Mantak Chia's "Inner Smile" . . . (?)

[Lataif]

Mantak Chia's teaching of the "Inner Smile" . . . puzzles me quite a bit.

 

It definitely works for me (as far as it goes) . . . but that's after 40 years of doing all kinds of spiritual and energetic practice.

 

So I'm not sure what exactly it's tapping into.

 

It wouldn't have worked for me 20 years ago . . . and certainly not 40 years ago when I was starting out.   

 

Does it in actual fact work for new students today (?)  Sort of hard for me to imagine.

 

It's similar to experience of Chi in that respect.  I trained in Tai Chi 30 years ago and 15 years go and etc . . . and had no actual clear experience of Chi until about 5 years ago. I think "Chi" is probably just a vague idea for many students for a long time.

 

Likewise . . . do people actually have a distinct and specific experience of the "Inner Smile" (?)  Or is it not much more than just a vague idea (?)  

Edited May 20, 2015 by Lataif

[Henchman21]

One of the first practices I do regularly. It is hard to concentrate through the whole thing, and I still can't zero in on certain organs and their unique characteristics. I really feel the smiling energy, though.

[Spotless]

It would be nice if each person answering lets us know how long they have been practicing.

 

I've been doing this for over 40 years as well and have wondered some of the same things. The original post specifically relates the question to what it would be like if he had done it early on.

 

 

 

 

[Meroe]

mantak chia's healing tao was actually the very 1st system of taoist internal cultivation I had came across, after spending a few months practicing ritual occultism. Inner Smile in paticular certainly gave me my 1st miniscule glimpse of the organ energies, but didnt grant me anything paticularly noticable, like being able to seperate my intent from visualisation... like the internal alchemy of another master's system would soon after that. maybe if i practiced it for longer things would have been different.

 

by that time i had already began working with chi on a beginners level, and experiencing it during my premliminary opening of the meridians in my hands, feet and head using occultism.

 

I had barely became cognizant of practical spirituality for less than a year at that time. Ive now been practicing for a little less than 5 years.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Meroe

[z00se]

Mantak Chia's teaching of the "Inner Smile" . . . puzzles me quite a bit.

 

It definitely works for me (as far as it goes) . . . but that's after 40 years of doing all kinds of spiritual and energetic practice.

 

So I'm not sure what exactly it's tapping into.

 

It wouldn't have worked for me 20 years ago . . . and certainly not 40 years ago when I was starting out.   

 

Does it in actual fact work for new students today (?)  Sort of hard for me to imagine.

 

It's similar to experience of Chi in that respect.  I trained in Tai Chi 30 years ago and 15 years go and etc . . . and had no actual clear experience of Chi until about 5 years ago. I think "Chi" is probably just a vague idea for many students for a long time.

 

Likewise . . . do people actually have a distinct and specific experience of the "Inner Smile" (?)  Or is it not much more than just a vague idea (?)  

 

 

Mantak Chia's system is the 90% of what i have done for 10 years daily and i did spend 3-5 hours in practice daily for a period of 2 years and have practiced daily totally for 10 years. I feel i know the system pretty well but of course there are always new things to learn, it's only a system through which you can learn things.

 

I started off with the inner smile practicing it daily from an audio tape, and it is really the basis of the whole system. To be honest i think when i first started i did the inner smile better than i do it now. It was much richer and probably more enjoyable. To make it a more rich experience try to smell and taste the different energies of the organs as well as see the colours and feel the emotions.

 

To answer your question i had good experience very quickly, within a few days of practicing with the tape. I was sick at the time and had lots of spare time and listened to it 2-3 times a day after i started getting into it (it was about 40mins of meditation). Within 2-3 weeks i was having pretty good results with it, but it felt manufactured, yet still really good and fun. When i went and practiced on my own 10day retreat (9 hrs a day) it got really strong, but became moe difficult to do, and a bit pointless, shortcuts appeared to get to the same places without 'doing' the inner smile. I smelt and tasted the different energies very strongly and could feel others organ energies within myself when i came back from the retreat. Because i practiced with the inner smile so long i knew what was wrong in the others body because i knew how it worked in my own body. I could also see auras but i didn't know what they meant, as in what does what colour mean.

