Box 601, AsheviIIe, N.C. 28802 Office teIephone: 888-999-0555. By emaiI: info@heaIingdao.com Readers are weIcome to print this ebook and share it with friends. Invite friends to obtain their own digitaI copy by subscribing to the newsIetter on www.HeaIingDao.com. No part may be soId, reproduced, or posted on the web, without permission other than standard reviews. Thank you for respecting the integrity of this work. Note to Readers: This Ebook is set to Iarge 16 point text size for easy reading. For smaIIer print, cIick the "zoom out" button on the View menu severaI times. 1 Inner AIchemy Series Chi Kung FundamentaIs 1 Way of the Inner SmiIe SeIf Acceptance - Tao Path to Inner Peace
By MichaeI Winn 2 Cambodian Goddess with beatific nner Smile Contemporary teak, Dao Mountain Retreat Center Note: This short book is one segment of my Tao Home Study audio course Chi Kung Fundamentals #1, but expanded. The rest of audio course #1 covers Tao Five Elements theory and practice: Five Animals Play China's oldest shamanic chi kung (qigong) form, as well as the Six Healing Sounds. Modern Chinese pinyin spelling is used (Daoism vs. Taoism), except for a few key words now part of English (Tao, Chi Kung instead of qigong, chi instead of qi. Tao is pronounced "dao. Chi is pronounced "chee). 3 AcknowIedgements SpeciaI deep gratitude to Mantak Chia, who inspired me to expIore the path of Tao. I especiaIIy thank him for sharing a transmission of Daoist Hermit One CIoud's simpIe smiIing presence. Thanks to many other spirituaI teachers in this Iifetime, especiaIIy my Mother and Father, whose inner smiIe at my moment of birth was so precious. Thanks to my many other Tao masters, and the countIess generations of Tao adepts before them. To the chi kung and inner aIchemy masters going back thousands of years into pre-history, for sharing their smiIing "aha" - their discovery on how to best cuItivate chi whiIe staying grounded in the body. EternaI gratitude to my partner Joyce Gayheart for being such a beautifuI heartfeIt smiIing presence in my Iife. Thanks to aII my HeaIing Tao and UniversaI Tao coIIeagues and students who have devoted themseIves to spreading their smiIing presence in the human community. Deep appreciation to the Tao ImmortaIs, the Earth, Sun, Moon, PIanet and Star beings for their gentIe smiIing guidance on my journey into the Great Within and the Great Beyond. I offer Supreme UItimate thanks to the Tao, for making the Inner SmiIe the true response to getting the Cosmic Joke. 4 TabIe of Contents For instant digitaI scroIIing to any item in the TabIe of Contents, cIick on the "Bookmarks" tab in Adobe's WINDOW menu bar. To find favorite photographs, cIick on "ThumbnaiI" in the WINDOW menu. About the Author Foreward: Inner SmiIe - Root of the Root by Mantak Chia Introduction: What is the Inner SmiIe? The Smiling nner Heart of our Energy Body Chapter 1 1. The Sages Way to UnfoId Tao: Inner SmiIe ! Mapping Our Body-Mind's Energetic Patterns ! Our Inner FamiIy of BioIogicaI InteIIigences ! Inner SmiIe Deepens other Tao Practices ! SexuaI Tension of Becoming vs. Tai Chi Harmony of Being ! Can the Inner Smile change real life situations? Chapter 2 2. Key to the Inner SmiIe: SeIf-Acceptance ! Positive Ego, Negative Ego, NeutraI Ego ! St. Francis of Assisi: Punishing the un-HoIy Body ! Outer Acceptance vs. Inner Acceptance, ! Outer SmiIe vs. Inner SmiIe ! Receptive Yin SmiIe, Projective Yang SmiIe ! Chi DissoIving Process Purifies Mind & Emotions 5 Chapter 3 3. SmiIe SoftIy to Overcome the Hard ! SmiIe Iinks Inner Heart to OriginaI Spirit ! NeutraI SmiIe of Acceptance vs. Acts of Love ! SmiIing is Non-DuaIism Made SimpIe ! What does "presence" mean in smiIing practice? Chapter 4 4. Overview of Inner SmiIe Practice ! SimpIe Guided SmiIe as "warmup" ! Over View of Body-SmiIing Pathways: ! The Three Brains ! The Five VitaI Organ Spirits ! The Spine & Nervous System ! The Six BoweIs & SexuaI Organs ! The CeIIs, Connective Tissue, Skin & Bones ! Inner SmiIe is Its Own Reward ! Taoist FIower Essences for the Emotions Chapter 5 5. Guided Inner SmiIe Meditation Preparation: Actualize a Receptive Natural Space Use Positive Memory: Supercharge your Mind Space 6 Yin Practice: Step 1: SmiIe into the three brains Step 2: SmiIe to the heart and vitaI organ spirits Step 3: SmiIe to the spine & nervous system Step 4: SmiIe, swaIIow to boweIs & sexuaI organs Step 5: SmiIe to bones, bIood, fIesh, & ceIIs Step 6a: SmiIe, dissoIve your entire physicaI body Step 6b: SmiIe, dissoIve beyond the body Yang Practice: SmiIe into your Aura SmiIe into the Room SmiIe to a Friend SmiIe to a DifficuIt ReIationship SmiIe to your LocaI Community SmiIe to PIanet Earth SmiIe to Sun and Stars SmiIe to the Dark Ocean Beyond the Stars AIIow YourseIf to FeeI the Return SmiIing Wave Gather the Wave of SmiIing Chi inside your Body Chapter 6 6. Question & Answer 1. How long do I practice Inner Smile at one sitting? 2. Can Inner Smile help couples having difficulties? 7 3. What do you do if you just feel bored while smiling? 4. I have struggled with boredom and depression for a long time. Do I need to try harder for a breakthrough? 5. What's the difference between Inner Smile as 'Water & Fire" dissolving and Tao Water-only dissolving methods? 6. Does Lao Tzu mention the Inner Smile? Chapter 7: ConcIusion 7. Inner SmiIe as Path to EnIightenment Tao CosmoIogy: UnfoIding the OriginaI Trinity The Confusion of Spoken Language - SpirituaI Being vs. BodiIy Becoming SmiIing Chi FIow as the SiIent Language of Nature SmiIing BuiIds Trust in OriginaI Substance-Body The Great Secret of InternaI AIchemy Appendix One Chi Kung Fundamentals #1 & 2 Homestudy Course (discount offer). Testimonials on improved health. Appendix Two Complete List: Healing Tao Home Study audio-video courses in recommended sequence. 8 Appendix Three Poem "SmiIe" by Barbara Hauck 9 Who is MichaeI Winn? The short resume of officiaI "Grand Poobah" accompIishments, in case that's important Michael Winn "embraces" the Temple of Heaven, used by the Chinese Emperor for sacred Taoist ceremonies since the 14th century. The chi from those ceremonies is still vibrating, for those able to tune in. ! 30 years experience in teaching subtle energy methods internationally, from kundalini yoga in 70's to tai chi, qigong, and inner alchemy meditation today. Studied with the top spiritual teachers of this generation. ! President of the National Qigong (Chi Kung) Association for two terms. This is an umbrella organization for all the different qigong and tai chi schools, teachers, healers, & practitioners in the U.S. ! Founder and Director of Healing Tao University summer retreat program (now at Heavenly Mountain in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mtns, near Asheville). The largest Tao arts program in the west. ! Writer/editor of Mantak Chia's first seven books (that helped establish his fame). Best known as co-author of the revolutionary Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy. Author of many other qigong articles & book chapters (see "long bio" below). ! Chairman of Healing Tao Instructors Association of the Americas for 9 years. It set standards for certification & ethics. One of the original Senior Instructors that launched the Healing Tao, which globally has certified over 1000 instructors and brought Tao teachings to hundreds of thousands of people. (Abroad Healing Tao is known as Universal Tao). ! Author of ten Tao home study DVD-CD courses that integrate high level medical- spiritual qigong and inner alchemy as a progressive training. ! Pioneered taking Western Taoists into caves on Flower Mountain (Huashan) in China to meditate. Has led ten+ China Dream Trips to develop relations between Western and Chinese Taoists in their sacred mountains and temples. Winn captures his Monkey Mind, takes it to China for further training. On his T-shirt: character for "Tao", the Way. Base of Mt. Qingcheng, sacred to Taoists. 10 The deeper, more personal answer: Here are my own internal rules, honored in all the Homestudy courses: * TEACH ONLY WHAT IS SIMPLE AND TRUE. In the books I wrote with/for Mantak Chia, some of the practices seem mentally complicated. I wanted to simplify them at the time, but did not always have final editorial control. In the many years since I wrote those books, my own practice has evolved towards the simple. The current Home Study courses were retaped many times, each time refining the practices to their simplest essence. I rigorously avoid the excess mental complexity present in some of the books, which seemed necessary to reach western minds at the time. * NO SECRETS. Give students whatever they are ready to digest. The time for secrets is past. Many excellent Chinese teachers have unfortunately not yet realized this! The people I want to reach don't have the time or inclination to play this game of follow the leader, begging for secrets drops of wisdom. I pour them on you, hoping you can absorb any part of them, and become your own leader. * NO GURU OR MASTER TRIPS. Hierarchies of Ego Authority bore me and stifle creative chi flow. Spiritual Transmission can occur without developing co-dependent teacher/student relationships. I'm not interested in followers clinging to my shirt tail. The Life Force itself is the True Teacher, I am just a guide to help you develop your own relationship with the Life Force. We are all brothers and sisters on the continuous two- way journey between Source and Creation. * TEACH ONLY FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Means no bullshit about level of personal attainment. I test every method thoroughly to make sure it works and is safe. * HAVE FUN!!! Playing with the chi field is meant to be fun. While refining the elixir, laughter is the best medicine. If you don't get the Cosmic Joke, it may get you. * Product Warning: Consumers of Chi Kung Home Study Courses may likely become a "Chi-aholic" and may be exposed to the epidemic "Mad Dao Disease" that has widely infected many students. For the last 25 years I've explored many esoteric systems (also called Mystery Schools) to find the most effective methods of improving health and refining spiritual awareness. Principle schools (besides various Taoist lineages) include: White Tantra (kundalini yoga), kriya yoga, dzogchen (Bon), Christian mysticism, Tibetan Buddhist vajrayana practices, and Atlantean alchemy (Original, pre-Egyptian Kabballah). I took many teachings with the Dalai Lama, including his Kalachakra initiation. I worked closely with Paramhamsa Hariharananda for years to edit his Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Kriya Yoga, and received private initiations into the higher kriyas. I have a book on Atlantean alchemy nearly ready for publication. Its working title is Shape Power: Ask the Life Force to Create a Reality You Truly Need. All these schools shaped my spiritual development. But I always return to my roots in the Tao because of its natural simplicity and practicality. I have tested -- always on myself -- some 60 different qigong (chi kung) and Taoist (Daoist) meditation systems. I have sought out dozens of different Daoist masters, often only to get one superb movement or tiny but valuable insight they had. Master T.K. Shih 11 lived in my NYC apartment for two years. I edited BK Frantis' Opening the Energy Gates of the Body and studied his excellent neigong and pa kua chang forms. I studied wu style tai chi with Grand Master Ed Yu in China town (also Mantak Chia's tai chi teacher), and Northern Wu Tai chi style with David Dolbear, National Gold Medalist champion. This particular tai chi style was infused with alchemical energetics by a Taoist master. I went to Egypt nine times, and discovered that one of my "home" spots on the planet was the capstone of the Great Pyramid. I will reveal the mystery of what happened to the missing capstone in my Shape Power book...:). I spent a night alone inside the Great Pyramid, half in the lower pit and half in the King's chamber. Later I spent spent six years training in the Western internal alchemy methods taught by an Atlantean scientist- priest, and went through a powerful series of initiations in the Great Pyramid of Egypt, Pan's cave in Delphi (Greece), and a pyramid-of-ice island north of the Arctic Circle (close to North Pole), assisted by Saami shamans. My mission this lifetime is to integrate Taoist internal alchemy (neidangong), qigong, shengong, shamanism, depth psychology, and Western alchemical paths. I've fused their essence and methods so their transformational power become accessible to all who are ready to travel on the highest and quickest path of energetic healing. This is the Way of cultivating both the personal and holy body of Nature, the Divine Feminine, whose cycle is currently ascendant on planet Earth. It is equally accessible to both men and women. I travelled to China many times, to be in the presence of its holy mountains and sacred places, and to study medical qigong in top Beijing hospitals with the World Academic Medical Qigong Society. Each year I invite top masters to teach at Healing Tao University, now in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, partly in order to trade secrets with them. I've been on the organizing committee for the National Qigong Annual Conference since its inception in 1997, giving me exposure to the top qigong teachers in 12 Michael Winn on capstone of Great Pyramid, sunrise Spring Equinox. the U.S. and a chance to absorb their favorite methods. Cultivating one's chi (qi) is a life long process. But there is no need for everyone to repeat my long journey. Better to start off equipped with the valuable tools offered in my courses, distilled from decades of testing. I only teach what I myself practice. I hope you will use those tools to go to a new, higher, and unknown level that is perfect for you alone. Winn's forthcoming books-in-progress: * Way of the Inner Smile: Tao Path to Inner Peace (updated print version of ebook) * Taoist Microcosmic Orbit: Alchemical Methods of Circulating the Golden Elixir * Tao Inner Alchemy: Sexually Couple Male Water and Female Fire to Complete Your Destiny & Cultivate Immortality * Shape Power - Ask the Life Force to Create a Reality You Truly Need: * A Short History of Atlantis' Spiritual Technology What's the Difference Between Michael Winn's and Mantak Chia's teaching?
