Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on August 6, 2003.
The other day, a friendly teacher criticized me for showing the students cleaning the dojo on a television show. He said, "Why did you do that, it is so bad for your business!” Someone also asked, "What does that have to do with martial arts?” When one student found out that he had to sweep the mats after practice, he said, "this jeopardizes my personal integrity,” and left. One day, a black belt saw one of my assistants cleaning down the front of the dojo and said, "You are turning into a gardener!"
Nowadays, it is so hard for people to understand this point and many young people today do not understand or appreciate how this relates to one's spiritual discipline. We are all too busy with this and that. We must have all the answers!
When I was at Hombu Dojo, I cleaned and cleaned! When I was at the temple, I cleaned and cleaned. I also hated it at the beginning. Only later did I realize how important it is to one's training and now I make it an integral part of our daily practice here in my dojo. Cleaning is a "responsibility" to take care of everything we use. It is "respect" towards everything we come in contact with. It is "caring" about everything around us. Cleaning, like most things in a dojo, is a job with no merit or reward but it teaches purity of spirit. This type of intangible spirituality forms the basis of our training.
I am glad my students still appreciate the old ways of training. Today, we have all kinds of new gadgets and methods but none of these have the great inner spirit and heart of those spiritual teachings of old.