 

Maybe a reason why i got a good result is i practiced every day and spent plenty of time practicing.

 

I have done everything in the whole system and have all the books, but inner smile is the central part of it for me. It is the control mechanisim and the input sensor if you like that lets you see where things are at, and change things to how you want. These days i still do inner smile but i more just create the effects of the inner smile without actually smiling. All the energy is the same, and actually i even concentrate on working at a physical level, working with the organs and tension of the smooth muscle around them that the inner smile seems to effect.

 

The higher levels of the system to me just boost up the inner smile. They say each have a big book with descriptions etc of how they are different but in essence it's all inner smile. I figure if i can do what i want on a physical level with a little energy it's not necessary to boost it too much. Like fusion is a tool to learn how to do the fusion meditations and get balance, but once you work out what it's doing, you can just go ahead and do it straight away without doing fusion. Mind you it was certainly an experience doing kan and li some amazing things seemed to appear in my life but i guess one needs to be careful what they wish for.

 

In all i think the forumulas for working with energy in healing tao is a way to learn and provide insight. Once you know how to do it they all fit together as one thing/system, which ends up being a new inner smile

 

I would really recommend healing tao it is good, but you only get out what you put in. And don't be afraid to ask for help from others who do healing tao. There is alot of different ways to do things (as with the smile) and doing it lots one way can cause imbalances. I actually feel the instruction book is incomplete. Energy runs through the facia, blockages are where the facia sticks together. Chi can push blockages open, but so can relaxation. It's like using a flood of water to bust open a canal lock door, or direct water to sit on the edges where the lock door sits so the foundation of the door is weak and the door just falls over with less power.

 

I feel standard healing tao (or the way i originally did it) was a bit too marcho. Finess and the quality and nature of the energy are just as important as the strength and purity of the energy.

 

I'd like to hear how you feel healing tao relates to your other spiritual practices. I think with a little healing tao your other practices will become easier, it will be attacking it from both ends. I likewise should spend more time attacking from the spiritual side but there are things i don't like about it

[Lataif]

I have done everything in the whole [Healing Tao] system and have all the books, but inner smile is the central part of it for me . . .

 

The higher levels of the system to me just boost up the inner smile . . .

 

I feel standard healing tao (or the way i originally did it) was a bit too macho . . .

 

Fineness and the quality and nature of the energy are just as important as the strength and purity of the energy.

 

I'd like to hear how you feel healing tao relates to your other spiritual practices . . .  

 

Thanks for your extended and personal reply.

 

I agree that "Inner Smile" can be a lot more fundamental and a lot more comprehensive than maybe it's given credit for.  Your experience seems to confirm that.

 

But that's exactly what makes it so puzzling to me.

 

Maybe I'm not explaining my puzzlement very well.  Heck, maybe I'm even puzzled about my puzzlement (LOL -- I hate when that happens . . .).

 

I simply don't understand what "Inner Smile" is supposed to be accessing in Healing Tao terms.

 

Is it Chi . . . of a specific kind (?)  Or is it a capacity to sense and direct Chi . . . in a specific way (?) Or what (?)

 

If beginning students are supposed to be able to do this practice (which I'm very unsure about . . .) it's a much bigger deal than it appears.  They would then already have some very fundamental and very comprehensive access to something that is . . . very fundamental and very comprehensive (LOL).

 

Even if most beginning students DON'T have it (which seems likely to me -- but what do I know??) the fact that the Healing Tao system would assume that they do . . . puzzles me.

 

Am I making myself any clearer (?)

 

***

 

As for how "Inner Smile" relates to my other practice . . . I'm not 100% sure.

 

I do know for a personal fact that I could only do the "Inner Smile" effectively (not just think/imagine that I was doing it) after years of other practice -- unlike what the Healing Tao system seems to assume.  

 

So for me personally, "Inner Smile" seems dependent on some other capacity or "energy" that was realized/developed by my other practice.

