Does the inner smile cover Emptiness practice?

[Cameron]

As I wrote about in my introduction I started with zen and then Ken Cohen's Chi Kung. It's basically Zen qigong. Sitting, Standing meditation..with some visualisations and absorbing qi from the universe(Sun , moon stars etc.)

 

The main thing Cohen seems to do is you do a qigong meditation and then you do Emptiness meditation to sort of digest all the qi. Like you do a Big Dipper meditation where you visualize your body filled with purple light and travel to the big dipper and absorb it's Qi. Then come back to stillness and emptiness afterwards.

 

One thing I distinctly remember from studying with Winn in his fundamentals class is the HT version of this is defiently the inner smile.

 

Where Cohen returns constantly to emptiness and quiet/non discriminating awareness, HT(or atleast Winn) constantly goes back to the inner smile.

 

You do Fusion, or the orbit or whatever, then go back to the smile. There is the formal smile practice where you smile down the "3 lines" and all throught the body then the non focused smile practice where your just smiling. Your holding a higher vibration and accepting everything.

 

Winn does VERY LITTLE emptiness practice and I think his idea is the smile is better than emptiness practice. It covers the benefits of emptiness practice but adds more..the Taoist energy aspect.

 

So, the question becomes..where is Emptiness practice not covered in the smile and if it is totally covered why even bother with emptiness practice? master the smile and the basics and just sit in a Yin, recpetive smiling state.

 

Or does emptiness practice truly cover stuff not covered with the Taosit inner smile?

[monucka]

So correct me if i'm wrong, anyone, but this is my experience: the inner smile is a sort of emptiness practice, possibly, but it's not taught precisely as such. One develops acceptance and positive feelings (both very beneficial), but it's only by accident, as it were, that someone practicing the inner smile realizes the illusory nature of the mind that's doing the smiling. As far as I remember, none of Chia's books really discuss "essence". Even Awaken Healing Light doesn't seriously discuss "sitting forgetting", which makes me think that the IS is supposed to fulfill that function, even while it generally remains in the realm of mental gymnastics. On the other hand, perhaps Winn's emphasis on yuan qi is a parallel way of expressing this that i've not had experience with. The question remains: how can one think herself into union with the Tao?

[Cameron]

This is where it can get tricky because when you say realize the "illusory nature of the mind" you are..I think..referncing Buddhist philosophy and practices..which is fine. The HT or atleast Winn thinks the mind is not illusory but governed or composed of these shen/vital organ spirits.

 

Now, if you have come to the conclusion shen theory is garbage and buddhism is where it is at(ala Bill Bodri) fine..your talking about a whole different language and all this is just phonemena or Skhandas.

 

The shen theory says they arent just illosury phenomena but have this immortal aspect to them that goes on and on and on but needs to get integrated back to Tao.

 

the smile then serves the purpouse as a communication with these shen and your basically learning to get into a realationship with them. You begin talking with them and caring for them like you do in any realtionship..you care about the other person.

 

Just saying it's illosory phenomena is fine in Buddhism but in Shen theory that may be equivelent to being married and telling your wife she and her opnions and desires are illosory phenomena. Time for divorce!

 

So we should have a CLEAR understanding of what philosophy we are drawing on before we get into a discussion.

 

My view is the inner smile basically covers emptiness practice but was interested in hearing others opinions. Perhaps those that disagree with that.

[sean]

Hey, I'd like to hijack this thread temporarily as an opportunity to really clarify what we mean by "emptiness meditation". We throw the term around a lot but it's ill-defined IMO. Actually I tend to stay away from the term altogether because I think it's just too vague. To me it sounds like saying "God meditation" or "breath meditation". It leaves me wondering about specifics.

 

So when you say emptiness meditation:

 

1) Do you mean a meditation aimed at cultivation the perception of all phenomena as inherently empty? If so, how is it different than Vipassana contemplation on impermanence and why ignore the rest of the progression, ie: unsatisfactoriness, non-self, loving-kindness, etc.

 

2) Do you mean a meditation aimed at dissolving forms into emptiness? If so how does this contrast to exploring, creating and refining forms?

 

3) Do you mean a meditation that requires a specific posture? ie: Lotus or Burmese. If so why can't emptiness meditation be practiced in another posture?

 

4) Do you mean a meditation that requires physical stillness? If so, why can't emptiness meditation be practiced while in movement?

