth defects, and deaths are needed to "prove" the chemical's effect? Is this not the epitome of "logic" - the Catch-22 of the Western world?
Pests Are Our Teachers
The truth is, no pests have been eradicated by pesticides. Being of a yin nature, pesticides have caused an even greater proliferation of pests. Maybe these very pests are our teachers. These wise insects are not only immune to the pesticides, but they are now thirty times as abundant as they were before WW II. There is some secret of value hidden here.
The use of pesticides is not only folly, it is foolish. Insects themselves are nutrient- and element- transmuting catalysts. Their massive destruction alone disturbs and harms the delicate elemental and nutritional balance and value of the soil.
The macrobiotic way of natural and organic agriculture avoids the problem altogether. As more people support organic agriculture, the chemical agricultural industry will dry up and wither away. Organic farming has sufficiently proven its validity and ability to sustain us, in the delicious and nutritional quality of the food, freedom from pests, and economic stability.
Without applying common sense, we cannot protect our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and the earth we live on. This same intuitive common sense can be applied to our own health, and our own lives. We can take responsibility for ourselves, our health, our emotions, our minds, and our lives.
The traditional way of life, guided by a deep understanding of nature and the order of the universe, is all but lost now. What we have left, we can hardly taste, we are so cut off from our source, from each other, from real life. Macrobiotics provides one of the most direct links back to real life, by reestablishing our link with the creative force, through food, and its power to overcome sickness and reaffirm health.
We need to not lose sight of the greater, higher path of a natural, macrobiotic, way of life. The more we study the traditional teachings and ways of life of traditional cultures worldwide, the deeper our understanding of macrobiotics becomes. Such study cultivates a multidimensional understanding of life, as perceived and practiced by indigenous peoples everywhere.
The understanding of yin and yang was prevalent in the pre-industrial world, though people expressed it in their own terms. Without understanding yin and yang, we cannot understand the way of life, nor view it with the appreciation and respect necessary for protecting it.
The Natural Order
Many religions taught a fear of God, the Great Spirit. We were taught to take refuge in God, in Buddha, in Jesus, and to practice their teachings and examples. The purpose for these teachings was to honor and protect the natural order of life. When science lost its fear and began to play god, unlocking life's mysteries and altering them with willful manipulation, the natural order of the universe was transgressed, and the highest crimes against life were committed.
The pattern is the same, whether on a large social scale, or a small individual scale. We must follow the way of God, the order of the universe, and help guide social change for the benefit of all. The goal is to protect our health, develop our consciousness, and reach human liberation, peace, freedom, and enlightenment.
This can be done without government decree. It need not be delayed by bureaucratic stagnation. Our life is now. This is the only time to cultivate our will, to study, to improve our practice, to deepen our understanding and awareness of life, of who we are, of the universe, and to know our oneness by direct experience.
At the same time, there is no pressure. We are where we are for the lessons to be learned at that stage. Nothing can be skipped along the way. Sometimes we move and grow slowly, sometimes quickly. The main point is not to lose sight of our goal.
The Best Medicine
Therefore, people with no life-threatening illness can protect their health by gradually, and comfortably, transitioning into a regimen of whole grains and vegetables, diminishing red meat and dairy, occasionally using a little fowl, and finally substituting all animal foods with fish. Fish can be enjoyed once or twice a week, with grains and vegetables, and a small salad, with some fresh or cooked fruits for dessert. This pattern can be followed for several months, or years, as one prefers.
Some people may wish to develop their practice beyond this, into a 100 percent vegetarian regime, to complement their spiritual practice.
Those who are healing a specific illness may not have time for a leisurely transition. They may need a more concentrated, focused, and specific regime to counteract and transform their difficulties, or even to save their lives.
These days, illnesses are more complex and take more time to heal, due to the introduction of complex chemical pollutants and contaminants, as well as synthetic drugs and medicines, into the environment, our food supplies, and our bodies. Before the extent of all this contamination, manipulation, and industrialization of our foods and the environment took place, the body could heal faster. Now it takes longer for some problems to reverse. Still, right food is the best medicine.
Secondary treatments may be helpful from time to time, such as herbs, massage, acupuncture, homeopathy, or, sometimes, some form of medical intervention, but nothing is as basic, fundamental, and transformative as food. Food becomes us. Food becomes who we are. And we become what we eat. There is no escaping it. Ideally, if food is correct nothing else is necessary.
I believe the time has come to bring macrobiotics to the people before they get sick, to bring them the way of maintaining their physical health, as well as a way of psycho-spiritual attunement, stability, and clarity. I am personally interested in the psycho-spiritual energy connection with, and influence on, the physical body, which is nothing but a condensation and crystallization of spirit itself. It is a field I am exploring, studying, and practicing, in meditation, as well as in healing.