 

In the technical terminology of Sufism (which is my base practice), "Inner Smile" seems to be made possible by the presence of one or more specific "Lataif".

 

The candidates seem to me to be: "Joy" (least likely) . . . or "Compassion" . . . or "Healing" . . . or "Merging".

 

I can do a version of  "Inner Smile" with any of these Lataif -- although "Merging" seems the most general and basic.

 

But again:  what does the Healing Tao system think that "Inner Smile" does (?)

Edited May 20, 2015 by Lataif

[Spotless]

Directly addressing the bodies organs in such positive and direct manner is part and parcel to what makes meditation one of the greatest mechanisms for growth. In both cases one is being with the body.

 

Most of the time we whip the body like a slave and treat it like our car. We do not understand that this great vehicle Is no hinderance to our growth but quite the opposite.

 

Simply saying hello to our organs is somewhat like a parent specifically noticing a son or daughter who have felt neglected for a long time. The response to what is very little on the part of the parent can be enormous for the child.

 

In meditation you are sitting with the body - and actually attempting to still the greatest barrier between you( "head/analyzer/monkey mind") and your body. Some begin meditation with a bit of the controlling energies they are used to and some continue this for many years. - subjugating the body into stillness and "controlling" the mind. But even with this unfortunate and common approach one is still sitting with the body and in one way or another - moving toward being with it.

 

This process allows the energies to free up and move through ones space / chakras / nadis / channels / meridians - the body also begins to impart many special abilities that it has always had but that the monkey mind races past in its quests to find the ultimate banana.

 

Inner smile very specifically directs ones positive "open heart" energies to each organ - however frail our abilities to visualize may be, like a parent truly bending down and looking lovingly into the eyes of a child that has not had much attention for awhile - it is an event for that organ. It's a bit like looking under the hood of your can and talking to your engine - we just don't do it (I do).

 

Our vehicles have great intuition but we summarily ignore it - we have scanners, the ability to see futures that will effect us, to see beyond the parameters of ordinary sight and tons of other abilities - all brought in abidance within the body and in the unfoldment in our being with it and in partnership with it.

 

Inner smile is like taking our body to a spa - it loves this treatment. But going inside and saying hello to the specific major players - personally shaking hands with them and smililing and showing your personal awareness to them - this is epic!

 

And this will move from Epic to friendship and comradery and unfoldment - it is entirely different to be working for someone vs working with someone.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Spotless

[vonkrankenhaus]

I only became aware of Mantak Chia's "inner smile" stuff recently, but I learned something like this in 70s.

 

Way I learned is somewhat different, but looking at his I will try to describe similarities.

 

It is training to see and "identify" with organs function and interaction.

 

If you look at any good 5 phases diagram, this is showing what you are basically becoming familiar with.

 

From this you will start to see, feel, and eventually be able to effect organs.

 

This is a basis, and is not so much about cultivating qi or organ qi just yet - but about creating the ability to see and "communicate" with body (specific organs) at a more detailed level that will be important in other parts of qi cultivation.

 

I would think for westerners that are so much seeing psychological level of things, ideas, this is helpful to introduce a different way of looking ("feeling") at organs and organ function that is more in-line with qigong way and leading to actual qi cultivation.

 

That is just what it (Mantak Chia "Inner Smile" practice) look like to me at this time.

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Spotless]

The entire practice of visualizing is extremely helpful - it is actually somewhat scary to the body being interface to actually see things with the inner eye (both internally and externally). The practice of visualizing helps to increasingly visualize better and better until this starts to work with actual seeing and then on to moving things and more.

[blue eyed snake]

The entire practice of visualizing is extremely helpful - it is actually somewhat scary to the body being interface to actually see things with the inner eye (both internally and externally). The practice of visualizing helps to increasingly visualize better and better until this starts to work with actual seeing and then on to moving things and more.

 

could you say more about that? about it being scary i mean

 

Even though it happened only two or three times, sometimes in meditation i can indeed see into my body. See what is wrong actually. It's very small blips of seeing, but very clear.

