Meg, without getting into a theological/intellectual big thing over this (makes my brain hurt), Chodron IS suggesting this as a full-blown spiritual practice. I'm going to mammothly over-simplify here, but Tibetan Buddhists try to "break themselves of the habit" of deeming things good or bad by learning to embrace and desensitize to "the bad stuff". It's also what drives a lot of ascetics (seen most extremely in a few sadhus in India who eat uncooked human corpses, which to my understanding is a way of "working into" the mindset of no barriers, no taboos, nothing in the universe unembraced).
It's an understandable tack, and far more spiritually advanced people than I have pursued it. But, in my opinion and my limited view, it's not worth taking a lifetime to open yourself up to things one by one, diligently examining and challenging assumptions about what attracts and what repels. I opt to simply let go of the entire categorization process and let it fade into its own vaporousness. I'm not a believer in going left to balance a tendency to go right. I'd rather just float and lose all tendencies into the Now.
I prefer not to dance with delusion in order to dispel it, and I don't consider such work an effective launching pad to dropping the whole thing. The muck is the muck, and I'd prefer to transcend it rather than to muck around in it, patching and repairing. This is what, if I understand correctly, AYP teaches.
Don't just do something....STAND THERE!
