Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Find your home wherever you are. This means to realize that wherever you are is home, not to be seeking for some special place, to be making some cozy nest, but to find yourself at home wherever you are and in whatever circumstances you may be. To put aside the worldly concerns of looking for material comfort, and to instead cultivate mental comfort, comfort of the spirt and mind and heart.
This being at home wherever you are means being comfortable wherever you are. Not having to have some special place or special things to make you comfortable. Right here in this very body in this very place as it is, is home.’ (Seeds for a Boundless Life)

Typing this out I was reminded of Dogen’s line in the Fukanzazengi, ‘Why leave behind the seat in your own home to wander in vain through the dusty realms of other lands?’ In my early days at Zen Center, having moved to another continent to practise, I understood this only geographically.