Your Body Never Lies The Complete Book of Oriental Diagnosis Michio Kushi

ISBN: 0-7570-0267-6 Length: 288 Pages Size: 7.5 X 9-inch Format: Quality Paperback Category: Health / Macrobiotics Price: $16.95 US Availability: In Print Click below for: Synopsis • Contents Introduction • Reviews

Synopsis

Too often, conventional medicine fails to detect disorders and sickness. Oriental diagnosis, an ancient holistic system of knowledge, can detect physical problems before they arise. Beginning with an explanation of the principles of Oriental diagnosis--touching, "seeing," and pressure--author Michio Kushi helps you understand this natural, non-invasive approach. The fundamental concepts of yin and yang are thoroughly explored, as is the art of seeing.

Your Body Never Lies provides an in-depth exploration of the components of seeing. This includes a description of deviations in facial features, skin, and extremities; irregularities in posture, movement, and mental states; and more. You will learn to recognize such physical variations and interpret these characteristics. Within this unique intuitive system is the power to detect the body’s warning signs and avert serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.

Western medical practice often focuses on a specific body part, symptom, or ailment, ignoring the totality and interconnectedness of the human body. Your Body Never Lies is a complete guide to Oriental diagnosis, a revolutionary--yet centuries-old--way of preventing disease and preserving health and biological harmony.

Michio Kushi is a leading world figure in the macrobiotic movement. His study of macrobiotics began more than fifty years ago under its founder, George Ohsawa. Since that time, Mr. Kushi has gone on to establish the highly respected Kushi Institute in Massachusetts, lectured extensively throughout the world, and authored over twenty books on health, nutrition, and the macrobiotic lifestyle. As a macrobiotic counselor, he has successfully guided thousands to restore their physical, psychological, and spiritual health. Michio Kushi resides in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Contents

Preface

Part One--The Principles of Diagnosis
1. The Order of the Universe
2. Constitution and Condition

Part Two--The Visual Diagnosis of Specific Conditions
3. The Mouth, Lips, and Teeth
4. The Eyebrows and Eyes
5. The Nose, Cheeks and Ears
6. The Forehead
7. The Hair
8. The Hands
9. The Feet
10. Skin Diagnosis
Conclusion

Index

Introduction

Knowing is the beginning of freedom.
The art of knowing is the art of realizing freedom.
All suffering comes from ignorance:
Ignorance of what I am, ignorance of who I am, of what we are.
The art of knowing is the opening of the secret of life,
And a path for health, happiness and eternal life.

This book is intended for all people, non-professionals as well as professionals in the medical, psychological and physiotherapeutic sciences. My purpose in writing this book is to present the basic principles and arts of diagnosis, which can be practiced without using any of the measures harmful to physical and mental wellbeing that are applied frequently in the modern medical sciences.

From time to time throughout the book, the phrase “oriental diagnosis” is used, referring to the fact that the principles underlying these arts were developed and preserved in Japan, Korea, China and India among religious, cultural and philosophical traditions for many centuries. They can be found in The Book of Changes (ADD Japanese Letters I Ching), The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (ADD Japanese Letters Nei Ching), The Tao Teh Ching (ADD Japanese Letters), the Karaka Sanihita, the Kojiki (ADD Japanese Letters), the Nihon-Shoki (ADD Japanese Letters), and numerous other classics in these countries, and as a cosmological source of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shint. These principles are the Law of the Universe, or we can say the order of the infinite universe, which operates perpetually throughout the dimensions of this universe: producing, changing, decomposing, and demolishing all phenomena, including phenomena from this earth.

When the order of the universe was applied to the metaphysical phenomena of humankind, it developed the various religions. When it was applied to natural phenomena, it developed the sciences. Applied to human relations, it developed moral codes, ethics, and economics. When it was applied to human esthetic manifestations, it developed the cultures and arts; and when it was applied to the problems of health, it developed the various domains of the medical arts, including the art of diagnosis.

However, these applications--which as a whole created the way of life of the ancient peoples of the world, and the way of life in the Orient until a few centuries ago--have decayed and disappeared, due to the newly arisen modern ways of thought and technology, which are based mainly upon analytical, divisional and materialistic views, and which have rapidly spread and prevailed since the sixteenth century during the westernization of the world.