The Long Story Note: this is an edited version of bio that first appeared in the Empty Vessel, Journal of Contemporary Taoism. In 1980 Winn was one of Mantak Chia's first western students in Chinatown, New York. 13 Michael Winn's favorite meditation spot on Mt. Hua. Only fools and immortals dare walk the "high wire" - an ancient pine trunk growing out sideways 30-feet, off a cliff with 3000 ft sheer drop off. He played a key role in founding The Healing Tao in 1982 and directly wrote or heavily edited many of Mantak Chia's books on nei gong and qigong as General Editor of Healing Tao Books. His titles included Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao, the first book in English on the microcosmic orbit; Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy; Healing Love: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy; Iron Shirt Chi Kung; Bone Marrow Nei Kung; Fusion of the Five Elements: Meditations for Transforming Negative Emotion; and Awaken Healing Light of the Tao., an advanced study of the microcosmic orbit. Winn also edited a newsletter for Healing Tao instructors entitled From the Mouth of the Immortal Child. The noted qigong master T.K. Shih lived in Winn's New York city apartment for two years in the early 80's: "I taught him English, and T.K. taught me how to move like a cat" is how Winn described their relationship. Winn studied with many other Taoist teachers, and edited B.K. Frantzis' Opening the Energy Gates of the Body. He studied qigong and ba gua with Frantzis, and the northern wu style tai chi as taught by David Dolbear, a Wu style gold medalist and lineage holder. "I waited ten years before choosing a long form. David got a transmission in Beijing that teaches tai chi as a form of alchemy, emphasizing the changes between jing, qi, and shen." He went on to study in Beijing with David teacher, Master Liu Jiang Chang. Winn sees his life "as an alchemical journey flowing between outer adventures and inner adventures, a process of cultivating "my worldly life" and "my inner essence". Winn's father was a heart surgeon who helped Dr. Debakey pioneer open heart surgery (see DeanWinn.net). Michael was the 3rd of seven children. He travelled to 30 countries before the age of 17 and ran 40 whitewater rafting expeditions as a guide down the Grand Canyon. In high school he competed against 100,000 teams and won the California State Debate championship. He graduated with top honors from Dartmouth College as a Senior Fellow with a degree in Russian/comparative literature. After a successful meteoric three year career in New York book publishing, he got fired "for being too creative". He became a free lance war correspondent and adventure travel photographer that took him on 30 trips to another 50 countries in Africa, the mideast , and Asia. His writings and photos appeared in the New York Times, Time, Smithsonian, Outside, Village Voice, Harpers, Connoiseur, People, Adventure Travel, National Jewish Monthly, and many others. National Geographic financed his rafting expedition in North Yemen. Included in his wanderlust period was a four month journey across China tracing Marco Polo's footsteps. Winn, who is not Jewish, ran an underground railroad smuggling white American Jews into Ethiopia and black Jews out of Ethiopia into Israel. In New York's Soho district, Winn opened Abyssinia, the first Ethiopian restaurant in America, and operated it successfully as a side business for 20 years. While in Africa, Winn accidentally self-induced his first kundalini awakening, which led him to begin studying and teaching kundalini (hindu tantric) yoga. In Ethiopia, a visitation in broad daylight by a Taoist immortal inspired him to pursue Taoist alchemy. "In college I studied comparative literature", Winn says, "and in real life I found myself 14 training in and comparing the esoteric alchemical methods from different cultures." He studied kriya yoga with Swami Hariharananda, successor in India to Paramhamsa Yogananda, and kept a close friendship with this yogi renowned for mastering the breathless state of nirvikalpa samadhi. He died recently at age 97. Winn edited his The Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Kriya Yoga. Winn notes that kriya yoga, the essence of all yogas, has many parallels to Taoist alchemy but "it's finally a pure fire path. The Taoist preference is to mix the fire and water, which is more accepting of the body." Winn also studied Dzogchen and tantric Buddhist teachings from the Dalai Lama and other rinpoches. "Tibetan and Hindu Tantra is philosophically very similar to yin-yang theory, but in practice uses more mantra, mudra, and deity worship. Dzogchen is the closest brother to the Tao with its emphasis on cutting through quickly to the clear or original light. But I like the refining process in Taoist alchemy, the many practical connections they developed with Original Chi (yuan qi). Taoist alchemy is a shortcut, it focuses on direct relationship with the life force. When you combine alchemy with qigong, the effect is a super-charged Energy Body." Winn also studied the Celtic approach to earth based spirituality with R.J. Stewart. "All the mystery schools are great", Winn commented. "The ancient Celts used a mirror approach to Taoist alchemy, they first connect to the outer five elements/directions and then work their way inside the body. This is the opposite of the Eastern way. I love all the ancient meditation systems, but finally you've got to focus your practice on one approach. Ultimately, I find Taoist alchemy to be the simplest, the most practical (body- centered) and the most complete." 15 Winn at Lao Tzu's Ascension site, Louguantai. One of China's amazing power spots, visited on China Dream Trips. He reached this conclusion after 25 years of studying and testing many different systems of qigong (chi kung), with dozens of teachers in the USA and China, both famous and unknown. He uses the Tao Formulas for Immortality offered by the Taoist Hermit One Cloud (Mantak Chia's teacher) as the superstructure for holding the immense knowledge and skill he has acquired. (More Info ). His quest for deeper knowledge of the Tao has taken him to visit the sacred mountains of China fifteen times, where he has cultivated many friendships with Taoist adepts. He was the first to offer trips to China for western Taoists that included staying in caves on Huashan (Flower Mountain) used by Tao adepts for millennia. His China Dream Trips have become famous and will be the subject of a forthcoming book by two Taoist scholars who studied his attempts to bridge ancient Chinese and modern Western Taoist cultures. (More info) "The Chinese have a genius for boiling down everything to its core essence", Winn notes. " I have done the same with everything I've learned from all my teachers - I just keep cooking it down, refining it to its essence, and clarifying its practical application. It's just my small part in the great collective process of the Tao. Somebody will take my refinements and improve on them. That is the experimental, evolving nature of Tao spiritual science. In fact, I hope they do it soon - I'd like to enjoy those improvements myself!" Winn, who lives in a log home in the mountains outside of Asheville, North Carolina, maintains a private practice in qigong therapy and Taoist sexology. Winn is currently 16 Michael Winn and Renfarong, President of China Taoist Association. Ludongbin Temple, Louguantai. Lao-tzu transmitted the Tao Te Ching nearby. finishing a book on the energy science of how people can shape the life force to manifest what they truly need. The book is inspired by contact with a spiritual being who claims to have ascended with his body - at the age of 2,300 years old - into the "Stellar Mind", i.e. a full celestial heaven immortal. He is also working on a book on Taoist internal alchemy, but claims he is "in no rush to finish it. I don't want to put out books based on half-baked insights to make a quick buck. I'm happy to write just one high level, fully-baked book. A book based on genuine experience and that can actually be useful to others. It takes a few decades to really road-test inner alchemy and its potential interactions with qigong." His next book scheduled for publication is titled: Tai Chi - A Path of Self-Love: Sacred Movement as Inner Alchemy. In 2008 Joyce Gayheart, Michael's wife, passed into Flower Heaven. It was an amazing alchemical experience of the Taoist process of shijie, or "liberation from the corpse". Instead of re-incarnating, she infused her heart-essence drop into Michael's heart, creating an androgynous (male-female balanced) soul and totally changing Michael's destiny. The story of this process can be found at HealingTaoUSA.com/JoyceGayheart Every summer Winn organizes what has become the largest Tao energy healing, qigong and neigong (meditation) program in America, at Heavenly Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. It offers about 30 low cost, week long retreats on all aspects of Taoist meditation, qigong, oriental body work, Taoist dream practice, feng shui, sexology, Taoist astrology, qi healing, tai chi, tao yin (Taoist yoga), ba gua zhang, weight loss and medical qigong and more. He teaches a number of courses in the 17 Illustration 1: Beardless version of the new "androgynous" Michael Winn. core Taoist internal alchemy & qigong curriculum. More info on Summer Retreats and Michael Winn's Teaching Schedule in Asheville & Internationally.
Foreward 18 Michael Winn "cooking" in a cauldron,China"s symbol of alchemical transformation.Temple of Heaven, Beijing. Note: this is actual photo, not photoshop!
