Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on May 11, 2002.
We can learn from everything in our lives, every thought and every single action. I don't mean to interpret or fantasize or deny or blindly believe in whatever it is we are doing or what is happening to us. What I mean is to learn from every thought and action by quietly and clearly observing them. This is a very serious process of training. It is difficult at first because we first do not know how to become very quiet and secondly, we do not how to observe very clearly. Normally, we are talking to ourselves much too much to make ourselves quiet or observe ourselves carefully.
The great talent of an artist is that they see, feel, hear, and are aware of much more than most of other people. They concentrate, they center themselves, clears their minds, become very quiet and see every detail of what they themselves are doing and what is going on around ourselves. If we try this very seriously, we will, I think, be greatly surprised at how much more we can become aware of. We will be greatly surprised at what we ourselves are doing and thinking. We will also be surprised at how much energy we waste in what our minds become focuses on rather than in what we are doing. This will become an important part of training.
Like O'Sensei, sometimes we have to look at our lives as an artist. We are not painting on a canvas, composing beautiful music, or making a sculpture out of marble or wood. But in the very same way, we are creating our own lives as our own works of art. We are trying to create something beautiful, we are trying to express our feelings and realize our aspirations in our lives. We are refining. We are going deeper in ourselves, as a work of art, and finding our true selves.