Home

I think securing a home concept is essential for any person who aspires to having a personal practice. The home environment can be a small room or perhaps part of a larger room, shared with another. The concept of home, bolstered by Internet browsers, implies a center, a safe base, to which I can return for reflection, creative pursuits and rest. 

Advanced practitioners of self-development can be at home anywhere. The itinerant guru of history is an example. Living in caves or meditating under trees. The developed practitioner carries home within. 

Those of us who live in urban environments in the 21st century face different challenges. Providing ourselves with housing is an arduous pursuit unless we are wealthy. Those with little money must share living quarters with others, sometimes strangers. Some more technologically minded people seem to find a home on a smart phone screen or a laptop. Sitting in a Starbucks for some is as much home as anywhere else, as long as they have their interactive machine in hand. 

The intention of being "at home" in the mind is key. This comes with personal honesty, internal and external. The "at home" mind has large windows and open doors. Working from a place of safety, I can practice this form of candid self-development and interaction with my environment. That place of safety, that home of the mind, is built with practice and is essential for the advancement of practice.