Macrobiotic Life

I am creating and testing a new theory in my life, in the past days/weeks.
The theory about psychic eliminations.

The point is – there’s no reason to differentiate psychic eliminations from bodily ones.
Let me explain.

When you understand the logic about the physical eliminations, about illnesses, you know they are not a bad things.
Actually, all eliminations and illnesses are great and you should let them happen, not to suppress them.
Even, you should boost them up with some kind of natural remedy.
You suffer for a while, having a fever, head-ache, skin problems, but you know the only way how to treat it, is to go to the cause, not only suppressing the symptoms.
This logic is well known to the macrobiotic world and other “natural methods” practitioners.

I think we should go one step farther with this logic.
And start to realize how our mental/emotional body is using the very same principles.
But the elimination processes are not of the physical dimension of course.
They are the types of fear, stress, anxiety, nervousness, phobia, feeling of lack, envy, hate, self-doubt etc.

When all bodily eliminations are gone, the natural state of our physical body is a good physical health.
And the same logic applies to the emotional/mental health.
The natural state of our mental body manifests as easiness, love, courage, compassion, open-mindedness, curiousity, abundance, adaptability, creativeness, adventurousness, less thinking about oneself, more thinking about Oneness.
These qualities are not something we have to strive for, to fight for, to invest a lot of personal energy to achieve.
They are our natural state of being.

This is very important to understand.
From this logic, come up simple conclusions:

Apply the same elimination thinking to your mental processes.
Let them flow, let them be, don’t suppress them, don’t judge them, don’t try to get around them, acknowledge them.
And to eliminate quickly, even try to celebrate them, love them.
Nurture them – in a sense of paying full attention for a while to them, observe them, but remember – without judging – they are as they are.
As you see, it’s a very similar level of thinking as I have described about the physical eliminations.
See the similarity on a energetic level and it will make perfect sense to you.

The problem of society is obvious – we are suppressing our unwanted emotions, clinging to one side of the coin and creating a lot of havoc in our mental sphere.
It’s all unnecessary, if we understand this simple elimination logic.

But, there are always tricky parts, otherwise all people would be healthy and using these natural methods.

One of the traps is this:
The mental body is much more flexible than the physical one.
It reacts much quicker, all happens very fast in the comparison to the physical world.
What’s the conclusion of this?
Again, very simple.
You are a being influenced by different energetic inputs and they can manifest at your mental sphere very fast.
You can get away of fear for a half day, to experience it again at the other half.
You can have mental eliminations each morning, each day and it may seem like there’s no progress.

And on top of that – the healthier you are, the faster the mental reactions/eliminations do happen.
The same applies to the physical body – here’s an example:
The better your physical health, the faster you get eliminations when you (for example) eat something from the extreme part of energies (white sugar, lot of fats, milk – using the macrobiotic logic here).
Yes, it is a paradox, but illnesses/eliminations are a good sign of your healthy physical body.
The body is eliminating excesses, to maintain perfect health – and an effective, healthy body does it in a fast way.

The same things happen to your mental body, but it happens much faster.
The eliminations come much faster, which can be seen as a bad thing, but they can be released also much faster, if we let them go.
You can eat something of the extreme foods, and you can in a matter of minutes start to have weird mental thoughts – food energy manifestation is really happening fastest in the mental/psychical world – the more attention you pay to it, the more obvious it becomes to you.
Now, you can start to obsess with your weird thoughts, not understanding them, feeling bad for them, suppressing them, like many people do, even the macrobiotic people and not seeing any connection to the food you have eaten.
But it all testifies how unknowledgeable we are – what a misunderstandment.

Start to treat your mental eliminations with this theory and all becomes much easier.
Believe, that when you let them happen, let them eliminate, your mental body will start to clean from a years of debris.
It can start to become quite hard, because all the suppressed emotions are stored there.
But don’t run away from them.

Learn how to meditate, because in meditation you take this mental healing to perfection.
There’s no better way for mental cleaning, than meditations.
Sit, meditate, observe your emotions, don’t judge.
See the meditation process a perfect cleaning exercise – don’t expect anything, don’t think about nirvana or other complicated subjects or state of beings/consciousness, that should be achieved by it.
Just simply sit and do the meditation regularly to clean your mental body.
And it will happen!

The problem is, many people are thinking the meditations and spiritual practices in general should lead to happy, loving, joyous mental states.
And when the fears, anxiety starts to emerge in their life, after they start these spiritual practices, they are afraid, they didn’t expect them, it’s something completely else they wanted, hence they stop to practice and evaluate this spiritual practice as wrong.
They still search for the perfect spiritual path, that will give them the happiness and of course – if you search, you will find.
They will find their “all is perfect” practice.
But what’s the price?
Very big if you ask me – the price of total blindness, artificial reality, matrix dream world.
They succumb to their distorted view of reality, they need to suppress a lot of things in their psyche, they have to invest a lot of energy daily to hold their distorted world and they are becoming slaves of their own Mind world.
It’s all becoming on this subtle energetic level, and it can be understood very easily when you read and listen the right people carefully.

For me, it was a big trap of my spiritual searching. I have fallen to this “all is perfect” dream, I suppressed, I shun from my negative emotions.
But this period was needed to realize how wrong I am.
Maybe there’s no other way to understand things than to make all the mistakes for yourself.
You can read and hear from thousands people, but you never learn, other than from your own experience.
I am 99% sure that this ‘learning only through your own experience’ process is true.