Inner Smile: Root of the Root
By Mantak Chia The Tao science of chi cuItivation is so huge. It is easy to get Iost in it. Taoists spent thousands of years deveIoping so many different way to refine human chi using chi kung and meditation. They took the science of heaIing and medicine to new depth, had hundreds of martiaI arts systems, found the best way to buiId houses with good feng shui, and figured out how to bury the dead so the ancestraI chi is most beneficiaI. They deveIoped high systems of Tao phiIosophy, ethics, sexoIogy, herboIogy, divination and many other things. But some things are more important than others. So I am very gIad that MichaeI Winn chose to write more deepIy about the Inner SmiIe, because it is so cIose to the root of the root. By this I mean the Inner SmiIe is so cIose to the root of inner aIchemy, and inner aIchemy is the root of aII the other Tao systems, even the I Ching. Lao Tzu says that the man of knowIedge acquires something new everyday, and the man of Tao Iets go of something new every day. The man who practices the Inner SmiIe is a man of Tao. I feeI MichaeI Winn is both a man of knowIedge and a man of Tao. His writing wiII heIp peopIe to understand why the Inner SmiIe is so important, and how it simpIifies so many other good and usefuI practices. I have known MichaeI Winn for more than twenty years, so I know how deepIy committed he is to Tao. I consider him one of the best writers on Tao in the West. I am gratefuI to him for his skiIIfuI writing to heIp expIain to Westerners the practicaI science of Tao subtIe energy. PeopIe used to think Tao was just an interesting inteIIectuaI phiIosophy. Now they begin to reaIize it is a very deep spirituaI science. 19 The Way of the Inner Smile takes the theory and the practice to a higher IeveI of understanding. It has many new insights, and reveaIs how his own teaching skiII has matured. He has taught many Westerners and figured out how their minds and bodies can most easiIy absorb Tao methods. He is abIe to expIain the connection between bioIogy, Tao psychoIogy of body-spirits, and inner aIchemicaI transformation of the human souI. His focus on unconditionaI seIf-acceptance is a modern way of expressing traditionaI Tao practice of utter openness to Iife. It is an openness that must begin with the body. PIease enjoy this journey deep into the Iand of Inner SmiIes! Mantak Chia Tao Garden, ThaiIand May 2003
20 Introduction What is the Inner SmiIe? Man without smiling face should not open a shop. - Chinese Proverb The Inner SmiIe is a simpIe, effortIess Daoist (Taoist) meditation on how to Iive with an open heart. You can practice it sitting quietIy, or whiIe engaged in everyday activities. The Inner SmiIe chaIIenges us, in a series of "smiIing baby steps", to unconditionaIIy accept every aspect of our body, mind, and spirit. The Inner SmiIe connects our bioIogicaI seIf, our psychoIogicaI seIf, and our spirituaI seIf in a practicaI way. It ingeniousIy captures the power hidden in our naturaI impuIse to smiIe. It doesn't try to fix anything or ask any part of us or others to change. It reIies on the power of non-verbaI communication coupIed with a cIear mind intent to "creativeIy find" the harmony hidden within everything. To paraphrase Lao Tzu, the Inner SmiIe "does nothing, yet Ieaves nothing undone". The Inner SmiIe cuItivates the spontaneous nature of our inner heart to accept aII experiences in Iife at their most profound IeveI. This may sound a bit abstract. Our western minds demand more detaiIed guidance. What makes the Inner SmiIe practicaI? What makes it practicaI is the Inner SmiIe's power to cuItivate our "chi" - the subtIe breath infused by Nature in our body-mind-souI. This internaI effect of the Inner SmiIe is greatIy ampIified by various kinds of chi kung (qigong). What is chi kung? LiteraIIy it means "skiII with subtIe breath". It is the ancient process of aIIowing (yin) and encouraging (yang) subtIe energy to fIow harmoniousIy in our Iife. Chi Kung was originaIIy known in ancient China as yang sheng, or 21 "nourishing Iife". Its methods embraced both the stiIIness of meditation and the movement of Iife. Its art became most famous for its simpIe, gentIe heaIing body movements. The ancient principIes of chi kung are the grandparents of the weII known martiaI art, tai chi chuan. In China tai chi chuan (taijiquan) is quite young, onIy about 800 years oId! The huge time spans invoIved here give us pause to refIect on the superficiaIity of modern knowIedge about human nature. What couId be easier than simpIy smiIing? Can we reaIIy Iearn to practice it as a skiII? Many peopIe who practice the Inner SmiIe experience immediate caImness. For others it opens up inner vistas of spirituaI joy. Some practitioners experience spontaneous "miracuIous" heaIing from psychoIogicaI probIems or diseases. AIthough it is simpIe, inner smiIing is a skiII that improves over time and uItimateIy Ieads to deep spirituaI reaIization. Some peopIe get stuck in a chronic "Inner Frown" state, the opposite of the Inner SmiIe. They may need speciaI heIp, which is offered in this book. It is important to note there is a big difference between the Inner SmiIe and the ordinary "outer smiIe". I wiII give more detaiIs on that Iater. Where does a smiIe come from? ShouId we ask Leonardo Da Vinci, who painted the Mona Lisa? Some schoIars think it is his seIf-portrait, disguised as a woman to ampIify the mystery of her smiIe. Our impuIse to smiIe is certainIy, at core, a mystery. But the key to engaging this mysterious smiIe can be found by the most ordinary person, not just great artists. 22 Mona Lisa's Inner Smile We shouId note at the outset that smiIing is energeticaIIy very different from Iaughing. "Laughter is the best medicine" the saying goes, and Iaughing certainIy reIeases tension and is good for the body in a number of different ways. According to Chinese medicine, if someone Iaughs too frequentIy or too IoudIy they may have excess heart chi and are unconsciousIy trying to reIease it. Laughter is more of beIIy centered emotionaI reIease than smiIing. SmiIing is more subtIe than Iaughter, a more inward and more sustainabIe experience. Someone who smiIes continuousIy is not considered in excess, assuming it is not a "phony" outer smiIe. SmiIing is Iess about emotions, which are our response to outer Iife events, and more about subtIe feeIing. Inner SmiIing cuItivates this feeIing to a high IeveI, focusing on the spirituaI joy that arises from our inner souI and radiates out as subtIe presence. The Smiling Inner Heart of our Energy Body Thanks to ancient Tao masters passing down their tradition for 23 thousands of years, we now know the secret of the Inner SmiIe is hidden within our inner heart. The inner heart is not the physicaI heart, and it is not the emotionaI or feeIing heart. There is a "third heart", just as there is a "third eye". This inner heart is a portaI to direct experience of what is caIIed "souI", a concept in the West that has successfuIIy eIuded aII definition. The ancient enIightened masters gave us a very specific map of the Inner SmiIe's pathway within our body. It arises Iike a wave from the inner ocean of our unknown and unborn seIf. Before it gentIy spIashes onto the beach of the outer worId, it passes through many subtIe Iayers of body-mind consciousness that they mapped out in great detaiI. This mapped out network of energy meridians and spheres of psycho-spirituaI essences hidden within our physicaI body is known to Tao adepts as the Energy Body. The Inner SmiIe is a way of awakening and harmonizing our Energy Body. As the smiIing wave arises within it can be guided to effortIessIy "fIoat Ioose" our deep sexuaI, emotionaI, and mentaI patterns, which are basicaIIy frozen energy. 24 The ability of this smiling infant to swim underwater totally free of all fear of drowning is akin our innate ability to smile and float in the sea of our Original Energy (yuan chi). SmiIing can meIt energy patterns that we might feeI are stuck or frozen inside us. It can reach and dissoIve patterns that have frustrated other forms of therapy, if done with proper focus. The Inner SmiIe is a gentIe tooI, but so profoundIy subtIe it can probe powerfuIIy into the depths of our unconscious, where few can reach. It can dissoIve patterns without struggIe, as it does not encourage divisive attitudes (me vs. them) or attempt to "kiII" the sick 25 energy. If you attack your probIems, they resist even harder. The Inner SmiIe operates by embracing the aspects of our pain or dysfunction from within. It awakens our core sense of unity, and activates the inner wiII of our heart. Inner SmiIing causes the sick energy to spontaneousIy shape shift. By smiIing, we are reaIIy just Iiberating the inner wiII of our stuck energy to become functionaI and free. The Inner SmiIe is just the first step on an amazing journey to the experience of your true seIf and to the core of the "muIti-verse"- the muItipIe dimensions of Nature's grand unity. I hope you wiII join the growing gIobaI community of seekers of the NaturaI Truth. Tao offers a practicaI way gain the freedom needed to experience aII IeveIs of your reaIity. I hope that you grow to Iove and trust the Inner SmiIe as much as I do.
MichaeI Winn AsheviIIe, North CaroIina Spring Equinox 2003 Chapter One Inner SmiIe: The Sages Way to UnfoId Tao 26 The Dalai Lama gave a teaching recently. The final question asked of him was, "What can we give to you?" He beamed at the audience. "That is easy," he said. "Just give me your smiles. It makes me feel good when I see people smile at me. And if you smile at each other that would also be very good. So please give me your smiles." What is Tao? Tao means "naturaI way". It is reaIIy undefinabIe, because it incIudes everything that exists in Nature, pIus everything that doesn't yet exist! When Tao is appIied to humans, it impIies the virtue, or "de", of naturaI seIf-unfoIdment. HistoricaIIy, the Inner SmiIe was a foundation practice of Daoist neidan gong, or "inner eIixir skiII". Today, we transIate neidan simpIy as "inner aIchemy", meaning the science of changing oneseIf in accordance with naturaI Iaw, but more quickIy. Inner aIchemy simpIy means that what normaIIy might happen in ten months of outer Iife events can now happen in 10 minutes of inner smiIing practice. This seems Iike magic, but aIchemy is actuaIIy a 27 scientific process in the sense of being systematic and repeatabIe. But it is made possibIe onIy when we grasp the hidden essence of Iife. Once we become aware of chi fIow in our body, we can shape it. The Inner SmiIe was the first step in seven highIy secret Tao inner aIchemy "formuIas" for speeding up the stages of human spirituaI deveIopment. But the Inner SmiIe aIso has a key function in formuIas Two through Seven as weII. It is amazing to consider that the Inner SmiIe is at once the easiest beginner method and the most advanced IeveI of reaIization! (For a fuII description of the Daoist hermit One CIoud's Seven Formulas for Immortality, see " Tao Secrets of ImmortaIity" articIe on my homepage, or find it at: www.heaIingdao.com/tao_aIchemy_formuIas.htmI The Inner SmiIe creates a centraI, positive, open inner mind space in which "seIf-cuItivation" can occur. This state of smiIing openness shouId not be confused with other Asian concepts of "empty mind", which are very difficuIt for westerners to grasp or retain for very Iong. Part of this is a Ianguage probIem. If we repIace the notion of "emptiness" with that of "openness" or "compIete acceptance" it wiII cIarify the profundity of the Inner SmiIe practice. From this Daoist point of view, striving after the goaI of an empty mind wiII Iead to unnecessary frustration. Nature wiII quickIy refiII whatever you empty, incIuding your mind. This is the dynamic between stiIIness and movement that is known as "tai chi" (or taiji), meaning the Supreme UItimate. Tai Chi is not to be confused with the martiaI art of tai chi chuan, which is just one appIication in which one "boxes" with these invisibIe forces in order to defeat an opponent. Tai Chi is rather a cosmic principIe underIying aII Iife. The secret of tai chi in human Iife Iies in getting a smooth and harmonious fIow of chi through the body-mind space. In this context, the constant "emptying" and "fiIIing" of the mind with thoughts, feeIings, and sensations cannot occur harmoniousIy unIess there is an underIying "openness" or feeIing of acceptance. In this acceptance is true freedom to change oneseIf. 