One key to a healthy and interesting meditation practice is to embrace the full swing of opposites, between thrilling and soothing. We need both.

We crave novelty, to see and feel and smell and taste and hear new things, and new dimensions to the familiar. And we crave soothing, comforting, massaging, calming.

Life is a play of opposites. We breathe in then we breathe out again. Meditation in its many forms is mostly a set of situations in which we can savor the play of opposites.

Let's use sound, and music, as an example. When we are listening to music that captivates us, there is a rising and falling, the music gets louder then softer, and the delicious tension is amplified then released. Various cravings arise in our heartstrings as we listen, we want to merge with that vibration, that chord, be carried away by it, take it inside, let it heal us.

When we are listening to mantras inside ourselves, in the spacious resonating auditoriums of our awareness, we are summoning the inner musician, the call of the Soul, to enchant us with the harmony of embodiment. All mantras are love songs between body and soul. There is a sweet ache of longing, the longing for union, and the tension of this longing becomes a vibration that leads us into merging.