But still, there’s a very important logic in listening and reading all the advices of other people.
Because you can become aware of them, you notice them, get acquainted about how things could work, what are the possibilities.
And when you fall in all the traps, you can bring out the right solution from your magical hat of knowledge.
Maybe it’s still possible to see the solution even without reading anything, without listening anyone – maybe.
But many people are better with having these backup knowledge at their hand – you don’t need to think up the plow if others already done it.

So, if you have fallen already in the trap, or if it waits for you still – it doesn’t matter, take notice of my simple logic here and use it now or later in your life.

Actually, the more I work with this simple thinking, the more evident it is to me and the less I understand how it could happen, that something this basic is not described in a more friendly and logical way.
Of course, it can be the problem of me, that I haven’t read/listened to the right people.
I am not sure if I have created another complicated description of this topic, but I feel like my explanation brings something new, some new insight, especially for the macrobiotic people and for the people seeing logic in the “all is energy” world.
As usually, it brings a new insight to me at least – the writer gets the biggest results, not the reader

One last thing – this logic is a perfect example of how we are still not seeing similarities in everything around us.
We are treating physical and mental world like completely different realities, with different set of rules, laws.
Maybe, from the west-science point of view, it could be true, that different rules apply for them.
But this is the perfect time to appreciate the logic of yin/yang.
Yin/yang will educate you and give you a perfect system for working with the whole reality – no matter if physical or mental, energy or matter.
They are all the same – once you understand the Principle of something, you can very creatively apply the same logic in a very different part of the Universe.

So, to sum it up: mental eliminations are using the same logic as the physical ones.
Let all the eliminations flow out of you freely.

Love you!

This discussion was started by Phiya’s Facebook message. I would like to reprint it here, for other people to benefit.

Phiya >> Macrobiotics must necessarily address addictions, be they from more serious substances such as drugs and alcohol, or from foods such as sugar, ice cream, chocolate, fried foods, junk foods, baked foods and processed foods. It isn’t enough to stop the addiction itself but to also address the addictive patterns of thinking and behaving as well…

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Me >> Macrobiotic should provide more theories about all energies beside the food. Macrobiotic is very good in setting the exact food pattern, standard plate – people like precise rules. I think, there should be similar precise pattern for the rest of the life energies/activities. People are not aware of this.. that they should balance all their …

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John >> Interesting point, Frantisek, although wouldn’t there be a danger that so much precision and control over everything would kind of squash out all the freedom and joy of living? Just a thought…

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Me >> John: I think there are two sides as usually. Some people would become too rigid (yang) because of this, some people would be helped to become less unresponsible (yin). For me, I try to look at mental body the same as physical. I think the exactly same question can be put over the food plate. Doesn’t it cause too much control? From what I see and people I know, there are many rational/logical thinkers in the macrobiotic movement. I think, one of the reasons for this is – the precision with which the macrobiotic sets all the food rules (the whole logical taoism yin/yang logic). I can imagine the same style of rules for the spiritual/mental/emotional life. They don’t need to be perfectly precise.. the importance would be put on the overall harmony/balance logic. There would be suggested ‘plate’ models with the basic theory around – that everyone is different, unique and has to find his way. I am just suggesting more discussion about the spiritual/mental part in the macrobiotic. I know top M leaders are aware of this very well and they try to address this issue. For example in the latest edition of Cancer Prevention Diet – there’s whole new part about Emotions related to Cancer development.

I am getting inspired by Integral Life Practices last days – I like how they try to make balance from different world practices – http://www.kenwilber.com/personal/ILP/MyILP.html

I am just speaking from my daily macrobiotic practice, from my life experiences with M and from many M people I know around. I see where they make mistakes, where I have made mistakes.. and this issue is one of them – on of the biggest mistakes I made – I just simply didn’t balance all my parts of life, I have concentrated too much on food

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John >> Excellent insights, Frantisek…I am often in conversation with students and friends here in Scandinavia who repeatedly bring up the issue: “if MB food is meant to be local, how come it all comes from Japan?”

I have very well thought-out and articulated answers to such questions, of course, but what if one applied the same criteria to “spiritual food?”

Many of the arguments that one can make about solid food do not make sense when applied to spiritual food.

I have personally derived ENORMOUS benefit from Far Eastern spiritual practices, but I find it much easier to explain to a Finn why he should eat miso soup every day than why he should chant the Diamond Sutra every day…

Perhaps we should continue this very interesting conversation somewhere other than Phiya’s FB wall: he probably wants to put the cat out and get some sleep : )

BTW, how can you possibly have such excellent English?

best wishes,

John.

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Me >> I think we can continue chatting here, Phiya can just ignore and others can see it and join, if they want.