 

5) Do you mean a meditation that require abandoning structure and language completely? If so, why can't emptiness meditation be practiced as the ground upon which visualizations appear to arise by the will of a self? Also I think all forms of meditation are directed in some way, at least by intention and at least initially. Even shikantaza is directed by the skillful desire for enlightenment and also by the structure and discipline of an imposed physical posture. In other words shikantaza (the authentic Zen term for real emptiness meditation btw) is directed primarily by body language. So in this way it has more in common with Yoga and Chi Kung (see Michael Winn's article "Daoist Alchemy as a Deep Language for Communicating with Nature") then it does with meditations driven primarily by the language of sound, ie: Mantra, the language of imagery and Art, ie: mandalas, thangkas, visualizations, the written/spoken human languages, ie: sedona, focusing, and advaita methods of verbal self inquiry. Also, claiming that your technique is no-technique just amounts to ignoring the assumptions of your approach IMO. Which could be useful, who knows.

 

Me, I generally try to resolve duality (which of course creates duality, in a sense, since seeking anything presupposes separation exists. This is another tangent though). So I see "emptiness" as not being intrinsically different than anything else realy, ie: cooking rice and washing my bowl. Within the context of Buddhism for example, it's claimed that the Buddha said "Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form" in the Heart Sutra. So if the two are really in identity, isn't it just as true to say we are already intrinsically empty, let's work on a "form" meditation? Resolving emptiness into form. Winn seems to prefer this view. Let's actualize and become and not just dissolve away. "The spiritual path consists of two aspects: seeing beyond the limited self and refining the limited self" (Shinzen Young). This radical monism can lead to disillusionment with, and abandoning of the path in some temperaments though ("If samsara is enlightenment, why even practice? I'm just gonna get drunk!"). So this view is usually discouraged, especially without the consistent presence of a teacher.

 

Anyway, I say:

Let me sit, stand, move, live and die while experiencing the pulsation and stillness of all phenomena across the entire spectrum from emptiness to form to emptiness and back along with the other 10,000 dualities arising within Being all while I Am remaining One in Self without grasping or averting even in the presence of grapsing and averting.

 

Let sitting, standing, moving, living and dying arise without grasping or averting even in the presence of grapsing and averting and all while the pulsation of wild mundane stillness dances across the spectrum from emptiness to form to emptiness and back along with the 10,000 heavy dualities floating weightlessly in Being while I Am One in Self Singing In Love.

 

In the absence of grasping and averting, even in the presence of grasping and averting, sitting, standing, moving, silence, song, living, dying, emptiness, form, meditation, eating, shitting, fucking, good, evil, love, hate, Tao, Buddha, Christ, Alla, Krishna, Love, Freedom, slavery, happiness, boredom, pain, sushi, sex, tears, blood, men, women, transsexuals, being broke the whole weekend, being rich the rest of your life, laughter, sadness, and all 10,000 x 10,000 real empty forms floating weightlessly in Being arising within pulsating wild mundane stillness dancing to the most beautiful song always playing I Am The One Self Singing And In Love Right Here Now.

 

Stop grasping or averting, even while grasping and averting, just Be the sitting, standing, moving, sleeping, typing, singing, dancing, dying, crying, eating, shitting, fucking, feeling guilty, tired, ashamed, clever, stupid, happy, shy, anxious, angry, free, stuck, open, closed, bored, numb, smoking, quitting smoking (for good), reading, drinking, sungazing, yoga, work, surfing, writing, arguing, eating sushi, eating burgers, stretching, being broke, being rich, realizing your poetry is cliche and that you've been going through a lot lately so going back to sit and meditate.

 

 

Sean.

[monucka]

In response to both posts (which raise good questions) I'll quote three times. The first is from "Overall Essentials of Alchemy", by Shangyangzi, a Complete Reality Taoist.

 

"A disciple asked Shangyangzi: 'it is certainly true that 'there are not two Ways in the world.' The way of Lao-tzu is the Way of of alchemy, the Way of alchemy is the Way of essence and life. But what Bodhidharma [founder of Ch'an Buddhism] brought from India is 'directly pointing to the human mind for perception of its essence and attainment of buddhahood.' Is this beyond alchemy?

Shangyangzi said, 'The Way of Bodhidharma is identical to the Way of alchemy. People of the world differ in terms of the keenness or dullness of their faculties and capacities, so the buddhas and masters set up names expediently out of compassion. Among students of later times, the intelligent went too far while the ignorant didn't go far enough.'"

 

 

A modern Taoist and physician named Fu Hua-I wrote:

 

"The purpose of the Taoist practice is to cultivate three selves.

