Eugene Insight Meditation

There is nothing wrong with wanting or longing. The real question is: What are we longing for? When our longing is directed outward—toward circumstances we don’t have or conditions we can’t control—it creates a painful sense of distance and lack.

But when our longing turns toward what we already are at the deepest level—whole, connected, loving, spacious—then we are always only one breath away. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have good conditions in our lives. It means we can move toward them from an already complete place within ourselves, emotionally and spiritually.

Ironically, things tend to come more easily from this place… and even when they don’t, we’re already held. When we find ourselves down and wishing life were different, we can offer compassion to ourselves and our predicament. And we can also use longing as a wise messenger—gently rerouting our heart’s energy back into ourselves, finding our deepest home within, and drawing nourishment from there.

So what do we truly want? What is our deepest longing?

MYSTERY
I went to the forest in search of mystery
I crossed one river, and then the next,
until I found a barren aspen grove
Quiet, stark naked yet without Spring leaves.

My body knew in an instant what looked like many was one.
I could feel the white/black branches of the grove
Send themselves furiously upwards like bolts of lightning
Traveling the open blue/night sky.

And the wind thundered through the valley around me,
Whirling around the bodies of wild things,
Gathering, and then bursting into pieces
On the pine needles and willow twigs.

And the waters in the river kept churning,
Whirling around invisible shapes
Carrying away the edges of the mountain above
Smoothing and smashing the bed rocks of the Earth.

So I laid down within the land, and let it enter me
Let it breathe and build inside me
Until my eyes no longer betrayed me.
Until my heart released its name.
Until my body became the world.
And waited there.

Till we rose to walk a new path home.

- Justin Michelson