Excellent English? Thank you, but I don’t think so. The same question could be send to you also, right? Or at Finn, it’s usual to talk English there? For me, I am self-employed from 99, I make money from net, I get info from english websites, so I consider myself as very poor learner.. for so many years of reading in English, I am not good at all But writing, talking and reading is very different, you know. For writing, the best practice become from my blog writing http://www.macrobiotic.name

About the local macrobiotic issue. I was dealing with the same question myself and from people around, asking me why so many Asia groceries. I have found general macrobiotic answers for this – the logic of the same climatic zone and also the logic of “the more water food has, the closer to you it has to be”. It served me well. But finally, I am questioning the same thing again. Looking from different perspective and now the perspective could be described as “simplicity” and “self-sustainability”. From this point of view, I am for localizing macrobiotic to each country/environment. I am asking myself, what if there will be world crisis, what if I want to live deep in the nature. I am sure, I can live from the local production, without miso, kuzu, umeboshi, seaweeds. I think they can be exchanged with other fermented foods or that I can learn how to prepare them similarly. In the end, the fermented foods were in each country’s history, we just have to rediscover and also learn about wild plants/weeds. They are my seaweed replacement
Maybe the little problem is with rice. I like rice very much. But I am going to learn about no-water rice cultivations (if I say it right, they just don’t need so much water and warm/wet weather).

For the spiritual practices. I think we are in the quest of rediscovering our old roots too. At least I am. Pagan, druid religions were the basis of nearly all religions (if you look closely and open your mind). Sacral geometry is hidden everywhere. It’s all about energies, the spiritual practices differ just like the different exercises for the body. But I have no problem with doing aikido in the Czech, or meditating vipassana style, because I see it all as having exact energy on me (more yin, more yang). Meditations and exercise are in christianity, just under different names

John, so you are Finn macrobiotic lecturer?

Thanks for the conversation, awesome topic

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Patrick >> i enjoyed this exchange, it is clever;just suggesting that everyone that is interested in this kind of mind excercise could go and simply rediscover the diet of their peaceful ancestors, some times very difficult to do find (peaceful)
michio’s work is tremendous!!
we all could turn into what i call lattitude”izing” MB,and trust me there is lots of work to be done in it’s longitude”izing” as well; to be continued if you so desire??? love peace, namaste

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Me >> Patrick: I am not sure what you are talking about. I surely desire for continuation
And I agree, Michio’s work is colossal!!

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Patrick >> frantisek, in simple terms i’m talking about about the true regionalisation of MB latitude and longitude wise, michio only touched base with that! and also i have to remember that this way of life is base on the motto of ” one peaceful world”
therefore my question about following the diet of peaceful ancestors ( pre traveling foods) is i think a crucial one

i have in storage in mass a tremendous book of about 500 pages written by a polish man ( don’t remember his name now) about fermented food complete history and geography

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Me >> Patrick: thanks for the explanation, somehow your English is a little hard for me (I don’t consider it as your problem).
You remembered me about the “Ferment & Human Nutrition” excelent book from the Bill Mollison (father of Permaculture movement), maybe this is the one you mean, but he is not polish I think

Check the reviews.. really great book!

For a better entertainment: I suggest you click the play button at the above video and start reading, the music of the video is important

Don’t underestimate the simplicity of life!

People make things unbearably complicated.
In the ‘making things complicated’ they already manifest their mental illness, their deviation from the Natural principle – which is Simplicity.

We are born Strong, we are born Love, we are born Responsible to our real Self! All child are being born with these characteristics.

We just regrettably pay the price of Freedom.
Because freedom does mean, you are free to choose to be slave and to make slaves from others.
Yes, this is the real price of the real freedom. If you would be born in Greece, in Athens or Sparta, long time ago, they would keep you strong, responsible and brave for the whole lifetime. You would have no other choice, hence no freedom.

Realize your freedom, realize you choose to be weak, to be ill, to follow other’s commands instead of your own. To follow the material possessions instead of finding enormous joy in the non-attachment. All was done upon you, but you have all accepted, nobody hold a shotgun on your head, forcing you to accept all the rules of the dementic society.

Now, when you realize this, the next step is to return to the Source. Realize the intrinsic simplicity of the whole Universe.

If you are born strong, you can become strong again. The steps are very simple and this is the problem for many people. They can’t belief something so simple can be true. We have been learned to belief in complicated theories – left brain thinking.
Delete this self-destroying program from your mind, hack inside and erase it completely and start observing the simple laws of Nature everywhere.

Ok, enough of my philosophical (yin) introduction, now you’ll get the practical (yang) part – the Rules of the Battlefield.

Do all these things daily/weekly. Get them in harmony, balance them wisely. Which means – don’t stop doing any of the rules and also don’t start doing any rule too fanatically, too much. The exact balancing is upon you, upon your experiences, observations. We are all different. Find your way by constant practice.

That’s it, that’s all. Very probably I will update and change this list in the future. But the point is, to inspire you to start looking at life from the simple logic. To start being responsible for all that’s happening to you – to the deepest of your emotions and feelings. Your weakness, your fears, your depressions, melancholy, anxiety, aggressiveness – they are all very logical result of the life you live now. You have to experience them, because you live how you live, you do what you do. But by changing your daily habits, you change these core emotions and all your beliefs also!

This is a big Truth, that is available for you to discover daily. Try to be balanced in all the daily activities and you will get happy mind and life. Because the balance is another name for happiness and health.