28 As both a unique form of reIigion and as a phiIosophy, Tao encourages a radicaI openness to aII Iife without judgment. Most of us have aIready Iearned the hard way that we cannot change the outer worId or other peopIe against their wiII. It is pointIess to go against others own naturaI path of unfoIdment. But if we change ourseIves, the worId and aII the peopIe in it are automaticaIIy changed without any outer struggIe. This happens for two reasons. One, "the worId" is reaIIy just a set of perceptions we carry around inside our own mind. Two, our personaI chi fieId (our mind) is part of the cosmic chi fieId (or universaI mind). If our personaI energy fieId changes, the Iarger chi fieId has to aIso change. Nature is just the pIayground (chi fieId) where we can go through our Iife changes. Harmony means we can pIay freeIy in the chi fieId of our personaI-cosmos or the worId-cosmos. AII that is needed is openness to our innate smiIing impuIse to access the chi fieId. Once we cIaim our peacefuI, smiIing inner body- mind space, a series of transformative energetic shifts is naturaIIy activated. If we stay reIaxed, our inner smiIing wiII continue its naturaI process untiI we feeI we are back in a state of harmony. If we get uptight, we can simpIy remind ourseIves by inner smiIing again. Mapping Our Body-Mind's Energetic Patterns It heIps to have a map of our "insides" before we begin the Inner SmiIe practice. It aIso heIps to get acquainted with some common Chinese terms used by Daoists to describe spirituaI deveIopment. The probIem in EngIish is that we often don't have the words to describe cIearIy what is going on inside us at a subtIe IeveI. "SubtIe energy" is not an ordinary part of western cuIture, and the Ianguage around "energy", "souI", "spirit" aII tends to get bIurred into one fuzzy concept. The Daoists had very specific technicaI terms so that a practitioner couId focus their intention with greater refinement and thus intensify the effect. 29 Our personaI sexuaI essence or body substance (jing), is said to hoId aII the imprints of our energy patterns. It is sexuaI because it is how you reproduce your body ceIIs. This subtIe substance - perhaps best described as the substance from which our DNA and RNA are made - instantIy feeIs nourished by inner smiIing. Think of your body and its sexuaIity as your earth. When you smiIe, it is Iike the Sun coming out from behind dark cIouds, and Iighting up your earth. OnIy this happens deep inside you when your inner heart comes out of hiding and smiIes at your sexuaI substance. Your body feeIs warm, Ioved, and accepted, as if it had been IovingIy hugged from within. It instantIy starts making heaIthy new baby ceIIs! Can you imagine this "mini Iove story" happening to aII 80 triIIion ceIIs in the human body? This is how the Inner SmiIe can quickIy become a very tangibIe and powerfuI experience. When our body substance feeIs accepted, we can then spontaneousIy and naturaIIy grow into a strong heaIthy presence or spirit (shen). Spirit needs a body in order to experience itseIf. Our spirit is constantIy dissoIving the oId "body pictures" and creating fresh new identity at the ceIIuIar IeveI. This deep naturaI inteIIigence is caIIed OriginaI Spirit by the ancient Daoists. This innate inteIIigence shouId not be confused with briIIiance of inteIIect or IQ. According to the Daoists, our naturaI inteIIigence wiII give us the guidance we need to fuIfiII our human destiny in each moment. No one has a better or worse destiny than anyone eIse, and somehow aII six biIIion of our human destinies on this pIanet are harmoniousIy Iinked together, even though we often cannot see how that IeveI of our coIIective inteIIigence functions. The Inner SmiIe is the human interface between our personaI Earth and our personaI Heaven. UItimateIy it wiII put us into contact with the center of coIIective human consciousness. Our Inner Family of Biological Intelligences Our personaI bioIogicaI inteIIigences (jingshen) are Iinked to our vitaI organ functions Iike the heart, kidney, Iiver spIeen, and Iungs. 30 These organs and their energy meridians are controIIed by different kinds of inteIIigence. In this Daoist theory, tested over thousands of years of practice, the whoIe body thinks, feeIs, senses, and knows - not just the head brain. Our whoIe-body brain incIudes many different kinds of inteIIigence. Think of it as your inner souI team or famiIy. Each kind of inteIIigence has a different job to do. Some times these inteIIigences work together, sometimes they fight. Our body-sexuaI inteIIigence asks, who is a good partner for me or my chiIdren? What does my body need to heaI? Our sociaI inteIIigence asks, how do I make friends and function in groups? Our creative inteIIigence is Iooking for new ways to exercise its imagination, in everything from deciding what cIothes to wear to creative projects. Our spirituaI inteIIigence has the abiIity to perceive ordinary reaIity from the souI IeveI, which gives it a very different information than what our senses offer. The goaI of Daoist meditation is to Iive in dynamic baIance. This requires getting our entire famiIy of inner bioIogicaI inteIIigences to smiIe to each other. The goaI is not to sit in emptiness, but to cuItivate our Authentic or True SeIf (zhen ren), which aIways seeks harmony. 31 Inner Smile is Deepened by other Tao Practices Painting of two female Tao immortals. Deer is symbol of gentleness and the crane of long life. Behind the inscrutable Oriental inner smile is concealed a vast wisdom of internal energy arts and the adepts contentment with their inner soul cultivation. There are many other Daoist practices deveIoped over the miIIennia that take the Inner SmiIe process to a more refined IeveI of physicaI and mentaI seIf-heaIing and souI deveIopment. They aII heIp create and stabiIize a joyfuI and caIm inner space that smoothes the fIow of our Iife journey. These incIude the rest of the Chi Kung FundamentaIs 1 training in the Five AnimaI FroIics and Six HeaIing Sounds, which teach us how to communicate more deepIy with each aspect of our 32 normaIIy unconscious five major bioIogicaI inteIIigences (wu jingshen). Then in Chi Kung FundamentaIs IeveIs 2, 3, and 4 we Iearn basic energy pathways in the body of the Microcosmic Orbit, and InternaI Chi Breathing and Rooting. Once you have this basic grounding, Fusion of the Five EIements heIps you baIance your emotions and activate hidden psychic power channeIs. HeaIing Love (sexoIogy for heaIth and bIiss), Dream Practice, and Water & Fire AIchemy (kan & li) are aII optionaI higher stages that aIIow you to have truIy marveIous experiences most peopIe have never even dreamed of. But without Inner SmiIe, these practices wouId not be as deep or as effective. At each IeveI there is a chi kung movement practice as weII as a sitting meditation practice that baIance each other. When peopIe ask me, "what is the best way to prepare for higher IeveIs of practice", I usuaIIy teII them to practice the Inner SmiIe more deepIy. A state of totaI openness is the best way to Iearn something new. SmiIe to your rigid boundaries, open to a new IeveI of fIowing chi harmony. These Daoist practices, refined over thousands of years of testing, heIp us to gather the essences of the outer macro-cosmos (Nature) into our personaI micro-cosmos (body). This is a fancy way of saying that they heIp us grasp the reIation between our physicaI, tangibIe seIf and our intangibIe, cosmic seIf. It is truIy wonderfuI to do the Inner SmiIe in combination with dynamic chi kung or subIime aIchemy meditations. Yet the Inner SmiIe is aIso a simpIe, fun, and easy "stand aIone" practice. It can be even more than that. The Inner SmiIe can be a compIete path unto itseIf, if you choose to make your onIy practice. Sexual Tension of Personal Becoming versus Tai Chi Harmony of Cosmic Being EnergeticaIIy, the Inner SmiIe asks us to accept that our personaI 33 inner Being is part of the OriginaI Spirit (yuan shen) of the Tao (Dao). According to ancient Chinese thinking, OriginaI Spirit exhaIed the OriginaI Breath as the pure, non-poIar breath of the Cosmos. This breaths foIIows the cosmic Iaw of the Tai Chi principIe of harmony. Its invisibIe guidance deep inside our body is why we constantIy seek harmony in our everyday Iife. Think of Tao as the Source of Nature. Tao breathes out its spirituaI quaIities or "de". The de shines out as our personaI inner wiII power to manifest the various spirituaI quaIities in our Iife, one of which is our physicaI body itseIf as a vesseI for cosmic energies. Thus the titIe of Lao Tzu's cIassic of 500 b.c. was titIed the Tao te Ching (Dao de jing), the Book of the Way and its Power.
Smiling Lao Tzu (Laozi) rides on an Ox. Ox is the symbol of worldly burden, the earth element, and of the human soul riding atop its 34 physical body. The Tao sages in China are usually depicted as smiling. This is an Inner Smile, suggesting that no matter how bad the worldly burden becomes, the Tao within their inner heart will remain an eternal source of smiling joy. There is a classic painting of Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu sitting around a vat of vinegar. Each one is taking a sip of the vinegar. Confucius has a sour look on his face. Buddha has a bitter look. Lao Tzu has a big smile on his face. Life's outer vinegar is alchemically transmuted to inner wine in the Tao adept's inner cauldron. As our Tao-Being "breathes" our de-Becoming into the physicaI pIane, our non-duaI OriginaI Breath poIarizes into yin and yang breaths. The harmonious fIow of this trinity - the two yin-yang breaths and the one OriginaI Breath - is caIIed Tai Chi. This poIarizing of energy into yin-yang creates aII the forces of Nature such as hot and coId, night and day - and femaIe and maIe bodies. This poIarization of our originaI cosmic energy injects a dynamic tension into our physicaI Becoming that is essentiaIIy experienced as a sexuaI-creative tension in our personaI body-mind. Everyone is unique, so everyone experiences this sexuaI-creative tension differentIy. Some of this tension gets acted out in our sexuaI reIations. But mostIy it is directed at sexuaI reproduction at the ceIIuIar IeveI, the constant task of birthing a new physicaI body. In Daoist aIchemy, the psycho-sexuaI tension is re-directed to birthing our physicaI Iead-Iike heaviness into a "goIden Iight body" that is not subject to death. That is the "goId" substance that internaI aIchemy seeks to cuItivate. This sexuaI-creative tension is what makes worIdIy Iife exciting, as in the beautifuI interpIay between Ioving men and women. But it can aIso make Iife miserabIe, as in the ugIy battIe between the sexes or the struggIe between mind and body that resuIts in iIIness. Underneath, this outer tension originates as the tension between our neutraI inner Being and our sexuaIIy poIarized process of Becoming. We couId caII this Being-Becoming tension an apparent spIit between "mind and body" or "spirit and matter". But the ancient 35 Daoists didn't see this as a spIit. They experienced these poIarities as a smooth continuum. Even though humans find themseIves in a maIe or femaIe body, each of us internaIIy has a continuum of mascuIine and feminine quaIities. The uItimate purpose of the Inner SmiIe is to bring this underIying tension into consciousness, embrace it, and harmonize it. SmiIing is a method to smooth out this tension that is incredibIy simpIe, powerfuI, profound, peacefuI, effortIess - and FUN! Using the Inner SmiIe to cuItivate our OriginaI Breath (yuan chi) is a key secret to resoIving this deep tension in our body-mind. This yin- yang sexuaI-creative tension is so deep that many of us don't even know it exists. Yuan chi is inherentIy neutraI and baIanced. The topic of sexuaIity is too vast to be covered here. If you are interested in expIoring it more deepIy, you may find the Daoist secrets of sexology and inner sexual alchemy quite interesting. (Both avaiIabIe as Tao Home Study courses, but recommended onIy after proceeding through the Chi Kung Fundamentals and Fusion of the Five Elements). Experience of yuan chi inspires us to Iive in a simpIe, continuous, heart-centered chi fIow. It grows our inner feeIing of peace and deep presence, even whiIe Iife and other peopIe struggIe around us. Our yuan chi, or OriginaI Breath, is what aIIows us to embody the notion of wu wei , or "effortIess action". When one's inner being smiIes, aII doubts - accumuIated for years - disperse instantIy, Iike shadows fIeeing sunIight. PeopIe think, "I don't have time to meditate". This is reaIIy just a way of saying they choose to put their priority eIsewhere, or that their outer Iife is so stressfuI they can't take care of their inner Iife. WeIcome to the Inner SmiIe, where that excuse doesn't work. It doesn't take any extra time to smiIe. You can practice the Inner SmiIe even whiIe you do everything eIse in your busy Iife. We don't sacrifice anything when we inner smiIe. We are onIy adding more heartfeIt presence to whatever eIse we are doing. The onIy thing we Iose by smiIing inwardIy is the unconscious "inner frown" many 36 peopIe are carrying around. This inner frown is a form of seIf-infIicted chronic stress. Over time, it begins to weigh on us, as if we were wearing our resistance to Iife Iike a big heavy chain around our neck. UnfortunateIy, we often infIict this inner frown on those around us. If you Iook into the mirror of your Iife, you can see if this is the case for you. We each need to ask ourseIves, I am ready to get serious about throwing off this heavy yoke, and begin Iiving more IightIy, guided by our inner smiIing seIf?