The first is the physical body. Although the first self is temporary and unreal, attainment of the Way depends on it. Therefore when inactive it is best to be calm and light, and for action it is best to be cultivated through exercise. Breathing exercises, yindao, yijinjing (muscle/tendon changing) and taijiquan will all do.

The second self is the vital spirit. This means using the methods of quiet sitting to refine this substance, in which dark and light are mixed, into a pure serene body of balance and harmony. Single-minded concentration on the infinite whatever one may be doing is what called "the supreme state in which even nothingness does not exist."

The third self is the fundamental essence. It neither increases nor decreases, is neither defiled nor pure: it is the true emptiness that is not empty. When you understand mind and see its essence, only then can you know its original state and be the primordial true master.

All beings have the same source; to look back for the fundamental essence is something that both Buddhist and Taoist classics discuss."

 

Lao-tzu said: "Return is the movement of the Way; yielding is the function of the Way. All things in the world are born of being; being is born of nonbeing."

 

These quotes, and lots of others that support them, can be found in 'Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Sourcebook' by Thomas Cleary. That's all I'm going to add to this discussion. - j

[spyrelx]

Good thread.

 

Cameron, your second post is an awesome summation of the Winn School/Bodri School split. Really clarified some stuff for me.

 

Regarding your initial question, and Sean's post seeking clarification:

 

I think, for purposes of Cameron's question, "emptiness meditation" means quieting the mind and not grasping. Whether that's observing your thoughts, watching your breath, whatever. It is the "do no thing" mode of quiet sitting.

 

Smiling is kind of the "do one thing" mode -- though that one thing is also without grasping thought. It is smiling acceptance and attention.

 

Cameron is right in that there is a kind of similarity here in that for each school (e.g., Bodri and Winn), their preferred method (emptiness or smiling) is the ground state from which all other things spring and to which the meditator always returns.

 

I think there are similarities between the two practices, and suspect that, when you get higher deeper into them, the differences may be more of vocabulary than substance. Though daoism always retains the option of a smile directed at a specific thing (e.g., the pain in my knee -- though now that I think of it, a zen meditator who felt the pain in his knee would FEEL IT AND SIT WITH IT AND ACCEPT IT, which is perhaps much like "smiling into it").

 

--------------------------

 

This whole discussion though raises a question for me which is, perhaps a corollary to Sean's: what do we mean by the inner smile?

 

I've been practicing this stuff for years and I'm still a bit baffled by the inner smile practice. I means we're taught to put a smile on our faces and smile into our liver "as we would to someone we love" and then "send loving energy and appreciation to our liver".

 

The fallacy for me is that we don't CHOOSE to love someone. Our feelings of love are spontaneous (we've all had the experience of loving people who didn't deserve it and not loving people who did).

 

I mean I can't choose to love my liver any more than I can choose to love George Bush. I either love him or I don't. So what exactly am I supposed to be doing when I smile into my liver?

 

At best I focus attention on my liver with a sort of altruistic acceptance and sense of good nature. At worst I just think about my liver with a stupid (and false) grin pasted on my face. What do the rest of you do?

[Cameron]

Cameron, your second post is an awesome summation of the Winn School/Bodri School split. Really clarified some stuff for me.

 

Thanks Michael!

[Cameron]

Sean..

 

Ken Cohen's description on his Taoism:Essential Teachings of the Way and it's Power are the best I have heard I think.

 

He says " Taoist Emptiness meditation doesn't mean the emptiness of nihilism but the Emptiness of the cup that allows it to hold the liquid."

 

From the persepective of Taoist energy work..this emptiness or openess allows the Alchemy or formulas to be practiced better. or if you are a proponent of Bodri's way of thinking..it's the alpha and omega. You empty out and essentially allow the process to happen.

 

Only when we are empty of all things(including your own ego) do you realize the Tao. From the Zen teaching seeing the Dharma or catching a glimpse of your original nature or buddha nature comes from emptiness practice(initially) because you have to get to this point where you inspect yourself and ego and see it is transient or unreal..a self created phenomena not a lasting truth.

 

This all changes when you get into Alchemy(Ala winn) because it does seem to be about creating something(The Elixer) Your basically growing your spirit. Winn's explanation of alchemy is you don't save your soul you grow your soul.

 

To use a more graphic example from Cohen's use of the term emptiness is called 'Fasting of the mind'. Just as your body can fast from food(with some benefit) your mind can fast from words and concepts. Thus, you are literally getting an " Empty Mind" through the practice or " Fasting the Mind".

