Daily Dharma

The Basement and the Living Room

Let us use a house to represent our consciousness. We can identify two parts: the basement is the store consciousness and the living area is mind consciousness. Internal formations, like anger, rest in the store consciousness—in the basement—in the form of a seed, until you hear, see, read or think of something that touches your seed of anger. Then it comes up and manifests on the level of you mind consciousness, your living room. It manifests as a zone of energy that makes that atmosphere in your living room heavy and unpleasant. When the energy of anger comes up, we suffer.

Whenever anger manifests, the practitioner immediately invites the energy of mindfulness to manifest also, through the practice of mindful walking and mindful breathing. This way, another zone of energy—the energy of mindfulness—is created. It is so important to learn how to practice walking and breathing mindfully, how to practice cleaning and working mindfully, how to practice mindfulness in our daily life. Then, every time a negative energy manifests, we will know how to generate the energy of mindfulness in order to embrace it and take care of it.

[...from Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh, pg. 170-171]

Comments

[g.]

What is a negative energy?

[chalip]

Is that a koan?

Thay didn't elaborate but I would guess he is speaking of defilements. I'm tired now so I'll come back later to give this question a more coherent response. Thanks for visiting, G...

[g]

I think I can understand what Thich Nhat Hanh is saying in this context,
about enlisting mindfulness,
but I would like to know what he is calling negative energy, and why he is labeling it in this way.