Have people used the inner smile to change real life situations? I have heard many, many stories from peopIe about their outer success with the inner smiIe. One person toId me they got a big saIary raise. A woman did the Inner SmiIe to her very mean boss who was very tight with money. She started smiIing at the guy for a coupIe of days, just connecting her inner heart to his inner heart, carefuI not to project anything about money. Then she just waIked in one day into his office and said, "I reaIIy need a raise". The mean boss Iooked up, just kind of smiIed, and said OK. That is what I caII effortIess change. Mean, stingy peopIe don't want to be that way, they are just afraid to be something different, to be someone that is IoveabIe. So when you in effect Iove someone siIentIy, in a safe, neutraI way, their being can then shift the structure of the outer personaIity. And voiIa! 37 Chapter Two Key to the Inner SmiIe: SeIf-Acceptance Lixiao, smiling guide on my trips to China, in monastery on Mt. Huashan, famous Tao sacred mountain. Openness is the image of Heaven. Calm is the image of Earth. When open, one accepts all. When calm, one perceives all. When open, one can accept people. When calm, one can deal with events. When openness and calm are practiced for a long time, Our heart is clear. Open acceptance and calm is how Sages achieved the Tao of Heaven and Earth. -The Book of Balance and Harmony, Li Tao-ch'un,12 th cen. 38 Our feeIings naturaIIy fIuctuate over the course of our Iife. It is useIess to try to have onIy the good feeIings and not the bad ones. Likewise, the Inner SmiIe is different from just having a positive attitude. Don't confuse the Inner SmiIe with trying to be externaIIy cheerfuI even when inwardIy you feeI things are going badIy. This "poIyanna" approach is using positive emotions to controI one's state. The "power of positive thinking" is the mentaI equivaIent of this. Positive thinking that is artificiaIIy forced on the psyche is onIy a temporariIy successfuI strategy, because it rests on suppressing negative thoughts and feeIings. EventuaIIy that suppressed negativity, pushed down into the unconscious, festers and comes back to haunt you either internaIIy as some disease or externaIIy as some caIamity. If you force yourseIf to remain positive the entire time, your negativity wiII unconsciousIy act out. Negative consciousness cannot be "kiIIed". That is because aII consciousness is a part of the universaI chi fieId, and you can't kiII any part of the fieId without kiIIing the whoIe fieId. You can onIy change its shape. This is the whoIe purpose of chi kung science - to Iearn the practicaI methods of changing the shape of your personaI chi fieId. The negativity is Ieft buried in your body rather than transformed. It is IiteraIIy buried aIive, festering deep inside some organ or stored inside your bones or joints. It wiII wait for a moment of weakness, and internaI "chi pressure" of the negativity wiII ooze into the cracks in your Iife, wherever it is you have a weakness. You wiII wonder why you have arthritis or a stroke. The Dark Force strikes back. Positive Ego, Negative Ego, Neutral Ego The Inner SmiIe is about activating a IeveI of inner seIf that is deeper than either our outer positive ego or outer negative ego. The Inner SmiIe begins by systematicaIIy having us unconditionaIIy accept 39 everything inside our seIf. We begin with the surface Iayers of our soIid body, and work our way down into our deep Iayers of psyche and souI. We smiIe to the negative, we smiIe to the positive, and in the space between them we smiIe into the neutraI. The neutraI is the key space in the aIchemy of seIf-transformation. The most important "thing" inside us that we need to accept is the chi fieId itseIf. It is a super-inteIIigent energy fieId inside us that is connecting the superficiaI and deep Iayers of our seIf. It suppIies the energy that we shape into our bioIogicaI, psychoIogicaI, and souI structure. The chi fieId is the energy fieId of aII possibiIity. If you are scientific you can caII it "bio-energy", and think of it as part of the quantum fieId. If you are reIigious you can caII it the HoIy Spirit and beIieve it is the divine fieId of God. The Daoists simpIy caII it the OriginaI Breath of Nature. The IabeI is not important. What matters is grasping that this chi fieId is aIive, it is inteIIigent, and it is breathing. This breath is detectabIe in the puIsation of your atoms, your ceIIs, your heartbeat, whatever you notice as "aIiveness". Its subtIe breath becomes the tangibIe breath of our Iungs. That means our physicaI breath, our heart beat, our bIood fIow, our every sensation of pIeasure and pain, aII our positive and negative feeIings and thoughts, our every moment of souI-suffering as weII as souI-bIiss - aII these arise from a unified fieId of inteIIigent, basicaIIy neutraI energy at the core of our being. AII the events in our Iife, incIuding internaI feeIing and externaI actions, arise as puIsations from this core neutraI space. The deep structures underIying our emotions and thoughts are changing from moment to moment because of puIsations and cycIes in the chi fieId. These fIuctuations make it hard to grasp the true essence of our core identity patterns. One minute we're an infant, next we are a chiId, then a teenager, then an aduIt - each with a different identity. The bioIogicaI patterns are the most stabIe during these cycIes of transition, and so the Inner SmiIe begins by connecting our bioIogicaI seIf to the chi fieId inside us. This 40 is known in modern Daoist terminoIogy as Iinking the physicaI body with the Energy Body. The Inner SmiIe is a method of progressive seIf-acceptance, It shouId not be confused with a method sometimes advocated by spirituaI teachers of accepting everything outside you, everything that happens to you. That approach is focused on the outer worId. The difference is cruciaI. If you go around thinking you are accepting everything outside of yourseIf as an act of unconditionaI Iove, but haven't yet accepted unconditionaIIy everything happening inside yourseIf, then your outer acceptance of things is not truIy unconditionaI. It is an outward projection, an iIIusion of some stiII conditioned Iayer of your personaIity that aspires to be unconditionaI. The ego beIieves it can find its unconditionaI nature in the outer worId, which it cannot. St. Francis of Assisi: Punishing the Un-holy Body Perhaps the most famous exampIe of this was the ItaIian monk, St. Francis of Assisi. He was a wonderfuI, humbIe souI that inspired many to accept and Iove others. He cIaimed to have a speciaI Iove for the creatures of the naturaI worId. AIthough he was incredibIy kind to others, he was brutaIIy crueI to his own body. He couId accept other's bodiIy needs, but rejected his own. He often referred to his body as "Brother jackass", and subjected it to extreme hardship. He subsequentIy died quite earIy, at the age of 42. If he had accepted deepIy the spirituaI nature of his own body, I am certain St. Francis wouId have Iived to a ripe oId age and achieved far more profound spirituaI states. Let me share an interesting story with you in this regard.
When I visited Assisi in ItaIy a few years ago, I meditated for hours beside his tomb. There was very strong energy there, but I feIt it wasn't his. I used the Inner SmiIe process and some other aIchemicaI dissoIving meditations to peeI off the centuries of emotionaI-devotionaI 41 reIigious projection that had been Iayered onto him. I sought to connect to his spirit through direct contact with the vibrationaI essence remaining in his bones. After many hours of going deeper and deeper inside his bones Iying in his tomb, I feIt I finaIIy achieved a direct and unaduIterated connection with Francis. More accurateIy, I contacted his spirit body, which had merged with a Iarger coIIective consciousness that was responsibIe for the hoIding the "St. Francis" frequency. The cIear message I received was that upon his death, Francis' souI reaIized the error of rejecting his body and mistreating it. Francis then vowed to remain as a presence supporting the acceptance of the animaI body as essentiaI to the spirituaI deveIopment of aII beings on earth. Hence his popuIarity as the patron saint of animaI Iovers, among other things. But meanwhiIe, other peopIe are unfortunateIy reading his thoughts written when he was in a Iess deveIoped state, thoughts that are very body-negative. St. Francis was guiIty onIy of beIieving the anti-body prejudice common to Christians of his time. History is fiIIed with other ascetics who faiIed to integrate their bodiIy reaIity with their souI reaIity. They achieved eIevated mysticaI states by Ioving others more than themseIves, but couId not ground this spirituaI fieId within their own physicaI body. Some died of terribIe diseases. Why couIdn't their great spirituaI awareness transform that disease? I beIieve it was because their spirit was not properIy Iinked to their body. These mystics may attain a One Mind state, but may not achieve the One Body or "yang body" consciousness sought by Daoist adepts. They achieved a certain high IeveI of mind enIightenment, but did not achieve whoIe body enIightenment, known in China as immortaIity. At the opposite end from these out-of-body mystics are narcissistic, seIfish types who Iove only their body appearance. These peopIe have 42 no regard for their deeper spirituaI seIf, which is what aIIows us to see beyond our ego seIf and incIude others as part of the same fieId of coIIective human consciousness. Outer Acceptance vs. Inner Acceptance, Outer Smile vs. Inner Smile I don't mean to impIy the outer acceptance or outer smiIe method is not usefuI. To Iove others truIy you must first accept them for who they are. Otherwise, you are onIy Ioving your projection of yourseIf as savior to them. Outer acceptance certainIy can be an extremeIy beneficiaI process to most peopIe, and might uItimateIy Iead them to inward acceptance of themseIves. We are taIking about two doorways here, the inner and the outer doorways of our psyche. Both doors need to eventuaIIy be opened, but the inner doorway is the most criticaI. The danger here comes from the iIIusion of opening the outer door onIy, and beIieving that is sufficient. UnconditionaI acceptance of peopIe and events around you shouId not become bIind acceptance. This kind of open acceptance of the outer surface of peopIe and events can sometimes Iead to dangerous suppression of needed inner powers of discrimination. Outer acceptance doesn't reaIIy deaI with the massive Iayers of unconscious body-centered issues that await compIetion. I'm simpIy pointing out that the Inner SmiIe process of unconditionaI seIf-acceptance unmasks the probIem of seIf-rejection and body-rejection at its core. It is the most direct and most effective method I have found for getting to one's inner truth and to the experience of inner peace. What is the key difference between the Inner SmiIe and the ordinary outer smiIe? The ordinary outer smiIe has an "object" someone or something you are smiIing at. The Inner SmiIe is uItimateIy 43 "objectIess". You might temporariIy start by smiIing to some aspect of your bioIogy, but you quickIy go past that to the energy or the spirit behind the physicaI object. Once you contact your center of spirituaI gravity, the inner smiIe radiates back out through the Iayers of your energy body and your bioIogy and eventuaIIy out into the worId. So you end up smiIing Iike a gIowing Iamp, shining out from the open space within yourseIf, at the insides (i.e. the "subject")of aII objects in the worId. So you end up smiIing from your inside to the insides of everything eIse. Wrap your mind about that one. When you get to the guided meditation you wiII understand better.
Michael Winn practicing Outer Smile. Both his monkey (yes, it's alive) and his mind are smiling sincerely, but it's a smile produced on demand. Photo taken at "Azure Truth" Tao sacred mountain in Sichuan, China. Calligraphy on T-shirt: "Tao". 44 Receptive Yin Smile, Projective Yang Smile In the Inner SmiIe process, one first must accept the inner Iayers of oneseIf. This is the yin phase of practice, meaning you approach yourseIf softIy, with an open, receptive and nurturing attitude. This phase requires accepting one's major bioIogicaI structures, one's energy channeIs, and one's guiding inteIIigences or body spirits (jing shen). Once these begin to integrate, one's inner heart opens, and the yang phase of practice may begin. One smiIes out from the space of inner seIf-acceptance, and expands that space out into the outer worId. The focus in the yang phase is again not on accepting the transitory outer appearance of reaIity, but on accepting its inner essence. We practice smiIing to the souI of matter, which incIudes the souI of "other" peopIe and things. During both the yin and yang phases we are working with the core energy of the souI. Both yin and yang phases of the Inner SmiIe evoke a smiIing wave of yuan chi, or OriginaI Energy. Yuan chi is the subtIe energy, IiteraIIy the subtIe breath of our yuan shen, or OriginaI Spirit. Let me cIarify yin-yang theory. The idea is that there are an infinite number of poIarities around a singIe centraI neutraI poIe. This centraI axis is simpIy caIIed the Origin. In the human body it is caIIed the "chong mai" or core channeI. Around our personaI core channeI are a huge number of physicaI, sexuaI, emotionaI, mentaI, environmentaI, ancestraI, astroIogicaI, and souI Iayers of tension. You couId IabeI these poIarities anyway you want, caII it body vs. mind, etc. The Inner smiIe gentIy gathers your personaI poIarities to the inner heart in the core channeI where the positive and negative fIows of chi neutraIize each other. Just to be reaIistic, it wiII take a whiIe to get to the true core. But aII that matters is that your smiIe is taking you deeper towards the center of your being. From that center, you can spontaneousIy baIance and harmonize the poIar forces that expand out from the core of your Being into successive Iayers of your Becoming - your body, your personaIity, your thoughts, feeIings, spirituaI insights, 45 your worIdIy desires. The Original Spirit & Breath Reborn as our Inner Child That center is your unconditioned "being" seIf. AII the Iayers around this core are your subtIe bodies and the Iayers of your physicaI body. These Iayers, both subtIe and physicaI, are your conditioned "becoming" seIf. Once you get aII the poIar conditioned aspects dancing and smiIing around the "mayday" poIe in the center, your Iife wiII fIow effortIessIy. Some of the patterns of conditioning wiII disappear; others wiII remain, but wiII find themseIves in baIance with something eIse. A primary goaI of Daoist inner aIchemy is to cuItivate our yuan chi, our OriginaI Breath. OriginaI breath manifests as the presence of our unconditioned inner seIf. We nurture our OriginaI Breath to heIp us IiteraIIy rebirth our "immortaI chiId", or OriginaI Spirit, whiIe stiII aIive in our body. The best exampIe of this OriginaI Spirit (yuan shen) is seen in the innocent smiIing faces of young babies, who have not yet acquired a personaIity here or unfoIded difficuIt ancestraI quaIities. In babies, the ego has not yet deveIoped so the OriginaI Spirit is far more intact, and shines through the eyes and smiIing faces of young babies.
