Macrobiotics Today, January/February 1995, Vol. 35, No. 1
"Survival Wisdom" Lorenz Schaller
The wise ancients viewed the eternality of life in a generational sense. They saw that for the individual, survival was possible only for a limited period of time. To ancient wisdom the eternality of life - and survival itself - depended upon the flow of life through the generations which spring from each other.
As a social phenomena, macrobiotics is a genuine living thing. Its life has come about because it is a group phenomena. None of us, as an individual, comprise a group. Macrobiotic activities are a group phenomena; a league of people aligned spiritually around a similar, shared value system or philosophy. Without an audience, without students, none of our macrobiotic teachers could have taught. In macrobiotics, all of us are co-important.
Spiritual Gift Spiritually, the macrobiotic teachings are a Great Gift. Their spiritual (invisible) consequence is vast and significant, and of important value within the human spiritual matrix. For the time it takes to read this essay, I propose that those of us involved in macrobiotic activities think of survival in a generational sense i.e., survival not just for ourselves now, but for our children, and their children, and so on. Those of us who do not have children, can think of the children of friends, as representatives of the generational flow.
The famous historian Will Durant observed that: "A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean." Durant's observation was drawn from his lifework; his knowledge as a historian.
Borrowing Durant's phrase, I think it is fair to say that here in the United States, macrobiotics was "born stoic." At the time the writer of this essay "joined" the macrobiotic group, unpolished ("brown") rice was very hard to find (I am aware this now seems unbelievable!) and certainly, nowhere in the United States was there any commercially-available "organic" brown rice. There was no "natural products industry" (no natural food retail stores), no Erewhon Company, no Lundberg Farms' unpolished or organic rice. Tahini was rare. It could only be found in exotic, tiny, Middle Eastern ethnic grocery shops. Having personally experienced those days, I feel macrobiotics here in the United States was "born stoic."
Epicurean Achievements In contrast to its "birth" years, I think it is fair to say that here in America, macrobiotics now exhibits many epicurean features. Exotic speciality rices such as basmati- and glutinous-type are easy to find, in unpolished and organically-grown form. There are a half-dozen different brands of organic tahini actively sold. Soymilks, ricemilks, rice cakes, spiced tempeh, kegs of natto miso, a great variety of whole-grain chips, crackers, breads, and snacks, all are available. Organic rice syrup is available in five-gallon pails and in even larger drums. Naturally-sweetened candy bars and frozen desserts are plentiful . . . the list is almost endless.
In its trade journal, the natural products industry recently mentioned that there are over 350 different breakfast-type cereals currently competing in the retail natural food marketplace for a place on the shelf. So great is the diversity of these cereals that no natural food distributor carries all of them. Macrobiotic cookbooks have proliferated in a beautiful way. Their content is unimaginable from the perspective of the early years. In considering these facts it seems sure to me that macrobiotics in the United States presently exhibits epicureanism. In microcosm, macrobiotics in the United States appears to me to be exhibiting the stoic and epicurean polarities Will Durant observed about nations.
Stoic Years In our "stoic" early years, macrobiotic consultations and cooking classes could be obtained and attended for very modest fees and even for free. Now, many of us have adopted a fee structure resembling the one commonly found in medical professions. "Alternative medicine" institutions offer curriculums in Oriental and natural dietetics, medicine, and healing, and can attract students focused on the practical prospect of acquiring skills which are accompanied by the compensatory fee structure of medical professions.
One valid and effective way to survive in these times is to become a professional practitioner of Oriental medicine or macrobiotic dietetics, charge clients $50-250 for consultations and treatments, and thus earn a living. This survival approach to lifestyle is personally rewarding and practical, and allows the masses access to alternative medicine and dietetic-healing skills.
The broad and rich availability of "epicurean" macrobiotic food, similarly allows the masses access to reach into the alternative pantry, and taste, test, experiment, and easily obtain healthier food. Surely, lifestyles featuring employment in the natural products industry and lifestyles featuring professional practice of Oriental medicine and dietetics, are valuable survival lifestyle paths both for the individuals who are the suppliers and for the masses who are the consumers or clients. I agree with the benefits and merits of these lifestyle paths. That such lifestyle paths are possible, is wonderful news in our society.
It seems to me that our United States macrobiotics is doing the "epicurean" things very well. Our development of that side or potential has been tremendous, strong, exciting, and excellent. We have succeeded beyond imagination from the perspective of the early years.