Jin

Macrobiotic Personal Chef
Whole Life Coach
Macrobiotic Diet/Nutiritional Counselor

Jin has a very interesting blog – simple english, right to the point, short sentences, beautiful pictures and a lot of wisdom full of macrobiotic (yin/yang) thinking. I am definitely adding his blog to my rss reader. He posts many great tips that you can involve in your macrobiotic practice – or that you already know, but you can quickly recall

He has also his own website, full of macrobiotic articles and tips!

http://www.wholelifewithjin.com/index.html
http://www.wholelifewithjin.com/healthtips.html
http://www.wholelifewithjin.com/brownriceandcancer.html

And you can watch Jin at these videos – I like the slim but firm body – this is what macrobiotic can do for you

This is my answer to one of the reader’s question. This opinion is very personal view on the “how to follow the macrobiotic diet” topic (why do I say it, this is personal blog, right?) So read it like an interesting opinion from someone who eats 6 years macrobioticaly and take what you want from it.

Here’s Wendy’s question, that inspired me to write this post:

Hello, I just searched for “macrobiotic lifestyle how-to” and stumbled upon your blog. It is extremely informative and wonderful. Please keep writing and don”t feel discouraged to quit just when I’ve found you! I need all the info I can get as I would like to begin this lifestyle.
I am a vegan and obviously would continue that while eating the macobiotic way. Any thoughts on this? I know many people following this lifestyle eat fish, is that essential? I would think not. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
I am going to go back to reading your blog and gleaning more knowledge.
Thank you!
-Wendy

Hey Wendy, thanks a lot for a lovely comment
No worry, I won’t stop posting new things that interest me. It’s just, that when people comment, like you did, and ask about specific questions, I can relate to them with my posts. I can provide them with many answers from my macrobiotic experience and I am not playing “I know it all”, I know when to give my personal advice and when to provide an useful link to another website with interesting answers.

About the fish.. from the people I know around me, they have no problem at all, being on the macrobiotic without any meat/fishes. Don’t worry, experiment. Me personaly, I eat fish about 1 time a month, I don’t eat any other meat. I have no need for meat. There are questions about the B12, but there are so many different opinions, that I wouldn’t worry with this issue at the beginning. I think the best thing you can do when starting with macrobiotic is this: take it easy, keep it simple and most importantly in M, learn cooking. Don’t be stressed and obsessed by too much theories at the start, the books are full of them. The M system is very complex. But also very simple. It depends how you look at it. Leave the complexities for later if you want. Because the most important, why people don’t stick with M longer is, they hadn’t patience to learn the proper cooking styles and because of that, they don’t know how to satisfy their cravings.

The cooking doesn’t take much longer time than any different cooking style/diet. It’s only that it seems so, at the beginning. People think, it’s very complicated. But it is not. Just take it easy and learn a little each day. Practice new recipes. It’s all down to the cooking. All the theories are great, but in the end, to any illness, problem, the general suggestion is to follow the standard macrobiotic plate. You can know many details about each topic later, but when you don’t know how to cook, you are just a full head of theories without action.

Practice, practice and don’t be afraid that you can do anything wrong. Don’t be obsessed by the exact cooking rules (there are many tiny-details in each cooking book, that are making new comers crazy). Don’t fret about the exaxct cooking times, exact procedures, when you start with M. I see many people around me, they have problems with this. They ask, if it’s too bad if they boiled miso for 5 minutes instead of simmering. If it’s totaly bad for their health if they eat honey or raw fruit, or if they put raw salt on their plate instead of cooking it, the same with oil. And then, people are stressed and rather stop with macrobiotic and switch to completely poor eating habit, instead of making mistakes with macrobiotic and continuing the learning process.

But this is typical in all the human’s endeavors. We are just like this. This could be summarized as the complex of perfectionism, idealism. If we don’t eat macrobiotic (switch to your favorite diet/activity) perfectly well, we rather stop it. If we don’t go to the gym each day, we rather don’t go at all, instead of going once per week for example. If we eat something non-macrobiotic that day, we follow the same poor pattern the whole day and are thinking, that only from tommorow we can start again.
I suggest anyone starting the M diet, don’t be so strict with yourself. Accept the biggest rule of Life: we are not perfect, nothing is perfect!
Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are.
And never, never give up

I see this path as perfectly ok too:
If you have no serious illness and you would like to start macrobiotic, start just eating 1 single macrobiotic meal a day. For example for 1 week, or 2 or 3, depends on you. Then, it will become perfect habit and very easy to follow for you. For a dinner or supper or breakfast, you will have 1 macrobiotic meal. You will slowly learn the cooking. Then, simply add a second M meal to your daily eating. Again, stick to it for 1 week or more. And then try to eat 3 meals and then continue with snacks too. No need to hurry, you can transition to the full macrobiotic diet for a period of 1 year. Anything is better than nothing.

But if you are cold turkey person.. hey, no problem, just go for it in your style. The paragraph above was for the easy, relaxed people

And here are few links for your continuous research and inspiration. Check this website and there is a selection box, where you select any person and you can read their interview. The first sentence is usually how they started with macrobiotic and it follows with their real life experiences. Very interesting reading.

In general, the whole macrobiotics.co.uk website has many many informative articles about M.

But ofcourse, the first thing to do, is to buy a complete, comprehensive book. I am sorry, but I won’t give any book suggestion, because I am not from the english speaking country and I am not acquainted which books are good for he beginners. If you have any suggestions, please, leave them at the comments.

Also, anyone, anytime, anywhere.. if you have any question, post them to comments. Don’t think it’s a stupid question, there’s no one like this! I can answer many questions, give you opinions and useful links.