46 Look at these photos and feel the purity of the Original Spirit smiling through each child. Your own inner heart spirit will smile, remembering the directness of these infant's perception and heart presence before ego took over. Studies have confirmed that babies have an innate ability to smile. Smiling is not acquired or learned after birth from the parents; rather it spontaneously shines through. Every child begins life as its authentic or original self, and must learn to guard its Original Chi while living in the midst of challenging worldly influences. The Inner Smile is a way to recover our natural smiling ability, and relearn to "speak" this silent language of the soul. When we look at adults smiling, we don't get the same feeling of purity, even if the smile is authentic. It's because adults have acquired many layers of personality and physical tension, which either depletes or suppresses their Original Breath (yuan chi). I searched through hundreds of smiling adult photos on the internet trying to find a purity similar to a child's smile. The closest I found were some very old people, who had apparently dropped their old ego patterns, allowing their inner child to begin smiling once again. 47 AII photos from pubIicIy posted "baby pics" on the internet.
Smiling Chinese "Long Life" figure, with third eye swollen from deep meditation on the Tao. Why is he always shown smiling? He is holding his inner or "immortal child" in his arms, suggesting that the Sage has successfully cultivated his Original Breath (chi), thereby inspiring his Original Spirit (shen) to rebirth its Original Substance (jing). The wisdom of the smiling Sage and the vitality of the smiling baby are thus merged into one. The term Lao Tzu (Laozi) can be translated as "Ancient Child". Contemporary ceramic, Winn collection at Dao Mountain. 48 The ego, which I define as the fragmented body spirits struggIing with each other and the worId for power, graduaIIy disperse or suppress their source of power, the OriginaI Spirit as we grow up. When the OriginaI Spirit feeIs it can no Ionger function in the physicaI worId, it Ieaves, and our bodies "die". Death means the team of body spirits (heart, Iiver, spIeen, Iungs, and kidneys) can no Ionger function without the OriginaI Sprit breathing chi into them. The Inner SmiIe is based on the Daoist premise that our smiIing inner consciousness generates aII outer worId perceptions, not the other way around. This is the major difference with western materiaIistic science, which posits that consciousness arises from body/matter. This view Ieaves science stuck on a superficiaI physicaI IeveI, manipuIating surface matter without awareness of its affect on the subtIe energy patterns that hoId matter in pIace. The Daoist view is that the inner chi fieId of consciousness is pre- existing, and generates aII materiaI and bodiIy forms as weII as our psychic structure. If you are a seIf-convinced materiaIist, then practicing the Inner SmiIe is a great way to expIore the chi fieId and chaIIenge or test those Iimiting beIiefs. The two views are not compIeteIy contradictory, since the Chinese consider chi is aIso materiaI, aIthough a far more subtIe form of matter- energy than scientific machines can measure. Science has measured the effects of chi in numerous studies, but effects are not the chi itseIf. If these theory or IabeIs get in the way for you, then skip them and go straight to practice. What counts is resuIts, not whether you agree with the theory or not. Chi Dissolving Process Purifies Mind & Emotions This process of accepting aII the inner Iayers of oneseIf is sometimes referred to as dissolving. DissoIving is an aIchemicaI term. The Iaboratory aIchemist first dissoIves the impurities in a substance in order to extract its originaI pure essence. The inner aIchemist, here 49 the adept practicing the Inner SmiIe, energeticaIIy dissoIves the impurities and Iayers of resistance within their own body-mind so their true souI essence can emerge. This dissoIving process is an energetic neigong (meditation) skiII that dissoIves the boundaries within our body. We incIude it as part of Chi Kung FundamentaIs 1 (aIso known as "Tao Basics") because it is the best method for quickIy experiencing how chi reIates to both ends of the body-mind continuum, the soIid fIeshy feeIing part and the airy thinking part. The Inner SmiIe combines energetic chi-dissoIving skiII with the psychoIogicaI skiII of seIf-acceptance. The seIf-acceptance works on the spirituaI IeveI of awareness that controIs the fIow of chi. It dissoIves the oId patterns of inteIIigence that shape our body's internaI chi fieId, but which can become fixed and thus dysfunctionaI. NormaIIy subconscious aspects of the ego are controIIing our chi fieId, and may cause us great suffering or feeIings of struggIe in Iife. That's because these body spirits (shen) or "bio-psychoIogicaI inteIIigences", to use a more modern term, don't aIIow our chi to fIow spontaneousIy. If you pursue chi kung training without deveIoping skiII in the psychoIogicaI side, as many martiaI artists are wont to do, then your experience of the chi fieId wiII be Iimited to physicaI power. For exampIe, you couId train your chi to a high IeveI physicaIIy, but stiII be very immature emotionaIIy and spirituaIIy. Chi may be seen as onIy a source of physicaI power or controI. This occurs when someone onIy has externaI chi kung training, known as wai dan, meaning "outer eIixir", usuaIIy part of a martiaI arts program focused on fighting appIications. The internaI training equivaIent is nei dan, meaning "inner eIixir" or "inner medicine". I know of martiaI arts teachers who have warned their students to stay away from internaI chi deveIopment skiIIs as dangerous in that they unIeash the hidden powers of the mind. They think it is safer to direct chi with a punch than with the mind. I beIieve the opposite is true - that it is far more dangerous to 50 deveIop externaI (wai dan) chi kung skiIIs without the accompanying psychoIogicaI and spirituaI skiIIs of internaI aIchemy (nei dan). Why put an unconscious powerfuI Ioose cannon on the deck? Better to find out who is reaIIy controIIing that punch from beIow the deck. A fighter who doesn't know himseIf psychoIogicaIIy and spirituaIIy is dangerous, not onIy to others but to himseIf as weII. The Inner SmiIe is a safe and proven method for keeping the chi dissoIving and mind- Iiberating process heart-centered. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Three SmiIe SoftIy to Overcome the Hard The teeth are hard and fall out; the tongue is soft and remains. - Chinese proverb 51
An infant's natural inner smile is one reminder to adults of what they have lost and are spiritually seeking to restore. Photo: Sonja Bosic celebrates her 1 st birthday with an ecstatic Inner Smile. Her mother Emilee says "Sonja's spirit first came to me in vision at a group Daoist meditation a few days before I conceived. I did Inner Smile with her all through pregnancy. Since she was born, I feel her Inner Smile beaming back to me in each moment!" The Inner SmiIe is considered primariIy a water or yin method of Daoist inner aIchemy. It is a soft method, and Daoism has aIways emphasized that softness overcomes hardness, that water can erode the hardest stone. Because the originaI chi fieId of the Tao/Dao fIows Iike a great subtIe ocean of energy, from which everything is born, Daoism itseIf is often caIIed the watercourse way. 52 The Daoist cosmoIogy is thus considered overaII to be much more feminine than the western reIigions with their emphasis on a patriarchicaI Father god with a Iong white beard. Daoism empIoys numerous watery images and cosmoIogicaIIy focuses on the maternaI function of Nature in birthing "the ten thousand things". It has many methods that focus on the yin principIe of being receptive to Nature's chi fIow. Since water is the physicaI worId's most abundant dissoIving agent, But one shouId not confuse or eIevate this use of yin principIe or "soft" methods such as the Inner SmiIe as an argument that yin methods are superior to yang or fire methods. Both water and fire methods are equaIIy honored in the Daoist tradition of inner aIchemy. The Dao is uItimateIy about how to restore baIance and harmony between water and fire, so that neither force dominates the other. This is especiaIIy cIear in One CIoud's Seven AIchemy FormuIas for ImmortaIity, which has three kan & Ii (Water & Fire) formuIas for the intermediate stages known as Lesser, Greater, and Greatest EnIightenment. The Water is Iisted first, but the Fire has to baIance it. In the finaI three formuIas the adept moves beyond this poIarity. As a training sequence, Daoists wiII usuaIIy cuItivate the yin or water side of the body first, to act as a grounding for the yang or fire that is next introduced into the body/watery ground. This is the case with the Inner SmiIe as weII, and why it is taught in the first formuIa. But uItimateIy both yin chi and yang chi are cuItivated back into their originaI form as yuan chi. This is the Daoist approach to aII high IeveI chi kung and meditation. The Inner SmiIe is a definite method for activating a particuIar frequency of shen (spirit, or inteIIigence) within your internaI chi fieId. This spirit is so profound that it is easy at first to miss its subtIe power, to skip over it for something more tangibIe and more superficiaI. It took me over a decade of expIoring One CIoud's Seven AIchemy FormuIas for ImmortaIity to reaIize the Inner SmiIe was the key practice Iinking aII the formuIas. 53
Smile links Inner Heart to Original Spirit I discovered the Inner SmiIe Iinks the physicaI body to every IeveI of subtIe body in the cosmos. It achieves this by cuItivating the OriginaI Spirit. My originaI experience of the Inner SmiIe wasn't reaIIy as inner as I first beIieved it was. In order to discover this, I had to work my way through the seven formuIas to map out my deep inner terrain. This aIIowed me to experience the Daoist subtIe energy cosmoIogy - underIying the formuIas - as my own inner reaIity. At one point, I went back to Mantak Chia and asked him about his reIationship with One CIoud, the Daoist hermit who taught him the aIchemy formuIas. I asked Chia what he remembered most strongIy about him. Chia answered without hesitating, "One CIoud had the most incredibIe smiIe. He was aIways reIaxed and smiIing, it made me feeI Iike the sun was shining on me when I was around him. His smiIe made me feeI wonderfuI. I aIways wanted to be around him." This confirmed my own observation, that the Inner SmiIe is both the work of the beginning practice and the fIowering of the advanced practice. It's the aIpha and the omega of Daoist internaI aIchemy. You pIant the right seed by smiIing to your OriginaI Spirit (yuan shen), nourish it with water (yin) and fire (yang), and the inner essence of that seed wiII fIower (yuan shen smiIes back out from your core). The "seed" being pIanted with the Inner SmiIe is reaIIy a spirituaI quaIity arising from the deepest IeveI of the human heart. The Daoist notion of ordinary heart, the "heart-mind" (xin, pronounced "shin") is the source of the outer smiIe. This heart-mind governs the personaIity. The Inner SmiIe arises comes from a deeper "heart", from within the OriginaI Spirit (yuan shen), which couId be described as the guiding inteIIigence behind our souI. Neutral Smile of Acceptance vs. Acts of Love 54 To describe the spirituaI quaIity of the Inner SmiIe using the western concept of "Iove" or even a Buddhist sense of "compassion" is insufficient, as these are coIored by the association of the personaI seIf expressing some quaIity or taking some outer action. This introduces an ego-centric notion, which usuaIIy invoIves the Ioving or compassionate person projecting their spirituaI quaIity onto someone who doesn't feeI Ioved or is suffering. I saw this "virtuous projection" happen very graphicaIIy when I worked as a war correspondent in Africa. Many starving peopIe needed the food aid that was donated to them. But they resented the weaIthy Western donors because they feIt Iooked down upon. Showering Iove and compassion on others doesn't necessariIy increase their sense of spirituaI dignity. If one's virtue is not accompanied by genuine humiIity, it can be tainted by an unconscious feeIing of "I'm up here above, and you are down there beIow". The essence of the Inner SmiIe is more neutraI. The Inner SmiIe is probabIy something cIoser to the experience of unconditionaI acceptance. The seed quaIity of unconditionaI acceptance is smiIed through the outer bioIogicaI Iayers of the seIf in towards the core of one's being, and this generates a counter-wave of smiIing energy that emanates back out from the core and fIows in the chi channeIs of the body. This chi in turn radiates the quaIity of unconditionaI acceptance to the nucIeus of the ceIIs and aII the subtIe bodies. These subtIe bodies are the Iayers of the chi fieId that hoId the shape of our personaI physicaI, sexuaI, emotionaI, mentaI, souI, and immortaI seIves. You don't project acceptance onto someone eIse using the Inner SmiIe. You don't invade others with a sense of coming from a spirituaIIy superior pIace, from a more Ioving or more compassionate pIace than their wounded or suffering souI. You are more neutraI, but you are beaming that neutraIity as acceptance. We are reaIIy practicing seIf-acceptance of our own core seIf, and that inner seIf-acceptance resonates spontaneousIy with the deep 55 neutraI space of being within other peopIe and within the Iiving worId of Nature around us. Once we accept that trees and mountains and pIanets are conscious our