"In a Zen temple or monastery collecting garbage is one of the most important jobs. When we pick up papers or garbage, we have to understand that we are also picking up the garbage inside our own minds. The words outside and inside are two ways of describing one thing. Since our thoughts and dualistic understanding are a kind of littering in our mind, when we pick one up, we pick both up in exactly the same way. Do you understand? That 's our samu, which means 'work practice,' and that's our work. When we pick up the garbage, we pick it up one hundred percent. It's like when lightning strikes the sky — nothing remains. This kind of action affects other people. If we pick up in a distracted way, with our minds on something else, we just make more litter. That's why we give to this task and to all of our activities one hundred percent of ourselves. No matter how small the task may seem — picking up a speck of dust — or how big, we still give it one hundred percent. As it says in the Sandokai, 'Each thing has its own intrinsic value.' It is with this very same spirit of realization that we approach our work and life."