 

 

But it did not frighten me, the first time it was like a deep surprise. ( and afterwards i sort of thought..eh..that's the way our teacher is able to see what's going on into our bodies/minds)

 

Reading this discussion about smiling to the organs, i tried it, more the way you explained it. Like giving real attention to a child...amazing, i'll keep that up. After my pneumonia the lungs are still very much out of order, this might be a helpful exercise

[z00se]

Thanks for your extended and personal reply.

 

I agree that "Inner Smile" can be a lot more fundamental and a lot more comprehensive than maybe it's given credit for.  Your experience seems to confirm that.

 

But that's exactly what makes it so puzzling to me.

 

Maybe I'm not explaining my puzzlement very well.  Heck, maybe I'm even puzzled about my puzzlement (LOL -- I hate when that happens . . .).

 

I simply don't understand what "Inner Smile" is supposed to be accessing in Healing Tao terms.

 

Is it Chi . . . of a specific kind (?)  Or is it a capacity to sense and direct Chi . . . in a specific way (?) Or what (?)

 

Ok, i guess i'd like to ask the same question about your practices, what does it do for you specifically? I haven't done much spiritual stuff, but QiGong becomes spiritual, as i'll explain later.

 

 

It's a pretty big question but i'll answer the best i can.

 

 

QiGong is about energy, the object of the meditations are energy. Generally healing tao and an advanced inner smile can be seen (in my way) as simultaniously dealing with two broad aspects together at the same time. Attention / consiousness and awareness. The third thing is grounding, i'm sure you know what that is but i'll mention it incase others don't understand.

 

 

The attention is focus, like a magnifying glass, and awareness is just that, awareness. So one expands their awareness outwards, their whole body first, then beyond and it expands further and further. Obviously as it expands you have access to more energy and different types since you are now 'aware' of the things that are there. This can go from earth to galaxy to universe, etc. Grounding keeps you centered, a bit like a boat travelling on an international journey that puts its anchor down overnight so that in the morning it knows where it is, otherwise it could be anywhere and you don't know where you are comming from or going to. The consiousness lets you do stuff with the energy, move it, direct it, make it flow, change it, etc. Focus it in one spot in your body, focus it on your whole body, balance the energy in different parts of your body or expell it out of your body. Energy becomes like medicine, it effects the way your body works. How it works i think is standard in every body, however every body is different and so has different requirements as to how the energy should be changed to achieve balance.

 

 

So the inner smile as it is normally taught takes in smiling energy which is chi, the middle-god/dantien/emotional type energy, you take it in through the third eye. Because it runs down the channels it also helps with the bringing down of energy in higher levels when you work with more energy. Energy goes up easily but doesn't come down as easily. Smiling energy feels good, and it allows you to easily morph it into organ energy. Once you learn how the different organ energies feel, both good and bad versions, it allows you to then access this same energy from without. I mean how can you bring in kindness energy if you don't even fully know what it feels like, can harness it with a lassoo, (or more accurately coerce it) and move it. External energy is more raw and doesn't feel as smooth as the stuff that comes out of your organs internally, but it can be smoothed out and fits in with what's in your body when you work with it.

 

 

If beginning students are supposed to be able to do this practice (which I'm very unsure about . . .) it's a much bigger deal than it appears.  They would then already have some very fundamental and very comprehensive access to something that is . . . very fundamental and very comprehensive (LOL).

 

Even if most beginning students DON'T have it (which seems likely to me -- but what do I know??) the fact that the Healing Tao system would assume that they do . . . puzzles me.

 

Am I making myself any clearer (?)

 

At the start i worked on feeling the organs, using the chi as a sonar type instrument to feel where my organs were, and talking to them like spotless mentioned. It works... but i don't use that method so much any more.

 

Like i said it took me about 4 days to get it, and a few weeks to get it better. My progress was probably slowed by smoking weed, every time i did that i went back to square one with the progress, so i started fresh again at least once a week. The knowledge of my body was still there, the chi just wasn't and the power of the meditation had to be built up again. The chi builds up when you do it daily.

