When we get quite busy, we become not able to care about other things. We usually get frustrated and take our anger out on someone else… Especially in the recent times, people have less money and time to spend. In addition to this, we suffer from a shortage of electricity and our government performs poorly. Nothing has gone right, has it?
As for the companies, they are forced to cut their budget because their sales are weak, but things we have to do increase more than before. We become trapped in a vicious circle and can’t get out of it. It’s a situation which is called忙 bou (busyness).
When we look at the word of “忙”, it’s composed with “忄(which represents a mind)” and “亡 (losing)”. See, when we get busy (忙しい), we lose our mind. Isn’t it interesting?
By the way, there was a man whose name was Tempu Nakamura (born in 1876) who introduced yoga first to Japan. He was suffering from tuberculosis (a deadly illness at that time) and seeking a cure for the illness. So, one day he traveled to India to meet a master of yoga. But the master didn’t seem to tell him anything about yoga (how to heal his illness) for a long time. So then when he asked the master the reason why he was not teaching this, the master said to him as below:
“I’ve been thinking about teaching yoga, but your mind is always full of your thoughts and it’s too full to accept anything which I will teach. Your mind is like a vase which is full of water and it can’t take any more. So you need to get rid of your thoughts” (Sorry, it is different from the original story in the precise sense though, please understand this)
I think that it’s true. If we think of something too much, we become not able to feel at ease. Then when people become like this, they tend to make more failures and can’t get good inspiration. Also they become not able to listen to others…That master must be a great person who understands about our mind very well.
Talking about Tempu Nakamura more, he was actually a great person, too. I’ve heard that Heihachiro Togo (full admiral), Konosuke Matsushita (founder of Panasonic), and Kazuo Inamori (founder of Kyocera and KDDI) looked up to him as their preceptor. Tempu was an unusual person and it was believed that he could intentionally stop his heart beat. It’s unusual to hear, isn’t it…? I heard that there was an esoteric technique in yoga with which we can stop our heart beat. For more information, please read his biography.
A writer, Chiyo Uno, is one of Tempu’s fans. She wrote about Tempu in her literature. Also there are some other books written about him and they were published by each publishing company. At Tempu Hall at Gokokuji (bunkyo ward Tokyo), their original book has been available, too.
Well, let’s get back to the original subject. When we can’t feel at ease because of being busy, we can’t even pay attention to the products which you are selling. How can you perform well at your work under such a situation. Also, I think, when people are extremely “busy”, a lot of pressure is put on their mind, and because they try to be away from the pressure, they start to think “I want to forget it” or “Let’s forget about it” Therefore, they will lose their mind in the end…..Wait, but if our mind (心) is lost, it means our death (亡).
