The Inner Smile

The Tao

The Tao is the natural way of the universe, whose character one’s intuition must discern to realize the potential for individual wisdom, as conceived in the context of East Asian philosophy, religion, and related traditions. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one’s everyday being. Its name, “Tao”, or “Dao” came from Chinese, where it signifies the way, path, route, road, or sometimes more loosely doctrine, principle, or holistic belief.

Laozi in the Tao Te Ching explains that the Tao is not a name for a thing, but the underlying natural order of the universe whose ultimate essence is difficult to circumscribe because it is non-conceptual yet evident in one’s being of aliveness. The Tao is “eternally nameless” and should be distinguished from the countless named things that are considered to be its manifestations, the reality of life before its descriptions of it.

Smiling Meditation

Organs affected by emotions

According to Mantak Chia’s teachings, the health of our organs can be affected by negative emotions we feel. Based on this connection between negative emotions and the health of the organs, let us share with you the five major organ systems and their associated emotions and properties.

#1: The heart

The health of our heart can be affected by such negative emotions as arrogance and hate, and such positive virtues as kindness and love. Recent scientific research shows that feelings of love and appreciation strongly affect the heart’s rhythm and its relationship to the body’s physiological systems.

#2: The lungs

The health of our lungs can be affected by such negative emotions as sadness and depression, and such positive virtues as courage and righteousness.

#3: The kidneys

The health of the kidneys can be affected by fear and such positive emotions as gentleness and kindness.

#4: The liver

The health of the liver can be affected by anger and such positive emotions as generosity and forgiveness.

#5: The stomach/spleen

The health of the stomach/spleen can be affected by such negative emotions as worry, mistrust, and anxiety, and such positive emotions as fairness, trust, and openness.

The Inner Smile meditation directs our attention to the body’s organs and associated qualities. When practicing this meditation, we visualize each organ, cleansing it, and transforming negative emotional energies into positive virtues.

The Inner Smile Meditation

According to the Taoist tradition, each person assumes responsibility for the emotions that arise within, regardless of the external events that trigger the emotions. The Inner Smile meditation takes us into our bodies and transforms emotions by transforming the associated physiological systems. It helps us balance and integrate our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, promoting health, resilience, and vitality.

Below is a variation of the traditional Inner Smile meditation which helps you direct the energy of a smile into any part of your body.

Instructions:

Sit comfortably near the edge of your chair with your feet flat on the floor. Keep your back straight, but not stiff. Stay relaxed and clasp your palms together in your lap. Press your tongue against the upper palate of your mouth.
Close your eyes and become aware of the soles of your feet. Feel their connection to the Earth.
Create a source of smiling energy up to three feet in front of you. You can just visualize an image of your own smiling face or any memory of a time in which you felt deeply at peace. It can be anything – feeling of sunshine, being by the ocean, or walking in a forest.
Focus on the midpoint between your eyebrows. Draw that abundant smiling energy to that area. Let your forehead relax. Feel how the smiling energy accumulates at the mid-eyebrow until it eventually overflows into your body.
Visualize this smiling, warm energy moving throughout your entire body. It comforts and heals your muscles, joints, and internal organs. Take your time. Visualize each organ being soothed by this smiling, warm energy.
After you have spent time connecting with and smiling into your organs and muscles, focus on the sensations in your body. Perhaps you feel energized, content, or warm. Allow the smile to drift where it wants. Or you can also direct it to any place you’re feeling discomfort.
Continue visualizing the warm and golden essence of that smile within your body. Bring your awareness back to any place you may have missed, or any place you’d like to heal, and let it flow over and through your organs and soft tissue. Imagine this warm, smiling energy spreading throughout your entire body.
When you’re ready to bring the meditation to a close, focus on the feeling of peace and contentment in your body by placing your hands over your heart. Take several deep breaths and simply relax. Now it’s time to release any visualizations, images, or thoughts, and simply be, without thinking or doing.

Introducing the Six Healing Sounds

The Six Healing Sounds work to transform the negative energy stored in the organs and to transform them into healing light. Clearly, this is much better than holding onto negativity and/or dumping it out onto someone else because such emotional venting only serves to pass an emotional virus onto another and, via the laws of Karma, eventually that same negativity will be revisited upon the person who sent it out in the first place.

When negative emotional energy is transmuted, it can then be re-circulated throughout the Microcosmic Orbit to send healing energy throughout the body; healing organs, replenishing Qi and revitalising cells.

Lung sound = *SSSSS – Sorrow and sadness Reducing

Kidney sound = *WOOOOO – Fear reducing

Liver / Gallbladder sound = *SHHHHH – Anger Reducing

Heart / Small intestine sound = *HAWWWW – Joy boosting

Spleen / Pancreas sound = *WHOOOO – Melancholy reducing

Triple Warmer sound = *HEEEEE