Eugene Insight Meditation, on Zoom, Eugene, OR (2025)

11/13/2025

Justin is dedicated to sharing the jewels he's found
along his way—inspired by the Dharma and the natural world.

This includes techniques and tools for healing and insight. However, most fundamentally, he hopes to inspire the recognition of the goodness and wisdom that lay at the core of each of us—and life itself. Through this realization and our devotion to it, we can bring a truly revolutionary love into our own beings, and share it with those around us and the world at large.

11/10/2025

When we align with our wholesome qualities and capacities, we stop doing all the heavy lifting. We stop maintaining our separation through our own hidden assumptions and begin
to trust that the interconnection from which we were built is already working to bring us back home.

We realize that we always have the upper hand in healing— because nature itself is on our side. What’s more amazing is this: if the wholesome qualities of our minds are more fundamental to our psyches than their opposites—which I believe they are—then when we choose to put energy behind them, they will inevitably transform the pain within us, and eventually, the world.

When we feel these wholesome qualities as forces of nature, our healing becomes greatly accelerated. And when we recognize them as forces of nature, we also realize they are not
limited to us—they belong to the collective consciousness of all living beings, arising from the organizing truth of interconnection. From this view, we see how close everyone around us is to healing. We sense that the conflict and strife dominating our world cannot last forever—it simply takes too much energy to sustain patterns that are inimical to nature.
Someday, through one series of causes or another, there will no longer be the means to maintain them. Whether we’re here to witness it or not, at some point these forces of healing will return to prominence again — especially if enough of us align with their path.

What would it feel like to trust that nature itself is pulling you home?

11/09/2025

Resilience - https://mailchi.mp/6bacccea523c/view-10985211

11/08/2025

Likewise, no matter where we are in the healing process, we are enough — and we are complete right there. When we look through this lens, we begin to see the judgment, impatience, and pressure we’ve been putting on ourselves. We realize that although our inner process can be messy and troubled at times, it is no less perfect than any other part of nature. It’s the most natural thing there is.

When we view our wounds this way, yet stay present with them, the burden of healing lightens even further. Instead of saying to ourselves, “You’re not finished until you feel or
act in this ideal way,” we might say, “You are absolutely whole and perfect as you are — and there will always be ways we can heal and grow together.”

This helps us learn to hold a paradox — to give ourselves permission to be happy even as healing unfolds and life remains challenging. This, of course, only increases our capacity to heal. In this way, all parts of ourselves retain their dignity throughout the path and practice. They are inherently worthy — not only when they perform according to our ideals. There never was, and never will be, anything wrong with them.
There may still be hurt, but in this wholeness, everything is somehow also okay.

What does it feel like to see yourself in this way?

11/06/2025

A seed is wise not because it has studied or practiced, but because it’s encoded with the connective wisdom of life. Everything in us is this way too — we know how and when to
heal and be free.

Yet it’s all too easy to struggle and strive on the spiritual journey, forgetting what we already know. In pursuit of our goals, we often step over the very parts of ourselves that
know the way. When we finally notice what we’ve missed, we tend to apply top-down techniques that can re-wound us instead of listening to what’s actually needed.

When we begin to see the wisdom within our pain, we can loosen our control over the healing process even further. We give power back to the patterns themselves and imbue
them with our trust. Instead of saying, “This is the wrong thought or emotion to have,” we might say kindly, “You know how to heal — I trust your wisdom.”

Just like a child, when our pain receives our faith in it, it often opens like a flower or flows like a river, following the natural healing process embedded in our bones. This perspective is powerful because it allows us to set down the desperation and anxious concern for ourselves, and instead follow the lead of our wise wounds. Eventually, we release any personal agenda for our pain — and a great weight is lifted.

We stay with our pain, yet trust that our healing and awakening unfold in their perfect timing. And lo and behold, they do.
What in you already knows how to heal, when provided a compassionate container?

11/04/2025

We just don’t always know how to support the healing that’s trying to happen. Instead, we often assume that our thoughts and emotions are stubbornly trying to hurt us—or others.
But to truly heal, we must learn to listen for the longing within our pain.

For example, when we hear a familiar voice in our mind say, “You’re not good enough,” we don’t need to believe it or argue with it. We can recognize it as a distressed call for help.

Then, we can approach it with compassion, discover what it needs, and support its natural longing to be free. When we engage this way, something softens inside us. We realize we don’t have to do all the work. We can stop saying, “Why are you still hurting?” and start saying, “I trust you want to heal—and I’m here to support that when you’re ready.”

If this weren’t true, compassion and kindness would never work. But miraculously—as I and countless others can attest—they do. The longing to be free is not only natural; it’s part
of a much greater longing. It’s the calling of Life itself to return to wholeness—and nothing could be more powerfully supportive than that.