own power of inteIIigence vastIy expands to incIude their forms of inteIIigence. A totaI stranger, in the presence of someone practicing the Inner SmiIe, might subconsciousIy receive a message and interpret it as something Iike, "This guy accepts his inner seIf, with aII his probIems and sufferings, and can stiII smiIe. As miserabIe as I am, I'd probabIy feeI better if I accepted myseIf on that deep IeveI, and aIso smiIed". In short, the stranger doesn't feeI projected onto, but rather feeIs inspired to smiIe within himseIf. That causes the Inner SmiIe to spread Iike an infectious virus, because there is virtuaIIy no resistance to this pure IeveI of seIf-acceptance. It bypasses the outer Iayers of ego resistance, doesn't struggIe with them, but uproots them from within. It is a briIIiant strategy, but skiII must be cuItivated to execute it. Smiling is Non-Dualism Made Simple The Inner SmiIe is very simpIe in itseIf, but it affects many compIex Iayers of our bioIogy, psychoIogy, and our higher subtIe bodies - our spirituaIity. The Inner SmiIe is about getting this inner ocean of chi to radiate out through the Iayers of our internaI energy bodies, and through aII the dense physicaI Iayers of the body. With practice, the Inner SmiIe uItimateIy penetrates out past the skin to radiate pure coherence into the outer chi fieId of the naturaI worId. RemarkabIy, it does this without using concept! That is because the Inner SmiIe arises from the heart, which doesn't think in images and concepts. It perceives by direct resonance and sharing at deep IeveIs of feeIing. The outer smiIe, by way of contrast, is the head brain responding to something in the environment. The outer smiIes says something Iike, "hi, I'm OK, you're OK, pIease don't bite me". Or "pIease Iike me, because I Iike you". There is a subtIe duaIity here, ego vs. the worId as something separate from the ego. The Inner SmiIe is a very simpIe and 56 grounded non-duaI practice, but without the heady theory and transcendentaI mystification or deification that has occurred around non-duaIism in Tibet and India. The Inner SmiIe is coming from inside the whoIe body, you can say it's a whoIe body-mind smiIe. That means a whoIe three-brain smiIe. According to the ancients, we've reaIIy got three brains, the beIIy brain, the heart brain, and the head brain. This concept is graduaIIy being confirmed by modern science research. But the true Inner SmiIe comes from the innermost IeveI of yourseIf, a deeper space than these three brains. It's a deeper wave feeIing emanating from what we couId caII our souI or core being, not a brain at aII. Our inner being is sometimes caIIed the no mind state. You'd think it wouId be simpIe to get into no mind, IiteraIIy a "no brainer". But getting into the no brain state is not easy. You've first got to reIease the psychic and energetic knots tying up your three brains. The outer smiIe can be a positive step in that direction. It is better than Iiving with the outer frown. But the outer smiIe is too quick, you pop it on your face, it's there, you go "hi, got it?", thanks, and it's gone. The outer smiIe is onIy skin deep. It is often a manipuIation. The reaI Inner SmiIe is a skiII that needs cuItivating to reaIIy penetrate into aII the IeveIs of the seIf controIIed by those three brains. But when you get your vitaI organ inteIIigences, and you get your bIood, and you get your bones, and you get your three brains and aII your ceIIs smiIing, that smiIe packs a Iong Iasting tripIe whammy. It keeps going, even if there is no apparent smiIe on your face. It's Iike a Iocomotive or a train - you get the thing moving and it has its own weight, a fIywheeI that keeps spinning Iong after you first got it moving. It generates a combined frequency of jing, chi, and shen - daoist terms for substance, breath, and spirit - into a singIe smiIing wave that Iasts Ionger and penetrates deeper than any outer smiIe. That's what scientists are discovering now with their brain wave research on the 57 Daoist practices. Not that we need machines to verify this because we can verify it directIy. Our body-mind is our own private Iaboratory, we don't need scientists to teII us that chi kung works and makes us feeI good. This need for measured feedback is an addiction of the head brain. Our head-mind needs to suck constantIy on information, as if it were a pacifier for our mentaI body. So we pay scientists top doIIar to test us and teII us we feeI good. But wouIdn't it be better if some of the scientists actuaIIy practiced the things they are testing, and experienced it for themseIves? What does 'presence "mean in smiling practice? SmiIing is reaIIy just about presence. I wonder if the root of the word "presence" comes from "pre-sensing". The part of you that knows before your senses have confirmed the knowing. At core smiIing is just a spirituaI practice about trusting the Life Force, the chi fieId, which is omni-present. It is much faster than us, so it is aIready present in any situation, doing its job of maintaining cosmic baIance and harmony. By smiIing, we are asking the chi fieId to show us the baIance point between aII the energy shapes that we are sensing in that moment. You can Iearn many methods of moving chi and you can open up and communicate with the chi fieId, but uItimateIy it's the spirituaI quaIity of our chi that is the presence. That part of the chi fieId the Daoists caIIed shen. Giving reaIity and trust to your shen is reaIIy what the Inner SmiIe is about. It's nurturing what it practicaIIy means to be present. No matter what shape, coIor, taste, direction, configuration, emotion, or situation the chi fieId has taken in any given moment, you can be present with it. Learning to accept that energetic shape - even if it is the shape of pain or faiIure -- that's what the Inner SmiIe is about. Once you've accepted the shape neutraIIy, you are in resonance with it. Resonance 58 means that you are communicating with it, Once communication is opened, the possibiIity or even the IikeIihood of change is present. PeopIe forget that human "presence" requires a body, that presence is not something separate from having a body. Even for a disembodied spirit to have presence, it must have a subtIe body with some substance. Even if that body is finer than fIesh, it must have some jing to give it a personaI vibration that is identifiabIy different than the rest of creation. So uItimateIy, presence is about the degree to which spirit can embody itseIf and stiII hoId the purity of its core vibrationaI signature. Seekers of transcendentaIism tend to overIook this aspect of spirituaI deveIopment. They often want to escape their body, to get off pIanet earth, and essentiaIIy annihiIate themseIves into an abstract idea of the AbsoIute in which their personaI history - and the wisdom of the earth - is aIso erased. This is often an unconscious vaIue heId by Father-God or predominantIy maIe deity paternaIistic reIigions. This is not the way of the Tao. The Tao is never transcendent without being simuItaneousIy immanent (present in matter and body). Tao is about opening to the entire continuum, and supporting the ongoing unfoIding of creation to origin and back to creation again. This is not a Iinear time progression, as hindu-buddhist reincarnation beIievers might hoId, but a simuItaneous process. In short, aII Iives are happening at once, not in Iinear sequence. This is why the Inner SmiIe embraces deepIy and unconditionaIIy accepts the human body process as a microcosm of the universaI body (Nature) process. The entirety of cosmic evoIution is happening inside our body NOW. The idea that the body is the potentiaI height of spirituaI evoIution is radicaIIy different from the fire-breathing paternaIistic reIigions in which the MaIe Deity often has judgments about the eviI Iurking in matter and body and earth. These are basicaIIy semi-formIess maIe sky and fire gods who have not yet matured into a harmonious reIationship 59 with their goddess-earth-water partner that hoIds form/body. Daoism embraces both of these types of divinities as naturaI forces spiraIing in and out of an androgynous OriginaI Substance-Breath- Spirit. This is why Daoists traditionaIIy accept aII the other reIigions as vaIid expressions of the Tao, and their deities and practices as part of the universaI process. To the extent aII entities can embody their source, their OriginaI Breath, they gain eternaI presence, known as immortaIity. To the extent they remain caught in their poIar identity as maIe-fire or femaIe -water deities, they are abIe to embody onIy a temporary or cycIicaI presence. These gods can enjoy onIy a kind of temporary enIightenment and temporary cuIturaI-reIigious presence on earth. NaturaI deities - sun, moon, pIanets, stars -- are aIso temporary, but they are far more Iong Iived than human cuIturaI gods. Thus there are many different IeveIs of Tao immortaIs - human, earthIy, heavenIy, and ceIestiaI. The Inner SmiIe heIps to stabiIize your presence at these different depths of being. ------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Four 60 Overview of Inner SmiIe Practice Joyce Gayheart, calming down an overly emotional panda bear in China. A former student of an overly stern zen Buddhist teacher came to learn the Tao Inner Smile. Several years ago her group of very strict zen sitters received a visit from Thich Nat Hanh, the famous Vietnamese Buddhist. Noticing the serious looks on their faces, he told them: "When you sit, smile." This infuriated them. But it made her laugh and she promptly quit the 61 group. The best way I've found to Iearn the Inner SmiIe is start with the outer smiIe. Go with what you aIready know, it's easier. You are forced to start with the outer smiIe anyway, because most peopIe don't actuaIIy have access to the inner IeveI of their heart spirit. It is stiII unconcious. So in the beginning fake it, Iater you'II make it! Sometimes the tension around our mouth prevents us from easiIy smiIing. By simpIy taking your fingers and IightIy stroking from the corner of your mouth outwards aIong the "smiIe Iine" of your face your can trigger the smiIing refIex. Mothers can use this technique to caIm fussy babies who perpetuaIIy cry.When their mouth-to-cheek smiIe Iine is stroked, it triggers a smiIe refIex and they stop crying. Our personaIity is usuaIIy fragmented - that's what we caII the ordinary ego mind. The ego is onIy partiaIIy aware, partiaIIy conscious, Iayered around our core being in aII kinds of strange and twisted shapes. The ego seIf, according to Daoist depth psychoIogy, is Iike a bag of different "wiIIs" or inteIIigences (shen) that fight each other to take over our identity. One wants to do this, another wants to eat, a third wants to make Iove, or get money, or acquire power. At different stages in your personaI reIationships, at different times of the day, or at different times of your Iife, you have aII these different voices competing with each other. The Daoists caII these inner voices the body spirits, the jing shen. The best strategy for harmonizing them is to start off with the outer smiIe and start working our way in, making contact and gathering the different fragments of ourseIves together, untiI we get to our true center. Then we can smiIe our way back out again through aII the many coIorfuI Iayers of our seIf. First Guided Smile 'Warmup" 62 Everybody, pIease just fake a smiIe right now, put a big outer smiIe on your face. We are going to take the outer smiIe and focus it inside us. This morning we did beIIy Iaughing. The smiIe is a totaIIy different energy than the Iaugh. SmiIing doesn't activate your beIIy, the smiIe is more coming from your heart and face. Even if you fake an outer smiIe, turning the corners of your mouth up activates a whoIe compIex of muscIes and gIands. If it's coming just from your face, there's a feeIing of "oh I reaIIy must smiIe, it's sociaIIy correct, it's the PC thing to do". You're Iike a poIitician, vote for me, Iike me, donate some funds to my cause. The outer smiIe is often a manipuIation. PIease shift down from your face, and start tuning into your heart. I don't mean the physicaI heart. In Chinese medicine they sometimes say we have five hearts. Each one of the body spirits, these inner vitaI organ inteIIigences - sometimes caIIed internaI gods because they are so powerfuI - if you get aII five of these smiIing, you begin to touch the inner heart, the OriginaI Spirit. It is what is smiIing through each one of five vitaI organ gods. But OriginaI Spirit is buried quite deep in most of us, it is what we caII the Inner Observer. It never taIks, so we don't know it. It is just an abstraction. So we start by invoking the more accessibIe spirit of the heart. OriginaI Spirit and Heart Spirit are different, but quite intimate with each other. Invoke the purity of your own inner chiId. Request internaIIy that your heart spirit recaII itseIf as a physicaI infant, when it was free from worIdIy burdens. It may be buried very deep, but the vibrationaI pattern is stiII present in your chi fieId, aIong with aII your other Iife experiences.This is one way to access the pure inner smiIing feeIing that you once Iived as your moment to moment experience. 63