Self-reflection
We live in a time of traumatic transitions. Many people need some form of psycho-spiritual counseling, or way of life guidance, to enable them to pursue a stable macrobiotic practice. We bring many unresolved problems, conflicts, and addictions into our macrobiotic practice without knowing how to handle them. They do not all dissolve automatically just because we start eating brown rice. Appropriate dietary adjustment is essential and effective, but discharge (catharsis) and purification at the heart and soul level are also important. Since many people are not familiar with, or accomplished in, self-reflection and meditation, I often include this type of guidance in my counseling.
We are complex human beings with complex needs. We develop and grow on many levels and in many ways. Our diverse forms of appearance and expression enrich the world, especially when we finally become fully-expressive of our wholeness, our oneness with the universe, with God. It is then that life becomes truly joyful.
From My Teachers
I will always be grateful to my mother, who persevered through her own hardships and miseries, to provide us with an orderly and beautiful home. From my mother, I learned the importance of cleanliness, order, and beauty. I learned the importance of cooking fresh foods daily (though she included meat, chicken, and fish, and I am vegetarian), and of changing those foods with the seasons. No matter how she suffered or felt, she always prepared for us a fresh, well-balanced, seasonally-appropriate dinner. It was on the table at 6:30 p.m. sharp every evening. I am very grateful for the many high standards she set for me.
From my teacher, Lima Ohsawa, I learned the application of order and beauty to macrobiotic food preparation, as well as the "secret" use of salt, water, and fire. To me, Lima exemplified the elegance of a wise, kind, humble, and quiet mind. I am deeply grateful for this legacy of wisdom from these two wise women.
My mother always made me do my homework, no matter how long it took. I often pushed myself late into the night, way beyond my bedtime, to complete an assignment or project.
I am still doing my homework. I have studied many disciplines with many teachers, gaining a broad perspective of what is essential for a long and healthy life. I have seen macrobiotic principles underlying those traditional teachings and practices. The magic spectacles of yin and yang have enabled me to sift the dross from the drift, to evaluate what is of value and what is not, and especially, to appreciate the various and changing circumstances under which any modality of healing or growth is appropriate. Everything has something to offer. It is knowing when and how to use it that makes the difference. To me, this is the essence of macrobiotic teachings: to know what form of energy to use, and how to change that energy to meet the needs of our ever-changing circumstances. Sometimes one kind word will trigger a deeper, more powerful, transformation than anything else. There is no formula, no "one-size-fits-all" here.
The more I study, the more deeply I see that all ancient, traditional ways and teachings are in accordance with the macrobiotic way. After all, "macrobiotics" means "the way of life" itself. There is one infinity, and two movements, yin and yang. These same truths have been expressed in all cultures, in a variety of ways, since time immemorial. Different cultures emphasized the particular teachings which were needed at the time, and in ways which were understandable to the people. All these teachings and practices are various expressions of the one Truth: one infinity, two movements, which create all phenomena, and all diversity of phenomena.
Whatever I incorporate into my physical, psychological, or spiritual growth, practice, and teaching, is founded on the essential principles of Macrobiotics. The principles of Macrobiotics form the essence of my practice. Thus, through understanding these principles, all other teachings open up like a flower revealing their subtle and profound truths. The secret essence of those teachings is recognized with ease, due to the clear, direct, and practical teachings of macrobiotics.
When yin and yang, in whatever language it was traditionally expressed, are deeply understood, all the mysteries of life, nature, and the universe open up and reveal themselves to us. When yin and yang are deeply understood, all the great teachings of whatever religion and philosophy become understood - and complementary. Ah, the ancient wisdoms of the world. We stunt our growth who cut ourselves off from them and blindly follow our own narrow paths, exclaiming, "My way is better than your way", "My God is better than your God."
I could go into any temple or church of worship, or stay right where I am, and find God. There is no place where the great spiritual universe, the infinite life-force, is not. We live within infinity, and infinity lives within us. There is no differentiation in essence, only in form. All of our apparent differences only add to the richness of the ocean of wisdom. We have so much to learn from each other and so much to gain in the process.
We live, we learn, we find what works and what doesn't. The key to knowing the difference is if it makes us healthy, happy and peaceful; if it benefits others; or if it makes the world a better place to live.
End of Article
Author bio-statement: Ceclile Tovah Levin is a senior Teacher and Counselor, Director of the Los Angeles East West Center for Macrobiotic Studies, and author of Cooking for Regeneration, soon to be published in the second edition.
Dual-Cartridge Drinking Water Enhancement System
Complete
with twin filter cartridges, chrome faucet diverter and easy to follow
instructions. Installs in seconds, switch from filtered to unfiltered
with the touch of a button.
Voted Best Buy 2006 by Consumers Digest Magazine
Price: $99.99