Compass of the Times by Keiko Takahashi

May 2019

Compass of the Times 182

To Nurture Our Mind

Keiko Takahashi

Humans Travel Jippo Sekai— the World of Ten Directions


A distinguishing characteristic of being human is that we can live by our own free will. It means that we can live by following our feelings and thoughts.

People can visit wherever they want. Whether it is in Japan or somewhere else in the world, even a distant polar region or a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, people can go anywhere they want to go if they wish to.

Even our own lives are connected with various places. Everyone has a place of birth, a hometown. Whether we like our hometown or not, we instill within our memories and experiences connected to our hometown. Every time we change our residence or workplace, we accumulate the fragments of life associated with that place.

There is a word in Buddhism called Jippo Sekai, which means the world of ten directions. Since the ten directions

indicate all directions, Jippo Sekai means the whole world. When we consider that our lives are connected to many places at all times, I believe we can say that we exist to travel Jippo Sekai.

To Walk the Great Path of the Mind


However, human beings do not merely live in the outer world. Not only do we visit various places and experience our lives there, we also live in the inner world, which is entirely different from the outer world.

It means that we are advancing on the inner path of the mind.

At the time when we notice, we are already at the midpoint of our lives. No one can be fully conscious of their lives from the very beginning. We must begin our lives without any knowledge of our mind or what it is.

Nevertheless, as we journey through life, we become aware that it is our own life, and then we start to walk on the path of the mind.

If we are fortunate enough to receive guidance that will nurture our mind, we will be able to advance on that path.

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Discovery of the mind will become a significant milestone for us. We understand that the mind creates reality and we connect realities in our life to our mind. This is the first step.

The next step requires our own will to start re-cultivating and re-nurturing our already-set functions of the mind: the circuit of feeling, perception, thoughts, and action.

We should consider the following: How do we feel, perceive, think, and act? In truth, how do we want to feel, perceive, think, and act? How should we change and nurture our minds so that we can live in a way that will specifically follow our aspirations breathing in the depths of our minds?

We have shaped our mind over the entire length of our lifetime. For that reason, we should not forget that it requires an equivalent amount of time and energy to unravel our mind, to correct its distortion and reconstruct it.

What is important that, as we advance and release the functions of our mind from its many restraints and gradually correct its distortion, we can regain the latent potentials of our minds.

Lying dormant in our minds is a power beyond our imagination. If we can draw forth such potential, we can obtain the power to live in a way that will follow the

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aspirations that our soul harbors, perceive the callings from the era and society, ands respond to the mission entrusted to our lives. This is why the path of the mind is a great path.

The Season for Seminar: Nurturing Our Mind


Every year from May to September, various seminars are being held in GLA at Yatsugatake (Inochi-no-sato). It will start with a Youths' Seminar and other scheduled seminars are the Hoshin Daigaku Seminar (for a senior age group), Frontier College / Nursing School Joint Seminar (for a middle-age group), Kakehashi Seminar (for children), a Missionary Members' Cultivation Seminar (for missionary members), and so on. I recommend that you attend the seminar appropriate to your age group.

Over three days, the seminars will provide an in-depth study on how you may follow the path of the mind while you live your life based on the Divine Truth, the Study of the Soul*1. Your mind cannot be nurtured if you follow the path alone, according to your way of habit. You need guidance on the way to follow the principle of the universe, in other words, the Divine Truth.

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Editor's Notes

1. The Study of the Soul
The Study of the Soul is the system of theory and practice by which we unify the visible and the invisible dimensions as one, and seek for the way of life of humans. In contrast to the study of phenomena that is represented by science, the Study of the Soul tries to deal with comprehensively both the materialistic dimension and the dimension that surpasses it; the dimension of “mind” and “soul.” It is the principle discovered by my (Keiko Takahashi’s) own research on human beings and the life history of many people. It is expected to observe human beings with a holistic perspective of “soul-mind-reality,” and respond to all things and events. (Quoted from How to Make Your Life the Best (p. 50) by Keiko Takahashi; available only in Japanese)

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Excerpt Translation of G. Monthly Journal May 2019 issue
Preliminary translation as of May, 2019
GLA member-volunteers translated Takahashi Sensei’s words.
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