 

Now that that is covered..does the inner smile cover this Fasting of Mind as well as the Taoist energy aspect or is it still too much of a method?

 

My guess is, yes, it does cover it if done correctly. That would be smiling not to achieve anything-like getting your liver to light up or heart to open up or whatever-smiling just as an unconditional love/acceptance of the totality of your self practice. Relaxing into the smile as the deeper dimension of your being that you have forgotten about and are trying to recover-while at the same time Fasting of the Mind/Emptiness practice.

 

And if you can eventually carry this level of awareness into all your mundane or high daily life events that is the goal I think.

[Cameron]

Michael/Spyrelx..

 

My understanding of the goal of the inner smile(What I got from Winn) is it is mostly about raising your vibration. When you say I like this person and don't like that person(you know, everyday mundane feelings about people) that is sort of on a low or middle level vibration. Nothing wrong with that it is where I am at most of time. However, I think the idea when you come to "practice" is to connect with something that is actually higher than that. Sort of your potential to just unconditionally accept everyone(not neccissarily love them to death but accept) And smiling is like a message-a universal one-that yes, I accept and am ok with you and myself. Unless your a phsycho like in some of Robert Deniro's roles where you smile madly before you kill someone

 

Smiling into your body should hopefully produce a kind of physical bliss. I know when I get it right and smile to my heart it's like I am having sex with the universe and so open. The thymus gland or whatever opens up like a flower and the heart and other organs get bathed in the energy. It's Qigong.

 

In taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy Eric get's into blending the smiling energy with sexual energy more and trying to experience sex with the universe .why wouldn't you be smiling if you could have sex with the universe at will?

[Yoda]

Craig's remarks in this thread are very good:

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=775&hl=

 

The inner smile is the meditation aspect of many taoist systems, I'd imagine. As Craig says, practices like the 6 healing sounds make room for the smiling vibe.

 

Spyrelx--do the 5 healing sounds standing and the 6th plus the smiling practice lying down. That helps me relax and smile. If that doesn't do it, then just think of anything or anyone that makes you smile and then circulate the energy through the body.

 

When I'm just standing, I just visualize happy light shining from the organ in question and I often picture the organs smiling like in the books and then when I lie down I get more into actually feeling it.

[rex]

I think emptiness meditation and the inner smile along with all the other Healing Tao formulas are eminently complementary. Here's a nice exposition lifted from here.

 

"In the vajrayana, there are two paths drol lam and thap lam that are generally followed simultaneously or alternately by the practitioner.

 

Drol lam, the path of liberation, is what sometimes we refer to as formless meditation and includes mahamudra. In this approach to meditation one relates to the mind in terms of the awareness aspect of mind.

 

Thap lam, the path of means or method, includes all tantric practices Dharmas of Naropa or the Six Dharmas of Niguma, etc. [include all HT stuff here]. These practices relate to mind in terms of the energy aspect of mind. By properly integrating the distorted karmic energies of one's mind, one brings about the same enlightened awareness that is reached as the fruition of the formless meditation approach of the path of liberation. The virtue of the path of liberation is that it tends to be smoother, while the virtue of the path of means is that it tends to be faster [ but also more risky ] ; therefore, they make a good complement to each other." Page 4

 

Comments in square brackets are mine.

[sean]

I guess my biggest problem with so-called emptiness meditation, especially as presented by the "Bodri school" is that I personally believe emptiness/suchness is already the ground of all phenomena/experience; ever present, ever penetrating, fully present in The One/Nothing and also in all apparent parts, like Indra's Net. This is why, to me, saying "I'm going to go to some emptiness meditation" sounds like "I'm going to go do some God meditation". IMO anything can be an emptiness meditation if we have, to use Buddhist terminology, Right View. And conversely, nothing can really be an emptiness meditation because it's like the ocean doing a "water meditation".

