Compass of the Times 246

To Focus

Keiko Takahashi

The Season of Autumn

Although the summer heat is still intense, according to the calendar, it is already the fall season.

What is your impression of autumn?

Autumn is the season when the harsh heat eases, and the weather becomes pleasant and comfortable. It is the season of colorful leaves, and many people enjoy seeing the beautiful trees tinted in red, orange, and yellow.

Another feature of the season is the travel by many to their favorite places to admire the jewel-like beauty of nature’s landscapes.

Autumn is also the season when crops are harvested. This is a special time of year when rice and other crops that farmers have carefully tended bear much fruit and are harvested.

It is not only the crops that are harvested.

As the Japanese phrase “autumn for reading” suggests, people who have been focusing their attention on the outside world throughout the season of sunlight gradually begin to turn their attention inward as autumn arrives. Little by little, the nights lengthen, and time begins to flow differently from the bustling daytime. In that stillness, we are invited to cultivate deeply our inner realm.

Needless to say, deep cultivation is not the exclusive domain of the autumn season. We can face things head-on and deepen them in other seasons as well.

Nevertheless, the fall season is unique in that it encourages us to take steps to deepen things and work in such a way.

A Season of Concentration

For many people, this is a season of the year when the work and research they perform over their lives can be further deepened and brought to fruition. Let this be our calling for this month.

This calling is more than a shift of our conscious attention from the outside to the inside; it is a calling to focus all our available energy on a single focal point.

This is a step toward deepening things. We consciously focus the energy that has been dispersed over a variety of events onto a single theme to which we pay attention. We explore what we have been working on so far with more depth, sustainability, and intensity. I would like you to take this month as an opportunity to do so.

First, we need to observe our own current situation.

In the business world today, it is common to be asked to respond to several tasks at once. On top of that, if we have family and friends, there can be other demands from such relations.

It is no exaggeration to say that we are forced to divide our attention among many things. Responding to an excess of tasks is an everyday challenge today.

However, it can also cause fundamental problems.

Focus on What We Must Focus on

Having many demands can be described as having “many things we should do.” In such a condition, we easily forget to respond to what is truly needed.

This means that when there are too many important things on our mind, we easily lose sight of the core that is truly needed.

Even if we think we are busily responding to many things, we will end up living a life that is not what it actually should be.

This is why we must always be discerning about what we should be doing and what is truly necessary while responding to the many demands of life. Amid modern life, which produces so many important things, it is of the utmost importance that we do not lose sight of and grasp the core of what is precious.

Being able to do that enables us to focus our attention on what we should be presently focusing on.

Let us focus on the things we must focus on. It is a step to converge onto that which we must. I hope that we can all take the needed steps toward this.

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