What Ohsawa Did With His Sense of the Infinite

[mike chen]

you may remember the story - how ohsawa was terribly sick with tuberculosis, how the half-trained (western-style) doctors in japan sent him home to die (out-of-sight-out-of-mind), how he bumped into ishizuka's book "by accident" in a 25cent book bin, and how he "used" the prescriptions there to cure himself . . .

in the far east - indeed, in primitive cultures in general! - a person recognizes in such events that the infinite has taken a definite material step into his/her life by the personal presentation of a form of grace. ohsawa - a japanese teenager - was no different. he saw his introduction to ishizuka exactly that way. i mean: how else would he explain it?

then, what did ohsawa do with his sense of the infinite?

[Bruce Paine]

Why, he shared it with the rest of us, of course!

Was Ohsawa's sense of the infinite personal or inpersonal?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[mike chen]

bruce,

1) how did he share it? in your understanding, exactly what is it that he shared?

2) what do you figure: did the infinite affect ohsawa personally or impersonally?

[Bruce Paine]

mike,

Ohsawa shared his discoveries with the world in his published writings, his lectures, and through guiding his friends and students!

Ohsawa says in his book "Zen Macrobiotics": "After this narrow escape at eighteen, I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to the task of telling people about that old and supposedly obsolete medicine, a goal that I have achieved (A few days after my sixtieth birthday,...........) I have constantly taught the way to establish health and happiness through eating and drinking according to Oriental Philosophy."

What I meant in my question, "Was Ohsawa's sense of the infinite personal or inpersonal?", is, did Ohsawa see God, the Creator, the Infinite, as someone or something?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[mike chen]

bruce, what happened to ohsawa - remember, he beat a death sentence - was nothing if not personal - but (and this is the question) was he introduced to "oriental philosophy" at age eighteen?

who was the agent of his salvation? did ohsawa recognize him immediately?

(ordinarily, we don't say that salvation derives from an agent. the agent is usually a messenger - that is, the reprieve from the governor is carried by someone. the word for messenger in greek is "angelos" - thus, "angel" in english.)

ohsawa needed to look past the messenger in order to determine on whose behalf the person was acting.

what do you figure - on whose behalf did he figure that ishizuka was acting?

[Bruce Paine]

mike,

You ask so many questions.

It is tough to synthesize them into a single answer, especially when one is not sure of the answers.

To make intelligent guesses into what Ohsawa's and Ishizuka's motivation's were requires that one studys the lives of these two men, something that I have been doing lately by reading books like Ronald Kotzsch's "Macrobiotics: Yesterday and Today".

One work that I would really like to get my hands on and read is Kotzsch's thesis "Georges Ohsawa and the Japanese religious tradition".

Do you have or know of anyone who has a copy of that thesis?

I'm sorry but I can't answer your questions at this time.

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine