Lastly I would like to attempt to put into words how cleaning is related to our very being. I may quite easily fail in this task because I am sensing that this is one of those mysteries left to the passage of Time. When we clean we mark the dojo as a special place. When we say a space is sacred we are noting first and foremost that it is not profane - that it is not of the everyday ordinary space. Today, scholars call churches sacred space, and they call government offices sacred space.
Today there is the sacred mountain and the sacred Capital Hill.
The delineation of one space from another, the sacred from the profane, is done so as to provide value - first to the place in question, and secondly to those practices and ideas cultivated therein. As far as the dojo is concerned we mark off these delineating boundaries through minor actions daily. When we enter the dojo we mark the outer boundary by bowing at the door. When we also remove our shoes we are saying the same thing. We change our clothes, our language, our natural inclinations, and we do this all to mark off a space as special - as valuable, as meaningful.