Questions About The Inner Smile Meditation.

[Oneironaut]

How simple can the inner smile practice be made & how long should the meditation be? I was looking through the internet and I found this source as well as this one online:

I personally think that keeping things simple can also make it more effective in the long run. Would any of the more experienced folks in here recommend the links I provided above to a complete beginner like myself?

Edited April 30, 2015 by Oneironaut

[GreytoWhite]

http://globalqiproject.com/eight-extraordinary-meridians-training-program/

[thelerner]

I was taught Chia's/Taoist Inner Smile.  A different take on it, that I like better is the Secret Smile from Glenn Morris's practice.  Here's a thread about it: http://thedaobums.com/topic/9719-dr-morriss-secret-smile-breathing-basic-kap-1-giri-for-the-tao-bumbs/?p=116420

 

excerpt:

 

Safety First: The Secret Smile

The first meditation required for success in the Lightening Path training is the "Secret Smile". Always begin your practice with the secret smile. You want your body to be very happy. That way your hormonal system will cooperate and you will avoid discomfort. I have observed that kundalini moves best through a happy camper and this meditation is a process for internalizing an intensely positive mind-state. A certain degree of intensity is required to raise the kundalini and so this practice draws on highly charged positive emotions that most people are familiar with. There are five emotions utilized in the Heaven's Way Chi Kung, Lightening Path Esoteric Yoga Secret Smile Meditation.

Circulating the Five Intense Positive Mind States

Relaxed Calm: After you are in the fudosai meditation posture and have begun Zen breathing for 5-10 minutes, put a smile on your face. You should actually lift your cheeks so the corners of your mouth turn up. Next tighten your toes until they really hurt and then release them. Do this three times paying attention to the relaxed feeling that occurs with in between each pause. Move that relaxed feeling up from the soles of your feet to your ankles and then up to your calves. Bring it around to your knees and to the heavy muscles of the thighs allowing them to soften and relax. Picture your thorax as a grail filling up with relaxation. Let the intestines, stomach, and lower back fill up as well. Next, allow it to flow up into your chest, upper back, and shoulder so that it overflows into your arms and down to the fingertips. Let your arms fill up until the relaxed feeling begins to move around your neck and up the back of the head coming up over your ears and skull to rest behind your eyes. Catch the feeling with your relaxed tongue and swallow it down to the bottom of your belly where you swirl it around.

Confidence: Remember a time when you did something you were not only proud of but other people recognized your achievement. Pay attention to how you felt. Erase the people and the event while keeping the feeling. Take that feeling down to your feet and bring it up through your body in the same manner as in the active relaxation, but this time you don't have to tighten your toes. Bring it over you head, mix with the saliva, swallow, and allow it to mix with the relaxed feeling and then the cycle begins anew. Do this for three cycles of more of breath.

Happiness: Next, picture a time when you were laughing so hard you literally fell down, cracked up, and totally lost it. Take out the joke or situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.

Love: Now remember a time when you were in love and felt loving. Take out the loved one and the situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through
your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.

Ecstasy: The smile is for adults over 19 years of age. If you are sexually active, remember the best orgasm you ever had, and if male, hold onto the movement just before ejaculation and breathe that feeling through
your body (as you probably don't want to stain your trousers and the male orgasm is usually too short for this exercise). If female, let it rip as you breathe through your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, down behind your eyes, through the tongue, and back to your belly. This is the power behind the secret smile and one of those important items usually regarded as oral transmission. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.

Once you've succeeded in combining all these feelings and moving them from your feet to your head and back to below your stomach, memorize the process. Make it part of your daily practice until it is so easy that it just become a warm up for other methods that sticks with you.

- Dr Glenn J Morris

[RyanO]

Hi Oneironaut,

 

I'm a big advocate of the Inner Smile and it's my favorite meditation technique I've come across in 15 years.  The beautiful thing about it is that it be adapted to your own personal style.  As such, it can be as simple or as complex, as short or as long as you want it to be.  Feel free to experiment.

 

For instance, in Chia's system it is done by focusing inwardly on the body, but you can also project it externally to other beings.  If you're interested I'd recommend taking a look at Michael Winn's ebook, which has a lot about both the theory and practice (it's free, just google).

 

In my experience, I view the Inner Smile in three ways:  as a body scanning practice, a breathing practice, and as a blessing practice.

 

The body scanning is done similar to Chia's version but I don't do much visualization.  I simply scan my body and relax it while sending it love.  I find that kinesthetically imagining the body channels opening like an unkinked hose makes this feel really good.  This can lead into the breathing practice, which I do by smiling to the Tao (or God, the Universe etc as you prefer) on the exhale, and feeling the return of the smile on the inhale.  This can be done all day long as a mindfulness practice.  The blessing practice, where you send love to every being you come across, as well as food, etc., also works great for mindfulness.  This is a subtle practice that should not take much effort.