Macrobiotic is wonderful lifestyle system. It’s not only about eating. It transforms you completely, not from the outside, but from the core inside. Nothing can transform you so deeply as food, no other knowledge. The deepest knowledge is coming with the food, that creates all your body cells. Your physical body, but the spiritual too! All si connected.

Love&Peace

Ken connects yin/yang perfectly for me. He is great Taoist thinker. It will enhance your knowledge about the (non)dualistic world how the macrobiotic also perceives it.

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the “everything” books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work). Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc., and the Senior Fellow of Integral Life Spiritual Center.

Read many of his awesome articles here (if they have FREE icon, you can read them without subscribing).
Check out his personal website too.

And I would suggest, to get better know his style, start reading this article – Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness.

On another topic, if you have serious illness (cancer), we you are faced with death (and who isn’t), definitely check out this book of him!! It’s completely life changing book and it will leave you fearless and accepting all the life can offer, even the death.

Many interviews with Ken and his deep knowledge at Shambala.com.

The Articles:

Five Foods that Balance Hormones — before, during and after Menopause
Sprouting Adventure in Kushi’s Kitchen
Menopause: The Myths Versus the Facts
Heal Yourself With Natural Foods
Revamp Your Eating Patterns In Three Easy Steps
Diet For a Healthy and Peaceful World
Macrobiotics and Menopause

http://www.kushiskitchen.com/articles-Gabriele-Kushi.html

As I said previous days, these logs are not very interesting for you to read. But I will still post them, they are useful for me

5:30 Get up
9:00 Rice, boiled veggies.
12:00 Miso soup (with ginger) and rice with grated carrots (on a little oil, very sweet + added citron juice).
14:10 – 17:00 Going by bus to Brno.

19:00 Being invited by friends for a dinner. Two guys were cooking it and it was very delicious. Very different than I am used to cook. Always refreshing, these friend parties. These friends are also sticking to a very good rule – eating and serving small portions. Very good in the end. Smaller eating portions mean more jang behaviour and you will be more active and do more things in life with a happier mind, not dulled by too much food But you need a really strong discipline to stick to it, or you need to chew much better. I see the second option as the better choice for me
Also, it’s very interesting how the macrobiotic men are very skillfull. Many times they are cooking a little better than women, at least in the communities around me. But today, I have read once again, from Kikuchi, how the man shouldn’t be cooking, because it’s woman’s territory and man’s Nature is to produce another values. Woman + fire, man + steel? Something like this

We were eating miso soup and pressure cooked oat with lentil burgers, vegetables, pickles.

23:30 Sleep.

7:00 Get up.

Morning eye-yoga exercises, for my poor vision. I am deciding to stick to this morning pattern for 30 days – the very first thing after I get up, I will train my eyes.
Listening a lot of classical music – Dvo?ák.

9:00 Oatflake porridge cooked with hokkaido, carrot and leek.

I have burned my fingers like never before. I was removing the heat dispenser from the stove. But I accidently forgot to turn off the flame from the morning porridge cooking. So the flame was still there and I captured it with 3 fingers. What a shock, what a learning lesson I immediately applied cold water, ice, oil and propolis (the product from bees, very yin, used in my family for things like burned spots and I can say it really works). The good news is, it is on my left hand and I am right hand person and also I have enormously nice parents, that immediately helped me to prepare my next meal and wash dishes – it was a lot of fun with them – that’s how I learn to appreciate all bad things and find only positive in every situation It will hurt very soon, but I am looking forward for this lesson.
I should adapt this mentality to dentists too I am avoiding dentists, partly because of the macrobiotic “alibism”, that the tooth are able to grow and it’s not always good to use tooth-fillings. And also I am not sure what kind of fillings I should ask for and where to find a good dentist – but I see it all as excuses.

13:00 I am cooking shrimps for the first time, on a little oil, add garlic and precooked shrimps, cooked for 5 minutes. Eating them with semolina pastas and steamed vegetables.

16:30 Eating simple pastas with freshly baked leaven bread, strange combination. Barley malt with tea.

Meditating, reading, writing.
I am in love with Rumi poems – listening to this video again and again – after converting it into mp3.

20:30 Sleep (tired from the previous night)
The fingers still don’t hurt, interesting.

Inspired by Phiya, to start again posting my daily diary – what I eat, what I do. I will try to be brief. I don’t see too much value in these posts for other people, but for me, they will be very valuable in the future. And also it’s one way, how to build my discipline, with sticking to daily postings. I also encourage you to start your own blog, log your eating patters, thoughts. You’ll be thankful after few months, years, that you did it. And write, like nobody’s reading! Then you will be very honest and open and it will start to be really interesting

6:30 get up
13:00 miso soup (hokkaido, carrot, broccoli, wakame, ginger)
14:00 buckweed with kale, turnip
19:00 onion tempura, buckweed, blanshed broccoli, roasted walnuts
buckweed with barley malt
2:30 sleep

Lot of reading (Your hidden treasures – pdf yoga book), exercising until afternoon. Chewing wasn’t less than 70 Then I was walking outside a lot, quite cold weather (-3 *C), but sunny beautiful autumn. At the night, we decided to go dancing to the club (after a long time I was at disco) – good experience, I need to stretch myself a little bit more and not sitting infront of a computer whole days

In the next week, we are going to host macrobiotic teacher Robert Carr, here in the Czech Republic.
We have decided to make an interview and each of us is coming with questions for Bob.
After I created my list, I decided to post it here.
Because it would be interesting to hear other people answering any of these questions (post them in the comments), or you can help me create a new ones

My question ideas/thoughts/inspirations (I am giving quite personal questions to him):

Whats is your definition of macrobiotic?