 

***

 

As for how "Inner Smile" relates to my other practice . . . I'm not 100% sure.

 

I do know for a personal fact that I could only do the "Inner Smile" effectively (not just think/imagine that I was doing it) after years of other practice -- unlike what the Healing Tao system seems to assume.  

 

So for me personally, "Inner Smile" seems dependent on some other capacity or "energy" that was realized/developed by my other practice.

 

In the technical terminology of Sufism (which is my base practice), "Inner Smile" seems to be made possible by the presence of one or more specific "Lataif".

 

The candidates seem to me to be: "Joy" (least likely) . . . or "Compassion" . . . or "Healing" . . . or "Merging".

 

I can do a version of  "Inner Smile" with any of these Lataif -- although "Merging" seems the most general and basic.

 

But again:  what does the Healing Tao system think that "Inner Smile" does (?)

 

The chi does take some time to 'sink in'. Even with microcosmic orbit you get the physical benefits after the meditation, not necessarily in it. The body has to 'sit' in the new way achieved by meditations and have a chance to 'catch up' to what you've been doing. Physical is slow, energy is fast.

 

How do you know you were doing it effectively now? How do you know you weren't imagining it? What's are you using to measure you're effectiveness?

 

Early on i felt increased emotions of the type i was cultivating. They came out more after meditations, and i started feeling outside of meditations the way i was practicing to feel inside of meditations. Detoxing was increased, especially felt that way around my spine. The chi directed by the inner smile increases or decreases blood, lymph, and just general circulation on the area the energy is directed apon. Increases or decreases depend on the type of energy projected apon the area.

 

Later the chi made me need to go to the toilet, caused cracks in my neck, made me feel tired or super excited, rumbled my belly, stretched my skin, expaned and swelled up my organs if i directed the energy that way so that they felt like they were going to pop. Breath in stretch, breath out relax. Not deep breaths, no physical stress like iron shirt, just all energy, gently. I felt electricity from kan and li that made muscles jump like i was using one of those electronic muscle simulaters sold on late night tv. I felt bubbling in my belly from the coldren, boom boom boom, and i could look at my stomach and see it moving from the coldren boiling. Other things too but what i mean to say is that it becomes more real the more you do it. If you are very calm, and your heart rate very low, then you 'imagine' you are being chased by a tiger who wants to eat you, your heart rate increases, blood chemicals change and tension increases. Was this all just 'imagination' or did you really do something?

 

I don't know what you mean by 'healing' or 'merging' but in healing tao there is earh energy, emotional energy and spiritual energy, the 3 treasures. Yes you can do the inner smile with all of these energies too, it's just directing energy. Thats what the inner smile does I'm not sure if you're other system works much with energy. In the last 5 years my understanding of energy, of the finess, quality, frequency, speed, direction, different channels of the body and smoothness/roughness, intensity, power, earth/emotional/spiritual energy percentage mix etc has really expanded. Originally i worked with organ energy, thats how you start off, and it can take many many hours of practice to work with those well. But the seasons, and weather has energy too. So does everything. All of these things are like labels for the energy, a bit like when you go to the hardware store and say you want a certain colour of paint. There are thousands of names for different paint colours. However thats only a fraction of the number of colours available. Mixing the colours yourself you soon find out that there are many more. Learning from the outside world, and from travel, and going overseas the numbers increase even further as your mind opens up to new things you've never seen before.

 

So the inner smile is starting to train your body to feel the energies and what they do and how they work, as well as change and direct the energy for higher levels in the system. Then you have a 'handle' or a paint name so to speak that you can work with, rather than just swishing away in white paint that contains all the colours and who knows what you're doing

 

