A thought whilst washing dishes;
Almost all my Dharmic teachers have been either dishwashers or prep-cooks like myself;
Prior to recieving the robes of Bodhidharma, Huineng cooked the temple rice and stoked the fire.
Pickup or Shih-te would take a moment from cutting root vegtables to scribble out a poem or two within the kitchen of Kuiching Temple
Kerry Thornley took up his dishwashers apron in the small kitchen of America, declaring himself a Zen Dishwasher, and soaking empty bowls full of flax seed.
Jack Kerouac, he just did his own dishes and those of every desolate angel, that burning drunk bodhisattva.
Kannons mercy 
This is a very important post, thank you for writing it and bringing attention to the venerable modesty often displayed by great Dharma Masters. You might be interested in the biographic documentary of Ven. Hai Xian (1901-2013). He is a lot like Huineng in many ways: Very humble, not literate, grew his own food (most of which he donated), cooked it, sewed his own clothes, and he did so all the way up to his Pure Land rebirth:
I also wrote a short commentary of the video in my translation of the Infinite Life Sutra here (page 81) if you are interested:
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Thank you.
This means alot.
Your support is very important to me.
Have you translated the pureland sutras all on your own? The merit that you will accumulate will be very great. Acts like this by people who aren’t necessarily religious authorities will become increasingly important in the Dharma ending Age, so long as those acts are done with an unshakable faith, from saying the name of Amitabha to a child dedicating stupas of sand to the buddhas.
Or washing dishes in this case
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Thank you very much for your kind praises and encouraging comments, the translations and works available at my blog, Scribe library and Archive.org are my own (all of which are free and released into the Public Domain). However, I could never have finished them without the blessings of the Buddhas and the commentaries of Master Chin Kung, Master Hsuan Hua and the many Dharma Masters that preceded them. In you I have met a kindred soul.
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