A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 23 December 2013
http://www.alderac.com/L5R_IE_BasicRulebook_web.pdf
To focus, you either choose a card from your hand, or take the top card of your Fate deck without looking at it, and put it face–down in a special focused cards area in front of you.
...
A player may look at the cards he or she has already focused at any time.
Why am I not allowed to look at the card when focusing, while I am allowed to look the card up, once it is focused? Or does the text only prevent me from looking at the card before focusing (so before I chose hand vs. deck)?
Ben Higgins (rules official), 23 December 2013
http://www.alderac.com/L5R_IE_BasicRulebook_web.pdf
Why am I not allowed to look at the card when focusing, while I am allowed to look the card up, once it is focused? Or does the text only prevent me from looking at the card before focusing (so before I chose hand vs. deck)?
The rule only keeps you from looking at the top card of your deck before deciding to focus it.
Cards focused from hand are not focused blindly.