Now as to how qigong is spiritual. This is not really inner smile, this is through opening the channels of the body. This allows the chi to move throught the body. The chi IS YOU. It is a denser version of you're spirit, it is like the holy spirit the christians talk about. It really really feels like you when you ball the chi up and run it through the MCO. It feels like you are going through the channels of 'a' body, which is obviously your own but it feels seperate. This seperate feeling is just as seperate as the chi feels from your spirit. When i was practicing lots, i felt like i was my spirit, who controlled my chi, which in turn controlled my body. I found it good to have spiritual insight as in what to do and where to go, but i wouldn't want to give into it totally of fear of becomming a madman haha. If i followed it without question it could send me anywhere. For eg. if i run i feel it leading me to different places, i follow it but later i know my wife will be home and i should head back and so just turn around and go back home. It feels good to follow it but not good to let it overtake me. Is it fear? yes. Is fear bad? no. In reality i believe if anybody really let it overtake them the whole time they can't really live in society. Even Lester Livingston followed the light for years but snapped himself out of it because he felt it wasn't right, he felt he had lost touch. Is you're previous spiritual practices anything like this?

 

Qigong prepares the body for the spirit, it works with earth energy and chi energy and heavenly energy, but it is yin, it is working with the physical. The more one advances in healing tao the more prepared ones body is for the spirit, the deeper the spirit enters to us while we are living on earth. There is no tension, there is no restriction against the spirit, the body is overwealmed with chi and resistance becomes futile and can actually be physically painful. Thats why one should not rush through the process, bit by bit. Having the spirit fully in you is the pinnicle of qigong, but i don't believe its possible unless you are a hermit

Edited May 21, 2015 by z00se

[z00se]

This process allows the energies to free up and move through ones space / chakras / nadis / channels / meridians - the body also begins to impart many special abilities that it has always had but that the monkey mind races past in its quests to find the ultimate banana.

 

Inner smile very specifically directs ones positive "open heart" energies to each organ - however frail our abilities to visualize may be, like a parent truly bending down and looking lovingly into the eyes of a child that has not had much attention for awhile - it is an event for that organ. It's a bit like looking under the hood of your can and talking to your engine - we just don't do it (I do).

 

Our vehicles have great intuition but we summarily ignore it - we have scanners, the ability to see futures that will effect us, to see beyond the parameters of ordinary sight and tons of other abilities - all brought in abidance within the body and in the unfoldment in our being with it and in partnership with it.

 

Inner smile is like taking our body to a spa - it loves this treatment. But going inside and saying hello to the specific major players - personally shaking hands with them and smililing and showing your personal awareness to them - this is epic!

 

And this will move from Epic to friendship and comradery and unfoldment - it is entirely different to be working for someone vs working with someone.

I think in me the special abilities are more of an attraction than the banana.

 

Really i think following the spiritual totally for me is not enlightment, enlightment is having spiritual guidance not spiritual dictatorship. I've had the right balance before where everything was perfect, but that got boring and stale too for me. Always in motion is what i feel is right now. That is the way the 5 phases works too.

 

For me the smiling chi i bring in feels different from the heart energy, and all the other organ energies also feel different again. I never bought the heart energy to the other organs, it was more the other way around. I do bring the other organ energies into the heart and combine them there to get compassion. Then it is easy to keep balanced regardless of what is going on around because one is loved up. If the heart is open and clear, balance between the organs exists more easily. Balance is centered.

 

Like you say looking into the eyes of the child, and shaking hands with the major players.... this is very benefitial. I should have done more of that and it would have balanced my practice earlier on. It does work, but i have found other ways to do it now that i have practiced more and work more easily for me now because of that practice.

 

It's interesting what you have said, especially you're last sentence, because it's very right, however the aspects of qigong that you are most attracted to are opposite to me. It's the listening you are attracted to. It helps me to understand you're previous practice better. The taoists actually believe the organs have souls/spirits. The Po, the Hun, etc. What you are doing is listening to the organs spirits according to my understanding. That is a very spiritualist approach

Edited May 21, 2015 by z00se

[z00se]

I want to add Iron shirt, especially number 1 is very helpful with healing tao. It also advances beyond the book with your imagination with more practice. But it helps with the moving of chi using the physical body. Infact the perinium has big percentage of control over the chi flow in both iron shirt and the MCO.