What is calling in you to heal?

11/02/2025

Justin was first introduced to meditation at age 15, when his mother invited him to a class for teens. He practiced wherever he could throughout his twenties. At age 30, Rodney Smith, his primary teacher from the age of 15, asked him to start sharing his practice with others, beginning a profound new journey of growth, as well as a life-long passion. Justin likes to remind students that while he has a certain wisdom to share, he is just another human on the path with his own challenges and growth edges.

What’s most precious is not our personal attainment but our being together in practice with sincerity - that’s where the magic happens.

10/31/2025

When we observe through this lens, we begin to see that all the various parts of us are actually on the same team. Even the thoughts and emotions that seem actively opposed to us—or to our best interests—would rather not struggle and fight. They are, in truth, often exhausted from constant conflict.

Once these parts are truly heard and understood, they can remember their deeper desire to work together as one unit—which is immeasurably easier. Over time, each of our patterns
has developed its own isolated momentum. It forgets not only why it began, but also how its actions affect the whole.

Through mindfulness and compassion, we remind ourselves of our wholeness and our intention for healing. Our steady, compassionate presence acts as a catalyst for renewed
internal coherence. This perspective has the power to effectively resolve the conflicts within us.

We stop saying, “Why are you doing this to me?” and begin to ask, “How are you doing?” We listen, and then gently inquire: “I know you’re hurting—but is there a way I can help you
fulfill your deeper intention to connect?” Eventually, we begin to witness harmony unfolding naturally within us.

What in you is ready to work together instead of maintaining conflict?

10/29/2025

Seeing this reveals what I call the first of the Five Forces of Healing: everything within us is trying to help.
When we look at ourselves through this lens, we begin to notice that our distressed patterns are either trying to protect us somehow or to show us something important—perhaps both. Consequently, we soften and lean in. We become curious, grateful, and kind.

Of course, even though everything is based in care or love, the thoughts and emotions swirling within us may be objectively unhelpful in a given moment—but they’re trying in
the only way they know how to. Even the most maladaptive patterns are born of good intentions; their expressions just become distorted through our insecurity and disconnection.

This perspective is powerful because it has the capacity to uproot and transform all the latent self-aversion within us. When applied to our troubled emotions or thoughts, we start
to say, “Thank you for trying to help,” or “Thank you for caring so much,” instead of “Why are you here?” or “Why are you doing that?”

What in you can you offer this generous perspective to—and how does it respond?

10/27/2025

This may sound romantic or dramatic, but it can actually be described quite logically. On the human level, we are evolutionarily designed to benefit ourselves—otherwise, we wouldn’t have made it this far. Even though there’s been reluctance to see ourselves this way in the psychological sciences (as opposed to the biological), the same truth applies there: our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are designed to help us. In fact, they are designed to heal—given the appropriate conditions.

On the more-than-human level, interconnection is the governing principle of our reality. Because healing is essentially a multilayered psychospiritual process of reintegration, the
force of interconnection is always pulling beneath the surface of our heart and mind—like a magnet drawing us back together and back home. It’s built into our nervous systems and
our DNA.

This is why we all contain a longing for reunion, and why healing and insight feel so good—at least afterward! It’s also why, when we relax, we feel more connected, not less. We
are getting closer to the truth. In this way, the whole universe is on our side. But we do need to help ourselves along—and
others when we can. By leveraging our psyche’s evolutionary design to care and connect, we will always have a natural advantage over aversion and separation. When we devote
ourselves to the beneficial forces within us, they will always prevail—at some point down the causal line.

What in you is waiting to come back together again?

10/25/2025

Thank you to our readers who reach out to tell us how the book has impacted their journey.

10/23/2025

Miraculously, there is support available to each of us if we simply reach out. Of course, there are books, friends, therapists, and podcasts—but more fundamentally, there is nature, the
elements, memories of joy, images of those we love, inspiring spiritual figures, and even the ineffable essence of life itself.

Just as we each hold a constellation of patterns within us, we are also part of a larger constellation of life in this universe. By opening ourselves to receive—from whatever truly feels supportive—we affirm the basic spiritual and physical reality that we are interconnected.

This beneficial vulnerability strengthens our sense of safety and trust in the healing process, allowing deeper growth to unfold.

At many times on the path, I’ve reached a point where I simply can’t do it alone. Trying to push through only makes things worse. Yet when I remember to pause and reach out—to
the benevolence within myself and the world—I’m always pleasantly surprised to be met with grace.

When have you made yourself vulnerable and been met with open arms?

Eugene Insight Meditation

11/13/2025

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