Our Teachers Even a cursory glance at the life history of George Ohsawa reveals that he suffered many hardships and took on a lifelong series of critically-serious adversities. Some of his serious adversities and hardships - especially the repeated attempts by representatives of the established order, his own countrymen, to murder him - on the surface, seem to have been incurred due to his expression of political views.
However, in looking at the deeper level of Ohsawa's life, it seems to me he was persecuted because of his spirituality. It seems reasonable to me, to think that - whatever our image of him - Ohsawa personally experienced the full gamut of human emotions. It follows that there must have been times when he felt intensively lonely, intensively frightened, and spiritually persecuted. Mr. Ohsawa, being an intelligent person, must have perceived that he had the option to modify his behavior; to keep silent, to teach quietly, or cease teaching altogether and spare himself serious suffering. In short, my present view is that Ohsawa suffered considerably and that this spiritual gift we have of macrobiotic teachings, was made possible because of, and came out of, his suffering.
Our other pioneer Japanese-American macrobiotic teachers also suffered many, many hardships during the birth period of macrobiotics in American. When a macrobiotic girl died in Boston in the early days, the macrobiotic diet overnight became the media's and establishment nutritionist's "killer diet!" On the West Coast, small and alone, except for his wife, young children, and a loose band of rag-tag hippies, Herman Aihara was involuntarily subjected to a full-scale media inquisition ("assault" would be the correct word) at his San Francisco residence. Alone, he faced the assault of an aggressive, nonsympathist, establishment press, confrontationally interviewing him as an exponent of a "killer diet" claiming the lives of vulnerable, gullible American youths. There was nowhere to hide at that time for Herman. No credible, establishment American physicians identified with, or were sympathetic to, the diet. There was no multi-billion-dollar natural products industry, no Oriental medicine colleges, no macrobiotic institutions with income, property, donors or defenders, and no dignity of consultations fees of $50-500.
Our teachers suffered these innumerable hardships and they gave us the richness of the macrobiotic teachings, virtually for free. In the early days, one could learn for very little payment and frequently without payment at all.
It's difficult today to imagine the personal intensity of the hardships which our pioneer teachers incurred because of their spiritual values. Few of us have been imprisoned and felt that total intensity of a system, ably operated by one's own countrymen, that wants to persecute us. Few of us have ever been the solitary subject of an involuntary interview conducted by experienced, aggressive, hardened, media journalists attacking us in every way but physically, and recording and photographing everything we say and do. Such personal experiences are truly awesome. It seems to me that the macrobiotic knowledge-base and benefits we have today are available because our teachers underwent suffering of a very real, intimate personal variety.
On occasions when I have been pulled over and received a traffic ticket, I have sometimes felt nervous, self-conscious, guilty, and even scared. Imagine for a moment, how much more intense it could be to be cited for violating U.S. Government forest laws, and be required to appear before Federal Government establishment representatives. When a wildfire was ignited one year at the annual French Meadows Macrobiotic Summer Camp, Herman Aihara was the one who was served a citation and had to subsequently appear (he was fined). Herman didn't ignite the wildfire, but he had to formally answer to the 'establishment' for it and pay a fine. How self-conscious he may have felt! He "took the flak" for what we, his students and friends, caused to happen.
A Worthy Gift "Balance" and "unity" are keywords in the philosophy given to us by our macrobiotic pioneers. I feel that spiritually, we owe our teachers a gift for bringing macrobiotics to the United States, making possible its establishment here. Their pioneer work is of inestimable value. In my view, we owe our teachers a spiritual gift that embodies our recognition of their selfless work and recognizes some of the hardships they suffered. What could comprise a worthy gift?
I propose our "worthy gift" be our effort to perpetuate macrobiotics here in the United States. If macrobiotics can be kept alive - if it can survive - beyond the time of our teachers and ourselves, it can continue to help, dignify, assist, and implant meaning and harmony into the lives of countless people, just as we ourselves have been helped.
The pioneer teachers whose efforts made possible the birth of macrobiotics in North American, taught us that macrobiotics is handed-down folk wisdom; a folk-knowledge born in those who lived close to nature, close to the land and its lifeways. These ancients observed nature, its patterns and laws, and transcribed their understanding into a philosophy applicable to daily life. These ancient ones became herbal healers, experts in natural dietetics and associated lifeways.
A plant of cereal grass has roots and fruit (grain). I believe that these roots and fruit (grain), represent the same polarities that Will Durant's quote has put into different words: "stoic" and "epicurean."