 

Also wanted to add since i've been doing Bowen Therapy i have felt the effect on the chi within my body when being worked on, as well as transferring to anothers body when working on them. Bowen works on the facia and releasing it from sticking to each other, it can be seen clearly in big changes in range of movement of body parts, but it also works on internal organs with an energetic effect. The moves are very light, just rolling over muslces and waits of 2-5 minutes between each move to let the body respond to the moves, or let the energy 'sink in' so that the body changes from the change of energy flow or the releasing of blockages (my interpretation not anyone elses). So the chi pushes open blockages, and the inner smile does that too, but it is concentrated on more in MCO or opening belt, thrusting and what mantak chia calls the psychic channels, just extra channels.

 

I understand intimately how qigong works for healing, and how projecting chi can create balance and transmitting chi through channels clears them. I can channel energy that has it's own intelligence on what to do and just let it flow into anothers body.

 

Alas i have no idea how spiritual healings work. I understand that by following the light you stop the resistance to it which releases blockages. But how does one person spiritually heal another? How can you make somebody see / feel the light?

 

 

With QiGong, because it is mainly for health, a physical approach one must not neglect doing exercise and doing it in a balanced fashion or the chi will also be unbalanced and the connection to tao lost. Taking a spiritual approach i guess one needs to follow the light and can't ignore it too much or one will lose their connection to tao also. Is this true?

Edited May 21, 2015 by z00se

[z00se]

could you say more about that? about it being scary i mean

 

Even though it happened only two or three times, sometimes in meditation i can indeed see into my body. See what is wrong actually. It's very small blips of seeing, but very clear.

 

 

But it did not frighten me, the first time it was like a deep surprise. ( and afterwards i sort of thought..eh..that's the way our teacher is able to see what's going on into our bodies/minds)

 

Reading this discussion about smiling to the organs, i tried it, more the way you explained it. Like giving real attention to a child...amazing, i'll keep that up. After my pneumonia the lungs are still very much out of order, this might be a helpful exercise

 

I never found it scarey either. Giving the attention like a child and listening. Listen to your lungs throughout the day and they will tell you want they want. Benefit comes from this, but the real benefit comes when you act on what they want. This is my trouble, i don't want to listen to them because it distracts me from my course. So i use qigong to patch it up, like a western doctor, heal them. But then the root problem pops up again somewhere else, and patch it up again. Then i spend some time listening to them, doing it their way and calm down the root cause... fix it at the source. Then continue on my way again patching up when needed

 

A true western and eastern approach hahaha. Benevolint dictatorship i call it

[Spotless]

Edited May 23, 2015 by Spotless

[blue eyed snake]

well,

sofar...i've tried to give loving kindness to first my lungs and then other parts of the body. As part of my standing posture thing.

 

Interestingly, when i try to bring my awareness to the lungs, that's easy and some sort of vision/feeling arises... it's less easy to stop doing it. Then the awareness goes to the liver and hooks up there...i did have more contact with the liver already but never tried it like this, when i try to go further to other organs it's much harder to keep my awareness there. As a tentative conclusion i would say that something in me knows very well which organs need this the most...

I do now try to incorporate the sending of love to my lungs while doing my daily walk, it's interesting where it will lead me. I'll definitely make this part of my daily routines.

 

and now that i've done this I realize that the one who teaches me once said to me something like: you should give loving kindness to all parts of you...eh...i took that in a more psychological vein...   but now i suppose he (also) meant this 

 

thanks Spotless, it was your way of putting it that made me aware of this.

[blue eyed snake]

I never found it scarey either. Giving the attention like a child and listening. Listen to your lungs throughout the day and they will tell you want they want. Benefit comes from this, but the real benefit comes when you act on what they want. This is my trouble, i don't want to listen to them because it distracts me from my course. So i use qigong to patch it up, like a western doctor, heal them. But then the root problem pops up again somewhere else, and patch it up again. Then i spend some time listening to them, doing it their way and calm down the root cause... fix it at the source. Then continue on my way again patching up when needed

 

A true western and eastern approach hahaha. Benevolint dictatorship i call it

 

Some misunderstanding here i think. I wasn't talking about listening or consciously giving attention to organs ( or other parts of the body) never done that before. But of meditating and all of a sudden literally see part of the spine and see where it's damaged and where the vertebrae are locked too close together, amazing it was...

