Here, the shogun makes a distinction between meditation, or focusing on one important thing, and daydreaming.
“Daydreaming is meditations mischievous sister. Daydreaming is the dissipation of energy; it carries us away and we cannot direct it…it destroys our psychic forces and injures the development of strong mental powers.”
“…place yourself in a condition of self-absorbtion – transport yourself in imagination…picture yourself, places and persons in living movement so realistic a manner….What marvel, that finding yourself in this mental condition, it is so easy to decide on sound resolutions…”
Wow. Confused? Have a problem? If you can concentrate on it, undistracted, you can solve it.
“He who would influence others should, above all things, know how to influence himself in order to acquire the faculty of self-concentration which will allow of his reaching the highest level of discernment.”
He closes this chapter, and ties a bow on Concentration and Influence with this –
“it is not magic, which is trickery, but we bear within us a power which is equal to that of the sorcerers whose deeds are related: this is the magic of the influence which the prudent and self-possesed man always exercises over his fellows, when his intentions are pure and when his ideal is nothing else that the amelioration of the condition of others (removal of others problems), by the wholesome influence of his example and discourse.”
Tomorrow – Lesson 11 – by Confidence.