George ohsawa biography

George Ohsawa was a Japanese author and proponent of alternative medicine who was the founder of the macrobiotic diet.
George Ohsawa was born on 18 October 1893 in an eastern suburb of Kyoto, Japan.
George Ohsawa was a Japanese author and proponent of alternative medicine who was the founder of the macrobiotic diet.

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George Ohsawa

Japanese author and proponent of alternative medicine

George Ohsawa (born Nyoichi Sakurazawa (櫻澤如一); October 18, 1893 – April 23, 1966) was a Japanese author and proponent of alternative medicine who was the founder of the macrobiotic diet. When living in Europe he went by the pen names of Musagendo Sakurazawa, Nyoiti Sakurazawa, and Yukikazu Sakurazawa. He also used the French first name Georges while living in France, and his name is sometimes also given this spelling. He wrote about 300 books in Japanese and 20 in French. He defined health on the basis of seven criteria: lack of fatigue, good appetite, good sleep, good memory, good humour, precision of thought and action, and gratitude.^[1]

Life

Ohsawa was born into a poor samurai family in Shingu City, Wakayama Prefecture. He had no money for higher education. Around 1913, he joined the Shokuiku movement, studying with Manabu Nishibata, a direct disciple of the late Sagen Ishizuka, in Tokyo. William Dufty describes the background ("Nyoiti" is a variant transcription of "Nyoichi

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George Ohsawa, born Nyoichi Sakurazawa (桜沢如一, Sakurazawa Nyoichi?, October 18, 1893 - April 23, 1966), was the founder of the Macrobiotic diet and philosophy. When living in Europe he went by the pen names of Musagendo Sakurazawa, Nyoiti Sakurazawa, and Yukikazu Sakurazawa. He also used the French first name Georges while living in France, and his name is sometimes also given this spelling.

Ohsawa was born into a poor samurai family during the Meiji Restoration. He had no money for higher education. This is when his spiritual path started. Around 1913 he met up with Nishibata Manabu (a direct disciple of the late Sagen Ishizuka) and studied with him in Tokyo in the movement Shoku-yo Kai.

Ohsawa also claims in his books that he cured himself from tuberculosis at age 19 using what he knew about the ancient yin-yang concepts that originated in China, as well as the teachings of Sagen Ishizuka.

Later he travelled to Europe, particularly Paris, France where he started to spread his philosophy (it is in this period he supposedly adopted his new pen name "Ohsawa", after the

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Inside the 'cult-like' zen macrobiotic movement and the man who wanted to free humans from sickness

In the mid-20th century, George Ohsawa founded the macrobiotics diet.
The diet's philosophy emphasizes natural foods to 'free' humans from sickness, according to Ohsawa.
The macrobiotics movement fueled the founding of the grocery chain Erewhon and groups accused of being cults.

"Why are there so many hospitals and sanatoriums, drugs and medicines, so many mental and physical illnesses in modern Western civilization? Why is there the need for so many prisons, the great numbers of police, the vast air, sea, and land forces?" George Ohsawa, the founder of the macrobiotics diet, wondered.

The answer behind these ailments, he said, is simple: "We are sick, physiologically and mentally," Ohsawa wrote in his 1960 book, "Zen Macrobiotics."

The idea that human sickness is the cause of the modern world's problems is the driving force behind the macrobiotics movement that Ohsawa founded in the mid-20th century. Ohsawa's four-part prescription to curing sickness was: nat