Where is Home?

Where is home? That’s a good beginning for all of us. In fact that is the beginning, when we first realize that there’s something missing, something lacking. We don’t know what it is. It’s a mystery. Yet we have this sense, there’s a kind of awakening to what we could call spirituality, or just awareness, and we begin to seek for what it is that is missing, because we don’t have a clue what it is. The awakened mind is always sending out a kind of signal. The awakened mind, whatever we want to call it, is always trying to emerge, always trying to call us home. Someone once said that our only ailment is homesickness, and that we’re sick because we’re not at home; and yet, of course, wherever we are is home. But we don’t feel that; we feel alienated from our own home and from ourself. So I think one of the things we’re always looking for is how to be at home wherever we are, how to be home in our own body, how to be home in our self. It’s like a homing instinct. We’re like the pigeon that seems to have this amazing ability to find its way home. I call it the Mind that Seeks the Way or the Truth. Sometimes that mind is not awakened. The moment it does awaken, our life really changes. At that moment our priorities seem to shift. A lot of the things that up until then seemed so important —security, fame, possessions, wealth — all those things suddenly seem to take a back seat. What becomes much more important is our own discovery of who we are. Zen Master Genpo Roshi founded the Kanzeon Sangha, an international Zen community in 1984, with groups and centers throughout Europe and the U.S., and is abbot of Big Mind Western Zen Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he founded in 1993. He discovered the Big Mind process in 1999. His newest book is Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way. You can visit his website at: www.bigmind.org