NEGATIVITY

We all experience negativity — the basic aggression of wanting things to be different than they are. We cling, we defend, we attack, and throughout, there is a sense of one’s own wretchedness, and so we blame the world for our pain. This is negativity. We experience it as terribly unpleasant, foul-smelling, something we want to get rid of. But if we look into it more deeply, it has a very juicy smell and is very alive. Negativity is not bad per se, but something living and precise, connected with reality.

   — Chogyam Trungpa, from “Working with Negativity,” in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM and the Way of Meditation, page 93. Shambhala Library edition.