 

To me, it is important to understand the theory behind the Inner Smile to make it potent.  This is where Winn's ebook might help.  Briefly, it is a way to embody the perfection of the universe, that all beings are worthy of love, and indeed that all is love, and that there is nothing to fear.  In this, it is also a tonic for all kinds of anxiety.  Another insight I gained from the Smile is that there is nothing I need to do to be perfect, or achieve any kind of exalted spiritual state (this is where I differ from Chia's immortality theories).  Rather, the smile is a way to let go of everything that gets in the way of my experience of the perfection.

 

Anyway, this has been a stream of consciousness response to your question.  I'm not very active on here but I always have a moment to talk about the Inner Smile!  I'm happy to answer any more questions if you have them.  And of course, this is all based on my personal experience, and is not necessarily the view of Chia, Winn, or any other teacher, system, or philosophy other than my own

[thelerner]

Minke De Vos of Silent Ground has a great audio CD called Tao Basics.   She's got a 30 minute indepth guided meditation on it called Deep Body Smile that goes is very well done.  Also contains meditations on Sexual Energy and Microcosmic Orbit that are excellent. 

[Lataif]

Inner Smile is a pretty good practice.  Very high benefit to risk ratio.

 

But I've never heard a good explanation of why it works.

 

What exactly is the source of the smile (?)  What is it (?) Where is it (?)  And how do we connect with it (?)

 

These questions become important . . . when you find you can't do the practice (or can't do it well).

 

Can you inner smile . . . while being waterboarded (?) 

[thelerner]

I always thought one piece of its power is derived from energy going where you concentrate.  Most of the time the organs are on auto pilot your attention brings a dose of relaxed attention/intention/energy to them.  Might also bring a bit of extra blood flow and/or some good hormones also.  Not only to the organ but also to the brain area that controls it.  

 

Its a way of building a stronger psycho-somatic link to a vital piece of our machinery.  Probably works whether you buy in to the whole organ/god/element philosophy or not.  Just like researchers have found laughing has amazing health affects to; way beyond what the simple mechanics would imply.

 

Inner smile while tortured??  If you've developed very high concentration then yes, you may be torture resistant.  Anything lower then high mastery and while you'll last longer (yippee) and recover faster (perhaps) it'll still get you, imo. 

 

 

Personally, I had some bodywork done by Master Clyman.  It was akin to torture (undoubtedly beneficial on some level) and through I was able to relax and laugh at the pain and situation in the middle of it.  Because of that I got a longer session and had an amazingly painful time.  (smiling, laughing, tell oneself I can take 30 more seconds of this repeatedly, only goes so far)  Thus showing resistance to torture is not always in one's best interest.

Edited May 1, 2015 by thelerner

[fizix]

The Inner Smile meditation is in essence an internal orgasm, thus one should truly practice it's innate alchemical benefits upon an internal orgasm akin to the bonobo tribe. hint: uni-sex

[voidisyinyang]

primates are from tree shrews and so our inner ears used to be the jaw bones of tree shrews.

 

The inner smile is therefore actually pineal gland bliss activated through internal listening of our inner ear as it smiles as the internal jaws connected to the pineal gland - activated by the vagus nerve.

 

So when you get chills listening to music for example that is the vagus nerve activated by the inner ear connected to the pineal gland.

 

So when the pineal gland is activated with magnetic bliss it actually pulls the mouth back into a smile naturally.

 

I've had people get mad at me - "why are you smiling?"

 

I want to say - "why not smile?"

 

It's kind of like when the Dalai Lama is asked why shouldn't he be happy even though his people have been enslaved.

 

It sounds like it's messed up but should the materialist imperialists also rob him of his happiness?

 

Not that I worship the Dalai Lama but I think he makes a good point.

 

Also I was watching this linktv China tv show that featured the Harlem Globe trotters and they commented about kids being bullied - one of them said he was taught to smile at the bullies - because if you smile at them it confuses the bullies.

 

When primates smile that is actually a sign of submissive behavior - you see that in Chinese movies - in kungfu a lot - bowing and smiling to appease the masters, etc.

 

But then it is said that the bowing is actually to activate the acupoint in the center of the brain for internal bliss - so submission as activating internal bliss.

 

The smile is also the secret to activate the internal bliss -

 

it works both ways - the pineal gland pulls the face back into a smile and making a smile activates the pineal gland.

 

One lady said - I had a - what was it -

 

oh yeah - she said I always had a smirk on my face. haha.

 

Hilarious.

 

But the thing is - that actually the dominant male has the highest serotonin levels.

 

We are taught in our culture that dopamine is what is dominant but in actuality it is serotonin.