North American macrobiotics had within it a tremendous potential for the unfolding of "epicurean" energy. In the space of a few short decades, we have mastered the development and exposition of the "epicurean" features within macrobiotics. We the developers, could pride ourselves on our acumen, our shrewdness; the advances we have made and their sophistication. We might reason that it is we who developed macrobiotics. In my view however, the potential for this development was given to us by our rooted, "stoic" pioneers. They created and nourished very strong and healthy roots. We came along and took the harvest (developed the "epicurean" potential and features).
It seems to me that the "stoic" elements are the source-ground, the root-zone of macrobiotics; its resource of self-fertilization, fecundity, and the engine generating its potential.
Nourish the Roots What we have been able to take (i.e. develop) from macrobiotics was put there (its potential) by the "stoic" inputs of past generations. In order for future generations to continue harvesting fruits ("epicurean"), we need to nourish the ("stoic") roots of macrobiotics. If we only take the yield of the fruits (grain) and don't give fertility back to nourish the roots, the resource-ground will become exhausted; future yields will diminish or entirely disappear. Will Durant's quote refers to this process in nations. Macrobiotics is a nation in microcosm.
For our macrobiotics to survive, it seems to me we need to keep in balance its "stoic" and "epicurean" polarities; maintain a balance between roots and fruit (grains). No roots = no grains.
It seems to me that we in North American, despite the unceasing exhortations of our pioneer teachers, have generally neglected to involve ourselves in rural life. We have gathered (for the most part) in towns and in the big cities, and we have excelled in the big city ways. I propose that in order to nourish the roots of macrobiotics, more of us need to gather in the countryside, to learn and practice the countryside-ways; the ways not-of the-town. I propose that more of us need to attend to the natureways; the ways of the earth, the land and its lifeways.
I feel that it is critically important that more of us should pursue the personal and group quest of embracing and mastering the rural living arts, generating a living macrobiotic folk culture, macrobiotic folk knowledge, folk arts, and folk wisdom; participating in a folk culture whose ways are not-of the-town, a culture whose ways are close to the earth, close to the land and its lifeways and lifestyles.
I feel that more of us should employ the same passion and energetics we have so ably demonstrated in developing the "epicurean" possibilities of macrobiotics, to work hard to master the rural living arts.
I feel we should encourage ourselves and others to work on keeping alive the rooted, "stoic" side of macrobiotics, developing those roots, that side, that polarity so that its development parallels in skill, educational value, and nutrient significance, the spectacular "epicurean" achievements.
In order to anchor macrobiotics rurally, we need to work out functional models of unity and community. The most prominent practical obstacle to achievement of rural lifeways is economic. This economic obstacle comprises an enormous challenge to us, a very big difficulty to overcome. In order to surmount this obstacle, we need to come together in a unified way. To establish our initial models, we need capital; "rural endowment funds."
We should consider if the quote at left might apply to macrobiotics. Let us beware of unthinkingly dividing into fractious alliances and sects.
I feel it is critically important that people practicing a macrobiotic lifestyle become skilled and knowledgeable in the rural arts of water supply systems, farm and garden fertility, the arts of how to keep warm. Let us become mistresses and masters, educators knowledgeable in the small-scale arts of how to grow, thresh, clean, dehusk, and successfully store the wide variety of edible seedcrops. Let us intimately associate ourselves in non-predatory ways with the warmth and spirit energies of large animals; how to live with and care for horses and donkeys, how to raise, train, care for and farm with oxen, humanity's ancient partners in the cereal revolution (successful small-scale cereal production).
I appeal to macrobiotic men to acknowledge the beauty and power of the feminine, respecting and elevating women, giving our respect to their embodiment of the feminine principle. The dominant culture forces women to become yang in asserting their presence. Let us macrobiotic men provide a different pathwalk for feminine prominence, a graceful, elevating path. Let both genders make macrobiotics known for its knowledge and practical experience in natural childbirth, nursing, and lactation enhancement of mothers.
Let us study and learn, what different kinds of babies (adults) the different grains produce, when consumed in a staple manner and connected to the conception circumstance in the human genetic matrix. Then, let us, women and men, become teachers and educators of this knowledge.
Let us energetically pursue the achievement of establishing and sustainably operating economically viable land-based living environments. Successfully using community and neighborhood lifestyle models, let all ages gather together and nurture that precious and necessary family and village cohesion-between-ages, a cohesion produced by daily proximity.
Not-of-the-Town In these and other ways, let us work to deeply integrate macrobiotics with the "stoic" side that is not-of-the-town; a side featuring groups of us living closely with the earth, knowing the moving waters, the granitic walls, hayfields, meadows, forests, stars; knowing the land and its lifeways: animals, soils, seasons, and produce.
