Macrobiotic Principles: Front & Back by David Briscoe
Modern thinking likes big easy on the front side, but as a result we get big difficulty on the back side. For example, “easy fast food” on the front side brings the slow developing difficulty of physical and mental health deterioration on the back side. It is inescapable this natural play of front and back. Everywhere you look in the modern world, everyone is rushing toward “easy,” not seeing that difficulty is being rushed toward simultaneously. When difficulty finally appears no one wants to accept it, no one understands where it came from, no one sees that they chose it when they chose “easy” earlier. They want the difficulty to go away as quickly as possible.
The macrobiotic view is opposite of the modern view. On the front side of macrobiotics there is what appears to be “difficulty.” This is the difficulty of transforming one’s thinking and habits, the difficulty of changing one’s way of eating, and many other difficulties. But when one takes on these difficulties and move through them, one opens the door to finding ease of health, ease of mind, ease of being in the world. When many modern people first see this front side difficulty, they turn away from macrobiotics and grasp at something that offers “easy” on the front side
But when a person consciously takes on the front side difficulty of macrobiotics, in a patient and enduring way, this brings to life the possibility of ease of health and being in the world that is awaiting on the back side. This conscious acceptance of the difficulty of doing macrobiotics is the key that opens the door to a life of deep ease, completely different from the illusory “easy” of the modern view.