Do you think, the term macrobiotic has got a “bad name” in the world? Are you afraid to use it?

Are you aware of any common mistakes that most macrobiotic practitioners do in general? Like not enough chewing, overeating, small variability in foods and cooking styles.

What/Who influenced you the most in your life? Writer, speaker, book, place, person, movie. You can name more than one. Give us some tips to read, watch, listen, visit

We have many informations about the food part of the macrobiotic. Do you think we have the same amount of knowledge for the non-food area? Many physical exercises (do-in) are also available to us. But this is still about the body. Do you think we have enough informations about the Mind care in the macrobiotic literature? What are your macrobiotic principles/tips for the healthy Mind and Spirit?

What about the connection of macrobiotic and ajurveda? Is it all similar in the core or are there big differencies?

What do you think about the speed the macrobiotic is spreading around the World? Don’t you think it’s going slowly?

What do you think about the different tendencies in the macrobiotic world. Kushi, Kikuchi, Aihara, Ohsawa.. all had/have a little different suggestions. How should the macrobiotic practitioner think about it?

What’s your view over the Ohsawa’s non-credo? Where he stated, that we can eat whatever we want in the end? How do you understand it?

What are your religional life experiences? What do you believe in?

What do you think about the 2012 phenomenon? Are we going to be ruled by Iluminaty, experiencing the New World Order, destroyed by God?

Never think negatively about anything. Sometimes things like Iluminaty, New World Order, vaccination, electronic chips, environmental threats create fear in us. I feared myself for one period of life, while watching/reading these informations. It’s good to be informed, but always transform everything to Love.

From non-duality perspective is all perfect like it is. There can be no peace without war. No day without night, no life without death, no cold without heat, no fear without courage etc. We dream about ever lasting Peace, Heaven on Earth, but is it possible from the duality point of view? Can there be only Peace in the Universe? How could the balance be maintained then? We would be living in one extreme, although in very pleasurable extreme. But this situation is not possible in the world of dualities. Dualities are always balancing each other. If there is no duality, there’s no world like this, all activity would cease.
So, enjoy whatever is – seek challenges and grow

I can see one solution to the theory of Heaven on Earth. It’s very similar to macrobiotic principles. All we do in macrobiotic is to shift from taking too much extreme spectrum of energies. It doesn’t mean, we are taking only good ones, the healthy ones. There is no good without bad, no health without illness in the duality world. We cleverly shift to the more calm spectrum of these dualistic opposites, yet still enjoying the energy effects that the food creates on our body/mind system. We can live without extreme foods, extreme experiences, because we find pleasure in the more sublime, calm activities. It all happens naturally, no strong will is needed. Because we change from inside, the food change us to the more balanced, less extreme energetic condition. And we attract outside conditions according to our inner environment. We are more calm, more balanced inside, hence we attract these kinds of energies. And this all happens naturally, no need for strong mind control, suppressing our emotions, feelings, no need for strong control of our tastes.

This can happen to the future world also. We can shift to the more sublime, narrow range of energetic spectrum. It doesn’t mean, all problems, all negativity (as we perceive it) will cease. It means, that we will have less of the extreme negativities and extreme positivities. I am for this kind of World. I am for the less extreme smiling people, that are smiling artificially, after taking alcohol, drugs, a lot of white sugar. This would be compensated with the less extreme negativ people, angry people, feared, hatred, aggressive people. Give me less wars and less peace, instead of brutal killing and exaggerated loving care.

Because I have realized: the basic Universal frequency is sublime, calm Love&Peace song – OM.
When we will shift to the less extreme conditions – we will hear more of this basic Heavenly sound, all-penetrating Love frequency. But this Love is not artificial Love, it’s not mind constructed Love. It’s something that’s inside all of us, but we can’t hear it, because we are not tuned to this frequency. We are enjoying extreme foods, hence creating extreme inner environment and attracting extreme outside conditions.

The way outside, is to change your inner frequencies. Stop taking extremities in all your daily activities – food, tv/internet news, people, music, living environment etc. All are affecting your body/mind system. Be clever and start accepting more sublime energies. And your mind will start producing and attracting more sublime thoughts – love, joy, happiness, compassion, courage, bravery, enjoyment. With these thoughts in your mind, you can’t be unhappy, depressed, feeling bad. You are naturally in the Heaven here&now. Constantly. Even when natural bad things happen you will stay calm and happy inside – for example natural death is normal – you die because of old age, you die in peace, surrounded by loving friends, living fully to the last days. You don’t need to experience unnatural slow painful dying, war killing and similar – these kind of deaths are bringing you the big misery – but this is the price for living, “enjoying” the extremities of our duality World. We have created it by our daily conduct, we can stop it. Start with yourself and it will spread naturally.

Here’s an excerpt from talking of a Yogi master (sorry, don’t know which one):

Question: I can’t help thinking about the future of the world and worrying that it is going to destroy itself. What is the proper attitude?

