Great Construction

What Do You Think of This?

     Recently I wrote an essay titled “The Comedy of Nutrition,” but there are still some points that need to be made, so I offer the following as an addition. This is an episode from the time I was mountain climbing in the Japan Alps several years ago. As we sat down to lunch, I was surprised to see the meal of our guide-carrier. It was all white rice and contained nothing else. When I asked him if that was all he had, he replied, “Yes, it is. This is delicious as it is!” Unable to be a mere spectator, I asked him if he would like something from a can or anything else. He said, “In that case, I’d like a little sugar.” I gave him the sugar and he happily spread it on his rice and ate away. There is probably no one among people nowadays who is not astonished by this story. This is because someone who every day carried over forty kilograms of heavy baggage while ascending and descending the steep trails of the Alps ate only rice, so I would like to ask what scholars of nutrition think about this, particularly since nutritionists nowadays say that there is important nutrition in other varieties of food in addition to the main item of rice in the Japanese diet.
     Today it is held that a mixture of different foods which are eaten at the same time is best, but I also find this odd. The coolies of Manchuria are known throughout the world for their vigorous strength, but their diet for all three meals each day is the extremely simple item of bread made from sorghum. If such is the case, it would seem that the science of nutrition today has it backwards which is another point on which I would like to hear from nutritionists. From my perspective, the reason for these circumstances is the following. In the case of an herbivorous diet, the mysterious power of the nutritive function within the human body will transform and produce the necessary amount of varied nutrients.
     As I related in “Comedy of Nutrition,” the concept of nutritive elements in foods as expounded by the science of nutrition is indeed backwards. This is because, as a result of having too much nutrition, vitality weakens and physical decline is hastened since the nutritive producing function within the body dulls. When I think on this point, I plan to eat a plain, coarse diet in order to live longer once I pass ninety years of age. The plainer the diet, the amount of nutrition necessary to maintaining life cannot be obtained unless the more active and vigorous is the nutritive-producing function within the body. For the nutrition-producing function to become more active is, in other words, to rejuvenate the body. Let me give various examples.
     When I was around seventeen or eighteen years of age, I came down with tuberculosis and I was given up for dead by Dr. Tatsukichi Irisawa. At that time, I prepared for death. Based on a hint I had received, I tried an absolute vegetarian diet. However, unexpectedly my condition dramatically changed. I recovered remarkably, my vitality was restored, and in three months of a vegetarian diet, my health was better than it had been before getting sick. Since that time, I have known that the science of nutrition is completely in error. After that, I was able to heal two of my blood relatives who were suffering from tuberculosis. At that time, of course, I was not involved in faith, so it was true that I healed them only with a vegetarian diet.
     Since antiquity has been the type of person known as “immortal.” This kind of individual is not a fiction. It is a fact that they actually existed. When are read the two series, “Tales of Torakichi” and the record of the Brat Akiba, that I am going to run in the journal Chijôtengoku, belief can be the only result. There are some living even now. You cannot but nod in agreement when you read the records of Michiaki Gotô and his mentor, the Immortal Zuikei.
     The original habitat of the immortal is definitely Korea. To become an immortal, one’s diet has to start with eating a large dumpling in raw form that has been made by finely chopping up pine needles and mixing them with buckwheat flower. At first, three of these dumplings are eaten each day. After the trainee has become accustomed to the diet, two dumplings are eaten each day. And, then, one dumpling. From this point on, training becomes difficult. That is because immortals live by eating nothing and drinking only water. Most aspirants drop out at this point, but if they can pass this test, they become true immortals. Since antiquity it is said that immortals live by eating the mist and this is not altogether a lie. I saw a list of the ages of immortals in one book. It was written that the longest-lived immortal was 800 years, the next was 600 years and several decades, longevity gradually shortening to around 300 years.
     Concerning the longevity of one particular person, I saw the family tree of Takeuchi Sukune. This is an authentic document, even now handed down within the Takeuchi family, so it is believable. Of all the Takeuchi family members, the longest lived was 349 years. There were two or three who were 330 years, so Takeuchi Sukune’s 306 years was about fourth or fifth in family longevity. After Sukune, family members generally passed away prematurely and by the end of the Tokugawa period around 1868, their longevity has averaged down to around 120-130 years, but after the Meiji era began, it became even shorter, in the 90s and 80s. Now, the family is the same as any other in Japan. I think there has to be a reason their lifespan has shortened, and it is my thinking that it has to do with the following. In the testaments left behind by generations of the Takeuchi family are directions to boil the leaves of rhododendrons and drink the liquid. It would probably be thought that these instructions were for living a longer life, but actually I believe such was the cause of their shortened lives.
     Last year there passed away in Bulgaria the person who had been well-known for living the longest in the world, an elderly man of 156 years. There is an interesting story in regard to his death. There was a lady who heavily grieved over the passing of this long-lived old man. She was 120-years-old, and she lamented because in her youth she and the 156-year-old man had been lovers. For some reason they had not been able to marry and she still could not forget him, so everyone understood why she grieved so. A little while before death, it is reported that the 156-year-old man had been considering taking his eleventh wife, so the whole episode is just too amazing for the imagination.
     To get back to immortals, when one becomes an immortal, one’s body becomes very light and it is said that one can race around over mountain and dale like an animal. I can agree with this point, because at the end of the period when I was eating an absolute vegetarian diet, my body felt very light and many times to test my lightness, I tried jumping off the roof. Intriguingly, I did not feel fear in climbing to a high place. Moreover, when my body became lighter, my energy became greater, my staying power increased, and I got to the point where I did not weary of matters. I came to understand that a completely vegetarian diet was very good. The one defect it had, it must be mentioned, is that one’s hunger or want for material things became very weak. But in place of weakened desire, it also became distasteful to get angry, and there were many matters to which I readily acquiesced in resignation. I came to have a character of non-resistance, and what the immortals are like was easily imaginable.
     My remarks have gone on at length and I have tried to give various illustrations, but the point is that nutrition lies in vegetables, and this essay was written with the purpose of teaching this point.

Hikari, Issue 17, July 9, 1949
translated by cynndd