 

But I do learn to listen now, to what the body needs.

[noonespecial]

Smiling eyes is something I have fully incorporated into my work and day to day life, the magic of the crescent.

[dawei]

I simply don't understand what "Inner Smile" is supposed to be accessing in Healing Tao terms.

 

In the few books of his that I have read, it could be summed up as short-term healing and long-term immortality.

 

The practices are meant to ultimately absorb the universal forces (energy) of heaven and earth, in order to nourish the body, spirit, soul, etc.    

 

On the physical level, this seeks to clear blockages and simply bring the body into union with everything (or the flip side is creating clarity).  In energy sense, negative energy is transformed to positive energy.

[dawei]

could you say more about that? about it being scary i mean

 

I'll put it in different terms but I don't mean to speak for Spotless... this is just my take on what some *might* encounter/experience.

 

As I see it, one of the main goals to achieving [more] clarity is that inner and outer are aligned, are of the same 'mind'.  This is similarly spoken of in practices (ie: Taiji).

 

The [local] conscious mind is not always in sync with the subconscious... and when something like this comes to the local mind and we are scared, put off, resisting, blocking, not accepting something... they are not in sync.  

 

Your surprise is likely your sign that they were not in completely in sync but not so far that you resisted it.  

[vtrader125]

How well can the inner smile work for depression?

Does anyone have a simple how to for this method?

[z00se]

Feel bright white yet dry light or mist going into the lungs with every breath and retain the essence of the breath in the lungs. You know those cold dry days of autumn? Picture that feeling. Try to feel courage, picture yourself being courageous infront of a tiger. Keep doing these things for 15 minutes with your eyes closed. Increase the chi in your lungs by holding the essence in with each breath. Collect the chi in the navel at the end. Do 2x a day. Within a week you should notice improvement. Learn the lung healing sound and do it 18 or 36 times per day depending on how much time u have.

[Jox]

Feel bright white yet dry light or mist going into the lungs with every breath and retain the essence of the breath in the lungs. You know those cold dry days of autumn? Picture that feeling. Try to feel courage, picture yourself being courageous infront of a tiger. Keep doing these things for 15 minutes with your eyes closed. Increase the chi in your lungs by holding the essence in with each breath. Collect the chi in the navel at the end. Do 2x a day. Within a week you should notice improvement. Learn the lung healing sound and do it 18 or 36 times per day depending on how much time u have.

 

And then it would be also good to do so with other organs too ... 

[z00se]

And then it would be also good to do so with other organs too ... 

 

Yes, there is a free guided inner smile meditation on the healing tao website. Just follow that but pay particular attention to the lungs.

[de_paradise]

The areas around the organs: chest stomach are the areas where energetically we get our feelings that are the maps of our emotions.  In particular blockages develop due to selfish emotions based on the belief of a seperate self, blocking and tightening since childhood. (greed, fear, shame, etc)  A large problem area for cultivators then, is those blockages and how to unblock them. 

 

Unbiased attention around the blockage area is good enough to do some house-cleaning. Good-willed attention charges the qi (regular qi) to do a bit more. And "lataif" (I just learned that word, but I know exactly what you are talking about) is a natural progression, as it of a higher understanding, and contains enlightened energy, broader, blissful, more powerful. 

 

While I do not particularly buy into the Taoist specific organ model, in the same way I don't fully buy into the yogic chakra model with the colors and things, the maps are correct enough so that they can work. I think this inner smile can work for advanced practitioners because it can get at the specific emotional blockages that get ignored even while practicing and cultivating for many years, and which are so deeply rooted in ourselves, so deep. And these negative feelings of ego seperate self really come to the forefront after one has advanced down the path and has transformed their consciousness to higher levels, they become so blatant, so awful, so not belonging, that one is forced to deal with them. I guess in genergal the advanced practitioner doesn't need to go back to some mechanistic style meditation because it becomes pretty apparent what to do anyway.