From the generational perspective, an energetic "stoic" style of macrobiotic daily life practice may be our future "ticket to survival." According to ancient wisdom, cereals were given to humanity as a gift by beings ("gods") who exceeded humanity in knowledge and wisdom. Along with the gift of grain, humanity received specific lifestyle instructions. These instructions directed humanity to intentionally pursue a simple manner of daily life: to practice cereal mini-farming; to eat salt with every meal; and to "spare the animals." This ancient teaching ("myth") is being widely ignored in the modern world. My own feeling is that these ancient instructions may be a "Code for Survival;" a facsimile message transmitted (across time and space) from the origination-place of the human matrix.
George Ohsawa prophesied that our time (he called it the "Gold Dynasty") would end in a spectacle exceeding our ability to imagine it beforehand.
The Hopi Indians of North America's Southwest have a mythic chronological prophecy whose content appears to forecast the destiny of humanity. According to this Hopi prophecy, humanity is ending an era whose culminating event is a Great 'Day' of Purification.
According to this Hopi myth, mankind is facing a transition from one world or lifestyle into another. In the world which will be left behind, there is a disregard for natural resources, a forgetfulness of the ancient knowledge gained from agriculture and grains, a loss of contact with the memory stream in which human myths are carried, and food is obtained by purchasing it with money.
The Hopi people have no written language and this prophetic Hopi myth exists as an oral and pictograph tradition upheld by a relative few remaining elderly traditional individuals. One of these elderly traditionalists has remarked that humanity will begin to recover its appreciation of a natural way of life when money can no longer buy food.
It seems impossible and improbable to most of us that in our lifetime in our society we could be faced with a condition wherein money could not buy food. We cannot make practical sense of the Hopi prophecy nor do we feel it applies to our lifetime. To most of us the prophecy seems exotic, inapplicable, and off-the-mark. It may be of interest to scholars but most of us feel it has little practical significance to ourselves.
But the Hopi prophecy is very old, has weathered much time, and may deserve our closer study. To really study this teaching, we must place our ear to the whisper of the wind, rest our palm on the warm living earth, and hold in our finger tips the living kernels of grain.
I was recently fascinated to read that medical science has discovered that the enzyme system specific for digesting cereal starch is evidenced in the gastric fluids of the human fetus during its intrauterine life. Is this a replica of the polarity represented in the Hopi prophecy? To me, this modern medical scientific fact, speaks of an ancient matrix ('program').
The fetus-baby is the 'vehicle' (Buddhist term) or 'user' (computer term) transitioning from one world into another new world. This vehicle's design and engineering is a product of the work of master-programmer beings (the "gods"). The vehicle has been pre-programmed to operate in the new world, using the energy of cereal starch nutrition. Therefore, the vehicle is designed to arrive in a place (i.e. survive) where the ancient lifestyle instructions are being practiced. To me, the fact/s that the ancient lifestyle instructions ("myth") accord with modern medical knowledge, should be cause for us to consider more seriously the lifestyle instructions handed-down from ancient times, pertaining to the cereal way of life.
Is there a simple, understandable formula we can use to evaluate our lifestyle (destiny) and determine its trend toward "stoic" or "epicurean" polarity? Here is my formula: the "epicurean" lifestyle polarity is characterized by a dependence on electricity (main-grid utility company's) and petroleum distillates (i.e. gasoline, diesel, etc.) in daily life. The "stoic" lifestyle polarity is characterized by an independence from electricity (main-grid type) and petroleum distillates (fuels) in daily life.
When I apply this formula to macrobiotics, it makes me feel that it is important for us to encourage ourselves to establish living environments where people are gathered together in units where they have the ability (skills and means) to live independent of main-grid electricity service and petroleum distillate fuels.
To use modern computer language to explain the mechanics of this essay's theme, my feeling is that our survival in a generational sense, requires our building now, an application (daily-life 'program') whose practical features and functions will both sustain and be available to, the generations to follow us.
This application is not profitable in the surrounding modern world and its construction cannot be conventionally financed. The first step in building the needed application, is to secure the required alternative financial backing-support.
End of Article
Author bio-statement: Lorenz Schaller has been studying the agricultural and food ways of folk cultures around the world for the past twenty-five years. Schaller lives in Ojai, California and is presently working on a book-series featuring the history of cereal grains and their agriculture. For more information on his work write to: KUSA Research Foundation, P.O. Box 761, Ojai, California, 93023.
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