After experiencing the modern scientific, technological and materialistic civilization, it has become clear that the very existence of life on this planet may be endangered by the rapid degeneration of human health in the modern world, and that the life sciences, including the modern medical approach, have been inadequate to preserve human well-being from such universal decline. Not only internal treatments and external surgical applications, but also the techniques of modern diagnosis itself, are frequently harmful to human health. In view of these circumstances, the renaissance of traditional wisdom based upon a more total comprehension of cosmology, including the arts of health and diagnosis, has become absolutely essential to recover humanity, individually and collectively.

When it became clear to me as a student of world peace, pursued through research in political science, that the reconstruction of humanity is the decisive factor in laying the foundations for the development of a unified world, I began to study the natural order of humanity, encouraged by several senior teachers--namely Mr. George Ohsawa, the Rev. Dr. Toyohiko Kagawa, Prof Shigeru Nanba, and others--and discouraged by the lack in modern educational facilities of teachings on the medicine for humanity. I began to stand on the streets in New York City--on 42nd Street and Broadway around Times Square, and on 5th Avenue--observing thousands of people: their body structure, their way of walking, their way of expression, their faces, their behavior and their thinking. In cafeterias and restaurants, theaters and amusement parks, trains and subways, shops and schools, every day I observed the countless variety of human manifestations on this present earth. Week by week, month by month, and year by year as time passed, it became very apparent that all physical, psychological, social and cultural manifestations of human activities depend upon our environment and dietary habits. It became clear that even so-called hereditary factors are nothing but the result of the past environment within which our ancestors lived, and what they were observing as their daily diet.

I noticed that in terms of the environment, I had to include not only the immediate natural and social conditions such as the weather, climate, season, city or country, but also a much wider sphere of influence--to the infinite dimensions of the entire universe, in both time and space in order to understand the human species. I also noticed that in terms of food, I had to include not only the daily material food and drink consumed through the mouth, but also the entire world of inorganic substances, organic biological life, the atmosphere, electro-magnetic forces, and all sorts of waves and radiations coming from all directions from the unknown depths of the universe. The understanding of these factors in relation to our daily condition, I noticed, was only possible by comprehending the order of the universe and its applications, and not by analytical and divisional methods of research.

Since that time, more than twenty-five years have passed, during which I have met hundreds of thousands of people through educational activities, lectures, seminars and consultations on the way of life to recover health and realize total well-being. Encountering these people has revealed a deeper understanding of human nature, and further understanding of the art of diagnosis has continuously developed this art itself. The information presented in this book is only an introduction of several major methods of diagnosis that anyone can use. Some of them are based upon classical methods, and others are newly developed and interpreted through my personal experience. In writing this book, I have avoided as much as possible the use of technical terminology, for the convenience of many readers. It is my sincere wish that this introductory book may contribute for every reader to understand the present conditions of health of himself, his family, relations, friends and whomever he may encounter, and may serve as a starting point for society to recover total health and achieve freedom and happiness, toward the eventual realization of one peaceful world.

This book was dictated from June 1979 to January 1980, in Brookline, Massachusetts, with frequent interruptions for European and American lecture tours, seminars, classes, personal counselling and many other activities to promote the evolutional development of modern people through the understanding of the order of the universe, and the use of natural healthful food oriented with macrobiotic principles the equivalent of the order of the universe. The assistant who typed, edited and corrected the original English version of the book is Miss Olivia Oredson of Brookline, Massachusetts, who is currently the educational director of the Kushi Institute. The Kushi Institute is an educational organization for the study of the order of the universe and its applications for the development of humanity, through the establishment of health by various natural ways of healing, with the comprehension of the nature of humanity and the total destiny of mankind in all major domains. Illustrations and drawings in this book were composed by Mr. Joe di Gregorio of Brookline, Massachusetts; Miss Lily Kushi of Brookline, Massachusetts; and the author.

When everyone reads everyone else, Love and compassion prevail.
When everyone reads the art of nature, Health and peace prevail.
Unwritten words are living everywhere.
And they are coming forth from the universe.
When we read them all without missing a single word,
We have opened the book of the secret of eternal life.

--Michio Kushi

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