Answer: Don’t buy into those who say it’s a dark time – it is so un-yogic. We will always have wars, depressions, turmoil. There is no duality – there is no future – unless we believe in it. How much energy do you want to put into tomorrow, into the future? It’s fantasy – it’s a lower-age belief system. There are no good times. There are no bad times. Whatever is happening is right and perfect. The yogi always asks, “What can I learn from this?” no matter what is happening. Detachment is going within. Go to love – and you will see that there you have nothing to do with war and peace. Environmental conditions or any other outside conditions, whether good or bad… take the attitude of St. Francis who said, “The weather is always nice, but in different ways.”

We’re only a breath away from going within. It’s so simple. But the mind makes it so complicated, so complex. The mind is always flickering. Learn to say “Ahh, what’s happening?” Get rid of the judgment. Ask, “What can I learn?” Take full responsibility – be a god!

But we all have an evil twin inside. It says, “It’s all a dream. Nothing really matters in this world. What’s the purpose? Why should I do anything?” If you listen to that evil twin, you will start feeling empty, depressed, and if you let it continue, you will start getting weak. You may find your spiritual life is not going well. What’s lacking? Positive action. It is very important to use positive action – it’s very easy for the evil twin to take charge. You must connect your dreams and aspirations with positive action. Even truth can become a negative affirmation without positive action. It is more important to do something, rather than wait around for something to happen.

Read this article from Phiya Kushi:
Most Macrobiotic Books Are Incorrect: There is no such thing as a “Macrobiotic Diet”

Second old article written by me at 6th January 2008.

Today I am interested to write about macrobiotic topic.
This is one of my big interests. Maybe the biggest one.
Once you realise that everything in life is somehow connected, you can’t depart from your life the influence of the food you eat daily.
Everything is energy and you should treat everything in this world like this.
If you are working in this mind picture you are seing the world quite differently.
The food you eat is transformed to the pure energy.
The macrobiotic is talking about main two energies.
The macrobiotic is derived from the Taoism and its view on the life.
Sweet, sugar is yin energy. It’s one side of the coin, one extreme.
The other side is salt, yang energy.
If you are eating overly salty and sugary foods you are flying between these two extremes and it’s very hard to stop, to balance.
If you want to be very balanced you have to work with the middle spectrum of energies. Not too much yin or yang.
These energies do containt all the main macrobiotic foods and they are:
whole cereals (rice, oat, wheat, barley..)
vegetables (except tomato)
seaweeds
condiments like shoyu, tamari, miso
fruits (but only from your local teritory)
oats

If you eat these balanced foods and if you use balanced cooking styles you are eating slowly, chewing right, the result is very healthy body, balanced mind and your life completely is getting better.
I know it sounds too scifi to believe that such a simple thing like food can be so powerful.
The best thing is to try it yourself and decide later.
I like Steve Pavlina’s 30 day challenge.
You will pick something you want to try and do it for 30 days, without any pause. You have to be strong and stick with it for 30 days. Then you will decide.
Btw Pavlina is starting his raw food eating experiment now.

Phiya Kushi posted at his Facebook profile a link to interesting blog full of macrobiotic texts. I haven’t enough time to read more than this beautiful macrobiotic day review article.

Here’s a small excerpt:

My ideal breakfast is a serving (a really big one…haha) of whole grains topped with seaweed, with steamed or quick boiled greens, carrots, shitake and daikon radish. Well okay, my ideal MACROBIOTIC breakfast consists of these foods. I am a breakfast gal. My absolute favourite snack / meal at any time of the day was cold cereal. But once I tried macrobiotics, I realized how much BETTER I felt eating WHOLE grains…and have thus been transformed into this kind of breakfast lover.

Btw Phiya Kushi is posting daily a lot of very interesting links to articles and movies at the Facebook. Just search for his name and ask to be his friend, he will add you. It seems like he is a little bit more computer addicted persons, something that macrobiotic lifestyle don’t recommend. But if it’s so tempting

I would like to summarize my latest life. What am I doing, what am I reading, what am I eating, loving, listening, thinking about.

I am now very influenced by my lack of money. Surprisingly, who is not Now comes the eternal question, should I leave or should I join? Join some employment position. Or leave somewhere into the Wild, where money have no power, or at least, where you get the illusion, that money are needed for nothing there I know only few places that could provide me this illusion. Partly, in one of them I am living now. It’s my parent’s house. I am paying monthly bills (I am not the bad lazy boy), but still the monthly “rent” is half of what I would pay somewhere else.
Another place, where one could get food and shelter and still having his life headed somewhere meaningful is.. you can guess for a while.. Kushi Institut at Amsterdam I am joking, but maybe not so much, because this option is really there.
Another places are around the whole Globe. Ashrams at India, communities at Russia (living according to Anastasia books), macrobiotic communities at France, Spain etc. Imagination is the main part and you can find many places, where you can learn a lot and not to pay anything.
Huh.. maybe I am little dumb, while thinking I should pay if I work somewhere? Maybe that’s because I am blinded (cannot see another option) by all the pricy courses, seminars, workshops and work&travel, volunteering services, where you really need to pay a lot of cash to work for them. But if I would like to get better at macrobiotic or massages or China medicine.. I don’t know a free place, where you can learn and practice for free.
I was at some job offer companies, that would involve me in the computer environment office and me doing some daunting computer programming work. Daunting for me now. Everything changes, maybe I will want to be a programmer in the summer, but I don’t think so. The more I chew everyday, day passes and the more I am feeling the power to go.. you know where.. into the Wild
When I chew well at the day, I am feeling really decided no to be employed and rather start something on my own. I was self employed all my life, it should be no problem, yes? Yes and no. If I realised that all I created, all the product of my self-employment, were spammy pages, that provide (yeah, they are still there and giving me some easy profits – in this part, I am still weak to delete them) no value.. then I decided to stop it and here’s the problem I am struggling with. What else can I do, to make some money on my own, while still creating real value.. and I am not aiming low now.. I mean REAL VALUE
I feel, something is coming, but I have this feeling nearly 80% of the year

