A Method Of Training By Zen Masters
Remember in the Zen stories, many Zen masters let the disciples first come to do some labor work, like cleaning the hall, sometimes shining the Buddha's statue. All these things are not nonsense, really. Actually some Zen temples a long time ago -- you know long time ago when there were still good and enlightened Zen masters -- they still kept the Buddha's statue. Not that they were attached to the Buddha's statue. They knew it already, but still they thought some people are very much attached to the Buddha's statue still, so they kept them. So they let the newcomer disciples shine the statue everyday, and dust the Buddha. They cleaned the table for the Buddha and changed the water, changed the flowers everyday, cleaned the floor. That's what kept them busy and concentrated, and not thinking nonsense. Also to give them good habits of being clean and being orderly, putting things in order and returning things back to where they belong. That was the rule, strictly followed in most of the Zen temples. Even till now.
I think it is a very, very good way of training people, only if they train together spiritually as well. Not letting this habit become like an empty ritual and just keeping the outside clean and inside nothing. So these are the two extremes. Sometimes we see some people just keep the outer rituals of any kind of religious sect; and some others just keep the inner, everyday sitting twenty-four hours in a cave or something like that and don't worry about the world, and don't dust themselves even. These two extremes we should not follow. If we just keep the cleaning outside, the Buddha outside, and we do not know anything inside, or our concentration just rises a little bit because of the cleaning, then it's not enough. We have to do both.
So I hope this is not too much nonsense for you. By the way, it's good for your house also, and it's very practical. Everything that doesn't belong to the living room just don't leave it there, very simple; and you'll see how your life will improve with the spacious house, with the cool feeling, with the warm welcoming atmosphere when you come home.