Sweep The Ground

Here's a tidbit from an entry in the "Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms" by William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous:

掃地 To sweep the floor, or ground, an act to which the Buddha is said to have attributed five kinds of merit; v. 毘奈耶雜事.

There's a great story I heard from one of Genjo Marinello Osho's teisho's available on line at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChoBoJiMedia (Unfortunately right now I don't remember which teisho the story came from.)

It is about two brothers, with one being very smart and the other being very slow. The slow brother loved to hear the Buddha speak but he could never remember anything the Buddha said even only a few minutes later. He went to the Buddha and said he didn't know what to do because he could never remember all the beautiful but difficult teachings of the Buddha. Buddha said "Here's an area of ground. Just sweep this ground and while you do it, say over and over to your self 'sweep the ground, sweep the ground' ." The slow brother did this, and for a while the Buddha came by once a day to see if he could remenber this simple practice and he could. The slow brother was able to carry on this practice quite well always repeating to himself "sweep the ground, sweep the ground" as he swept continuously every day. Eventually, the slow brother was greatly awakened much sooner than his much smarter brother.