The 5 Elements Theory began shortly after the Yin/Yang Theory was developed and is a separate system used by a limited number of practitioners of TCM who for the most part utilize the yin/yang system from a more mystical perspective rather than the physical perspective that macrobiotics follow. Initially the 5 Elements began as a physical system of understanding nature but later its meaning was changed and then attempts were made to correlate the 5 Elements with the 8 trigrams of the much earlier I Ching (Book of Changes) — of course, an impossibility.

The theory of the 5 Elements is a fixed system of “forced fits” and utilizes a discriminating system of correlative schema that are ethno-centric to ancient China and not applicable globally. Numerous flaws have been found by scores of Chinese philosophers, cosmologists, sages, (including Lao Tzu, Wang Chung, and Shao Yung) and its complexity is contrary to the Philosophical Taoists view of simplicity (although the Religious Taoists embrace it).

The 5 Elements have nothing in common with the Magic Square of 9 which again is a corruption of the well system that was designed by an an acnient agricultural engineer to divert flood water from the Yellow River. Modern macrobiotics, including George Ohsawa and Herman Aihara tried to steer clear from this contrived system and to simplify macrobiotic understanding so that it could be utilized by all people, but during the mid-1970’s one macobiotic teacher — Mr. Muramoto — who had a working background in TCM re-introduced these ideas into the modern macrobiotic lifestyle. While some macrobiotics tried to embrace these ideas, many others rebelled, and to this day it remains a controversy in the yin/yang paradigm — possibly strong enough to divide macrobiotics amongst themselves.

Macrobiotics and TCM are not the same. We can say that they are separate branches of the same tree, but each are unique upon themselves. Even practitioners of TCM are not fully convinced of the 5 Elements Theory. You can see for youself that most acupuncturists will favor a fixed diagram for needle insertion (usually cross referenced) over the designated two hours of organ activity and their respective needling times. In addition, the more traditional macrobiotics will favor finger manipulation (Shiatsu) over needles and look for non-technical applications over generalized body regions as opposed to specific points. Dietary adjustments are more of a priotity to macrobiotics, and without taking food into consideration acupuncture is seem only as symptomatic and temporary. Yet, there are numerous benefits when used together —

From my own point of view I feel that certain modifications of both systems (TCM & Macrobiotics) are needed in order to merge them into one effective system — and for the most part the central problem has to do with fixed correlative systems that have to do more with the world of magic than with natural science. In the back room of major macrobiotic communities there appears to be the growing need for rectification of macrobiotics as the new millenia approaches. I think this will take some time for it gets put on the table for discussion, but thanks to your inquirey and to the forthcoming messages perhaps this is the beginning of that long needed, and, hopefully, open dialog. For starters, here are two questions regarding the 5 Elements Theory:

1) How come some of the yang organs in this system are called yin by macrobiotic standards, and some of the yin organs are called yang by TCM practitioners?

2) We know that if you collect white light (ie sunlight) and pass it through a clear, solid prism it refracts into 6 distinct colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) but in the 5 Element Theory blue, orange, and violet are missing?

Many things need to be discussed. We await friendly replies from our macrobiotic “teachers”. I hope this helps. In peace, Roy

Original article taken from:
http://www.yinyangstation.com/roy/index.cgi?read=46

The food is not everything, but the best way to realise this, is to eat properly.. such a paradox

This is from George Ohsawa book – An Invitation to Health and Happiness.
There’s “8 Macrobiotic principles” in the book and this is the 8th principle – Do O Raku.
Reading the George Ohsawa books changed my view of Macrobiotic quite a lot – highly recommended to read some of his many writings!

As for the initial question, what to take for intensive hiking trips and backpacking, I would consider these:

• roasted seeds (I prefere sesame, but can be others – pumpkin, sunflower, flax) mixed with barley malt (rice malt, sirups)
• tahini mixed with malts
• white rice (white pastas) cooked with oil – white flour product sugars go very fast into the blood
• home prepared bread from flour, salt, barley malt, raizines, seeds, sourdough (I prefer steamed over baked)
• any high-sweet baked cookies
• when burning really lot of energy I am not afraid to eat honey and maple syrup also
• fruits
• good quality beer (no white sugar)

These are my fast energy boosters on hike trips
Ofcourse higher amount of cooked beans are always good throughout a day.
Fish is also great.

“For breakfast she will have a vegetable soup along with either fresh vegetables or fruits or their juices, all of which are recommended within the macrobiotic diet she is known to embrace. Before lunch, she will go for a session of Pilates before eating more macrobiotic foods, which include lots of vegetables and protein-rich dishes made from tofu, seeds, bean sprouts.”

And then her actual workout begins, for two or three more hours, Riches says, including swimming, biking and martial arts.

Oh, to be like Madge at 50