PUBLIC LECTURE IN BENDIGO - Slide Show

On Monday 13th April I gave a one hour presentation on George Ohsawa and his philosophy at the Bendigo Public Library as part of their Philosophy in the Library Series. The slides below are from the presentation that accompanied my talk. There is not much you can say in one hour, and the emphasis was necessarily on philosophy, not cooking or cuisine, but these slides give some indication of what was covered. 

I began with a brief introduction to George Ohsawa the man - a short biographical sketch. 

I talked about the background to macrobiotics in the work of Dr Sagan Ishizuka. 

I mentioned Ohsawa's family background and the impact of tuberculosis. 

I talked about Ohsawa in Paris. 

I mentioned the possible precedents of macrobiotics in the work of Christoph Hufeland. 

I noted that Ohsawa was a pioneer in the struggle to bring Oriental medicine to the West.

I talked about Lima Ohsawa. 

I talked about Ohsawa's experiences during the Second World War and the impact of the War upon him. I then turned to aspects of his philosophy. 

I noted that Ohsawa's philosophical position is essentially non-dualist. 

To underline the non-dual theme I pointed out that the notion of non-dualism and the expression of a philosophy through food is not alien to Western concepts. 

I noted other philosophical diets. I emphasized the idea of "the radiant mind" - a diet that looks beyond mere "health" to aspects of consciousness. There was some discussion about how macrobiotics has become just another "health fad" when in fact Ohsawa's vision extended far beyond the idea of "health". 

I discussed how Ohsawa had inverted traditional poles of yin and yang and gave a quick sketch of the philosophical basis of this. 

I discussed the yin/yang polarity issue in relation to tradition ideas of the "inverted plant" analogy, especially as it is found in Plato. 

Regarding the issue of vegetarianism, I discussed the much broader matter of taboos on meat-eating in relation to an evolutionary scale. I discussed, for example, an historical Japanese taboo on eating monkeys and pointed out that such taboos, like the Semitic taboo on eating pork, possibly have a basis in taboos on cannibalism. In any case, as Michio Kushi explains, it is better to eat creatures that are distant from us on the evolutionary scale, crustaceans, fish, birds, rather than mammals.