 

The ultimate goal of "Taoism" and "Buddhism" are the same IMO because the ultimate goal of all beings IMO is the same, even the most apparently ignorant, convoluted or misguided, namely, to be free of suffering and be in bliss. All these mystical paths, in a sense, are just attempts at more highly sophisticated long-range hedonism (cheers Yoda). All the debate is just "which way is quicker, more ethical, etc." ... I think the magickal/esoteric/alchemical/left-hand path/setian schools have a cool point, that maybe collapsing the whole universe into one big empty zero (see: big sections of Hinduism/Buddhism/Christianity,etc) is not really the point because unconsciousness isn't really ultimate bliss. In other words, if you become the Primordial Oneness, maybe it's boring as shit because you already know the punch line to all the jokes in existence and you are already all of the hot girls so you can't even have sex with them. So you are like, bored out of your mind and you reincarnate into this fun crazy dream again through a mysterious paradox we can't even comprehend. But then of course the Buddhist/Advaita/Hindu/Sufi/Philosophical Taoist, ie: Chan, etc.etc. schools have a cool point too. Maybe you are not happy going out every night to shows and getting drunk and chasing girls because you've gotten so lost in the illusion of separateness and just really feel like something is seriously wrong. So you seek. Back and forth, pulsing. Hoping to find a resolution to even this wierd duality of Onenness vs. Many.

 

Inner Smile = Vibrating Substance that is Empty

Sitting in Silence = Aligning with Emptiness that is All Substance

 

One is only more skillful means depending on your viewpoint. "Before enlightenment, you chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood and carry water."

 

My two cents.

 

Sean.

[spyrelx]

Thanks for all the pointers. Big smile out to all of you.

[RyanO]

Using some potent necro-magic to revive this thread

 

Seriously its badass.

 

 

All I can say is that I agree with the thread's consensus.

 

Any other thoughts?

[rain]

Once having reached the shore of no thing

every meditation brings the smile

such is the breath of the body

Edited November 27, 2010 by rain

[RyanO]

Once having reached the shore of no thing

every meditation brings the smile

such is the breath of the body

 

Beautiful. What is the source of that or is it an original of yours?

[Maddie]

I realize this is an old thread but as I was doing the inner smile today precisely this question came to my mind. I was thinking that if in mindfulness meditation you focus on one thing to achieve emptiness then would not the inner smile (focusing on a organ) also be a way of doing this?

[Cheshire Cat]

I realize this is an old thread but as I was doing the inner smile today precisely this question came to my mind. I was thinking that if in mindfulness meditation you focus on one thing to achieve emptiness then would not the inner smile (focusing on a organ) also be a way of doing this?

 

Inner smile probably isn't a purely daoist invention as Mantak Chia claims.

 

Instead, it's imported from India and it's part of the BrahmaVihara Dharma of buddhism. This is important to understand its functions and its limits.

You know that buddhist meditation has two branches: samatha (stability, dhyana, etc) and vipassana (insight).

The BrahmaVihara Dharma develops loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic-joy and equanimity and it is said that you can reach the third jhana with them (with equanimity you can reach fourth jhana).

They are for samatha practice, not for insight, not for enlightenment: this is why Chenrezig/Avalokitesvara is a bodhisattva and not a Buddha in mahayana, although tibetans say that if you have unlimited compassion you should be enlightened. So they say Chenrezig is a Buddha.

 

Traditionally, the Brahamavihara dharma is considered the best way to work on samatha because it frees the mind from many burdens without even beginning insight. But one should understand that the emptiness that one can reach trough samatha is a "false" emptiness, a trick of the mind and not the ultimate Wisdom.

 

Personally, I would not recommend to focus your attention on a single organ without an understanding of true emptiness because this may create imbalances in Qi-flow. Better to work on each organ in a cycle. Best to work on the traditional Brahma Vihara (just google to find dozens of complete manuals on that) which doesn't involve focused attention on a single organ.

Edited May 11, 2013 by DAO rain TAO

[liminal_luke]

Put me down in the smiling-and-emptiness-meditation-are-the-same camp. From what I remember from my vipassana days, there was a kind of unconditionality to the practice: we were supposed to regard everything with the same non-grasping awareness. Have a thought? Notice it. Have a feeling, sensation? Notice it. Notice yourself noticing? Even better.

 

For me, smiling has a similar unconditionality reminiscent of vipassana. The smile carries what Winn would call "yuan chi," and is neutral, neither grasping nor running from experience.

[Maddie]

Put me down in the smiling-and-emptiness-meditation-are-the-same camp. From what I remember from my vipassana days, there was a kind of unconditionality to the practice: we were supposed to regard everything with the same non-grasping awareness. Have a thought? Notice it. Have a feeling, sensation? Notice it. Notice yourself noticing? Even better.

 

For me, smiling has a similar unconditionality reminiscent of vipassana. The smile carries what Winn would call "yuan chi," and is neutral, neither grasping nor running from experience.

Yea that's how it felt to me as well. I would do mindfulness then I'd do inner smile and they both felt very similar.