As I was driving home yesterday, I realized that I Really love life. I love the drama, the friendships, the occasional bullshit, really just the whole thing. I love to learn, to become more skillful, to reach out and learn how to give myself completely. Granted I’m far from “there”, it’s still an amazing and quite poignant process.
Now why do I mention this here? Not for the sake of just mentioning it, but because this thought led me to examine a couple other things which are intimately related.
One was that I recognized a “life-denying” twinge that accompanies my meditation practice. Since my practice occupies a lot of my time, it’s definitely had an effect on the way I view life (or rather the way I view the phenomena that arise, which I perceive as self, world, and other). Basically, I spend a lot of time trying to see life as flicking sensations that are impermanent, do not satisfy, and are not-self. Um yeah, that’s Buddhist meditation for ya! 
But what happens at times, is that this turns into a life-denying practice, where there is a small amount of frustration, aversion, & resistance towards my experience. I guess that can be one of the shadow-sides of an ascending practice.
In any case, in 3 weeks I’ll be heading off for a 6-week meditation intensive. The closer it gets, the more I realize how amazing my life is, and how much I’m interested in growing and appreciating the fullness of life. I suppose there is a kind of swing between these two poles, and that this swing is totally normal. Back and forth between Emptiness & Fullness, the pendulum of practice swings. And on the shadow-side, a swing between Rejection and Clinging. To accept and penetrate every point of the pendulum—that is what it’s about for me right now.