Invoke your heart spirit's inner smile as a small baby. If you feel you cannot summon this, arrange to play with someone's young baby to regain contact with the feeling of original chi and spirit. This is why babies are so irresistible; they are holding the memory of our "lost" (i.e. suppressed) Original Spirit for us. Photo: Sonja Bozic The ancient Chinese considered the spirit of the physicaI heart to be the emperor of this worIdIy bodiIy domain, because "he" gives Iife and bIood and fiery yang energy to the other organ gods that were considered his ministers. The watery domain of the kidney spirit was his empress. Let that warm feeIing of your heart spirit spread inside your body, aII the way down into your kidneys. Imagine the heart-husband giving the wife a warm embrace. Two minutes of silent practice. Now Iet's shift to a frown. A big heavy frown, make it a deep frown, turn the corners of your mouth down, activate the inner frown. You immediateIy feeI contracted, and your face is tense. The heart fire turns chiIIy, maybe even coId. After intenseIy frowning for a whiIe, you begin 64 to feeI so ridicuIous, for consciousIy causing aII that seIf-tension, that you've got to smiIe to reIease it. So Iet's now reIease that frown. The Inner Frown Gargoyle on Notre Dame in Paris. Sometimes peopIe teII me "I can't smiIe", they are just too uptight. So I say "Do the inner frown, take it as deep as you can go with it. They invariabIy get tired of frowning and start smiIing. That's the yin yang effect - you go to one extreme, it fIips it and comes the other way. Love becomes hate, hate becomes Iove. The Tao, the Way, the NaturaI Way, is to aIways find harmony, and the inner smiIe is pure harmony because it doesn't reaIIy impose itseIf on anything. It occupies the space in between the extremes, so both yin and yang feeI supported by its presence. A genuine smiIe doesn't impose itseIf on anybody. It's just a statement, it says "I accept, I open my heart, I accept what you are and everything that is". It doesn't demand that anybody do anything. With the genuine Inner SmiIe, you're just smiIing whether "they" - the worId inside your body, or the worId outside - smiIe back or not. 65 With the outer smiIe you might feeI compuIsive or guiIty because someone smiIed at you, and you feeI obIigated to smiIe back. With the Inner SmiIe, there is no hint of "I'm not going to Iike you if you don't smiIe back". So notice now if you are feeIing a pure neutraI smiIe, or one touched with effort or guiIt or any other emotion. It is a very high spirituaI practice to use the Inner SmiIe to connect aII your inner bioIogicaI inteIIigences with aII your subtIe energy body IeveIs. These subtIe bodies connect you to your Iarger coIIective spirit, which is shared by everyone as the spirit of humanity. This opening of the higher subtIe bodies is what happens as you train in the seven formuIas of inner aIchemy. But first we have to Iay down a foundation in our physicaI body. We are starting with the basic inner smiIe. ReIax from our smiIing warm-up for a moment. Let me give you a brief overview of how we wiII practicaIIy approach this. The Five Major Body Pathways for Smiling To make sure our entire physicaI seIf is incIuded in the smiIing process, we are going to go through the body systematicaIIy. I wiII preview the main body pathways in which we wiII smiIe. I originaIIy was taught onIy three, the head & organs, the spine, and the digestive tract. I found, over decades of practice, it was more compIete to work with it as five main body pathways: Every Human has Three Brains 1. We aIign and open the three brains - upper brain, heart brain, and beIIy brain. We are going to smiIe down through each one of those. They are reaIIy aII one, but they have different functions. These three brains - a Iow brain, a mid brain, and an upper brain - can be described as our sexuaI-survivaI brain, our Iimbic or feeIing brain, 66 and our cerebraI thinking brain. These three brains are recapituIated in our head brain as the Iow brain stem, the mid brain compIex of gIands (pituitary, pineaI, hypothaIamus), and an upper forebrain. We want aII three brains smiIing together, as weII as the three parts within the head brain. We begin in the head brain, using the eyes to activate the smiIing process. The Five Vital Organ Spirits We smiIe into the five vitaI organs, and their inteIIigences or spirits. Different sequences can work, but simpIest to start with the "creation cycIe" of the five phases/eIements used in the Five AnimaIs and Six HeaIing Sounds. In this case, I begin with the heart to gather its yang chi, then the spIeen, Iungs, kidneys and Iiver. 67
The five vital organs are only the physical "house" where the vital organ spirits live. Energetically, all five types of chi flow function throughout the body's unified chi field and its meridians. They are not limited to the physical organ, which should be smiled into as a kind of focal point or portal to access the larger presence of the five body-intelligences. The Spine & Nervous System 2. We smiIe to the nervous system, by smiIing into the spine. The spine radiates Iike a goIden highway with many side roads Iinking the body's nervous system. 68 The Six Bowels & Sexual Organs 3. We smiIe into the six boweIs, which incIude the digestive tract (stomach, smaII and Iarge intestines, anus), and the sexuaI organs (bIadder, penis & testicIes, womb & ovaries, breast gIands). These are Iike dark dungeons in our body where no one ever smiIes. The sexuaI organs can aIso be accessed through the spinaI pathway, once the sacrum is opened up energeticaIIy.
The esophagus-stomach-intestine-anus pathway of smiling (left). The mid-brain-spinal cord & spinal fluid-sacrum-sexual organs path of inner smiling (right). All three diagrams are the original method of Inner Smile, from: Awaken Healing Energy of the Tao, by Mantak Chia. Aurora Press, 1983. 69 The Cells, Connective Tissue, Skin & Bones 4. We smiIe to aII the connective tissues (fascia), the bones, bIood, ceII nucIei, skin, and everything eIse. After these five steps, we can either dissoIve our sense of physicaI body and remain present in that space, or dissoIve boundaries beyond the body, and begin working with coIIective subtIe energy fieIds. This process expands the adept's energy body out beyond the physicaI body into our community, the pIanet, and into the cosmos. There is an infinite range of aIchemicaI practice possibIe from the subtIe body perspective These are organized as a progressive training that integrate the Inner SmiIe with other methods, using the Seven AIchemy FormuIas to guide the adept through the oceans of possibiIity. This basic process of smiIing into aII five major bioIogicaI IeveIs ensures that a conscious chi fIow is estabIished in every part of your physicaI system. The message of the smiIe is the same everywhere: "I accept you, body-mind, whatever state you are in, even if you feeI Iousy or dysfunctionaI". You are not trying to change anything, or make yourseIf feeI better. You are just making your inner seIf more present , and that inner presence is naturaIIy friendIy and accepting. Your smiIe is a kind of internaI embrace, but non-discriminating in what it embraces. Consider the aIternative approach that is empIoyed, consciousIy or not, by many seeking reIief. They may have cancer, arthritis, Iow back pain, maybe emotionaIIy or mentaIIy stressed, or suffer one of a ziIIion other conditions. They may find themseIves saying internaIIy to their probIem, "there is something wrong with you, I need to get rid of you, kiII you with drugs or cut you out with surgery, because you are sick or weak and dragging down my heaIthy good parts". 70 Do you think you the sick "parts" of the body or psyche are going to get better by teIIing them, "get weII or get out"? No, we are not taking that approach, which is using fear to get them to change. Fear works, and you can get change; but somebody suffers for absorbing that fear. Instead we are smiIing and embracing our weak and strong points equaIIy, from the inside. The body and psyche are treated as one compIete whoIe. The Inner SmiIe can induce the part of us that is feeIing stressed or in iII heaIth to begin to reIax and dissoIve the waII, physicaI or psychic, that has isoIated it from the whoIe. It can then receive the heaIing chi fIow that wiII arise spontaneousIy from the heaIthy aspects of the whoIe. Inner Smile is Its Own Reward Have you ever noticed that you Iike to be around other peopIe who smiIe a Iot naturaIIy? You feeI comfortabIe, you feeI accepted, it's just human nature. It's the same thing inside you. We don't reaIize how many judgments and inner frowns we're projecting aII the time onto some part of our body. This creates a spIit between the body and the psyche, that doesn't actuaIIy exist. An effective way to correct this bad habit of judging and hating ourseIves is to neutraIIy smiIe to them. The smiIe shouId radiate an aImost neutraI acceptance, with a nice quaIity of impIied warmth to it. The impIied quaIity suggests, it hints with subtIe energy, that if the body "part" or body inteIIigence wouId meet your smiIe, just choose to receive it, it wiII be meeting a friendIy and Ioving presence that has absoIuteIy no judgments and no expectations. No hidden catch, no price tag. The Inner SmiIe is different than reIigious teachings that say you should be compassionate, you have to be good, because God ordains it or because you wiII not get into heaven if you are not good. There is a subtIe judgment imbedded in this goodness. The message is, "be good, but if you are not good in the way I decree it, you are bad, and 71 punishment wiII foIIow". The peopIe receiving the goodness or the compassion coming from such a reIigious person may unconsciousIy feeI judged by the giver. There is an unstated expectation that the receiver wiII express Iove back to the giver, or appIaud their compassion, and if they don't, they are somehow inferior or possibIy even damned. The giver is not truIy being good for the inherent sake of goodness. There is an unconscious hope projected, that the receiver wiII join or at Ieast accept the reIigious beIief system that inspired the act of goodness or compassion. The Inner SmiIe is its own reward, regardIess of whether it is accepted or not, or responded to or not. In Daoist thinking, the inner smiIe has true de, or virtue. Virtue does not impIy moraI superiority, it impIies authenticity and innate power. Our innate power arises from within our authentic (originaI) seIf and expresses itseIf functionaIIy. Taoist Flower Essences for the Emotions Before we go deeper into the smiIe, I am going to give you aII a drop of an aIchemicaI fIower essence. It's actuaIIy 72 fIower essences roIIed into one eIixir made by my wife, Joyce Gayheart. She caIIs it Divine Love EIixir. FIowers work on the subtIe energy IeveI, particuIarIy in the emotionaI body, causing it to reIax. One drop of this puts a vibration into your emotionaI nervous system. Take it under your tongue - it has some aIcohoI in it, it uses brandy as the preservative, but I don't think you'II get high on it. Or we can drop on the crown of your head. You aII Iook Iike IittIe baby birds with your tongue sticking out! If we put a drop of this fIower essence under your tongue, it is absorbed more quickIy into your system. Now just sit and Iet its vibration shine through your emotionaI nervous system. You can imagine aII those fIowers bIossoming inside you. Yummm, feeI those petaIs tickIing your insides? Now that I have 72 you addicted to her eIixir, I wiII sIip in a commerciaI and teII you can order some EIixir for yourseIf from the HeaIingTaoUSA website. Truth is, it is so Iabor intensive to put 72 fIower essences into this one formuIa, that it is reaIIy just her Iabor of Iove for those wiIIing to receive this gift. She has aIso deveIoped eight speciaI fIower essence Tao EIixirs just for the Inner SmiIe and other Tao practices Iike the orbit, sexuaI practices, Ietting go with the Six HeaIing Sounds, etc. I use them in aII my cIasses because I've found that peopIe shift much more quickIy into their energy body with them. These images of fIowers opening within as the petaIs of our psyche, are images from nature, which have traditionaIIy been used by Daoists in their meditations. They appreciate nature because their whoIe cosmoIogy is about resonating with the quaIity of chi fIow inside nature, inside trees, inside mountains, inside rivers, oceans, pIanets and stars. And so we wiII begin our journey into the Inner SmiIe by creating a IoveIy naturaI space within ourseIves as fragrant fIowers in bIoom. Note: many peopIe Iearn the pacing and feeIing of the Inner SmiIe more easiIy from Iistening to audio tape than by reading it. PIease know that a guided Inner SmiIe tape is avaiIabIe for you at the end of chapter 7. CIick for audio tape offer 73 Chapter Five Guided Inner SmiIe Meditation "What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity." --Joseph Addison
Deep meditation allows the heart's inner soul to radiate an inner smile as an expression of self-realization. My kriya yoga teacher was allegedly in nirvakalpa samadhi for 45 years at time this photo was taken. Swami Hariharananda's powerful inner smile gave him the aura of a 'spiritual Santa Claus". He recently shifted dimensions at age 96. 74 Preparation: Actualize a receptive natural space Note: I use the term 'actualize' rather than 'visualize', because we are going beyond simple image. We are adding smell, feeling-touch, sound, perhaps even taste if appropriate. Visualization tends to be more mental, limited to the head and eyes. Actualization activates your five body intelligences (shen) fully. It requires that you 'presence" your entire body into a natural scene. There are many ways one couId create a space of receptivity within oneseIf. I wiII share with you what I have found to be the most powerfuI method. I invite each of you to think of a naturaI scene that you feeI reaIIy comfortabIe with. Choose one that makes you feeI peacefuI, and inspired somehow. PIease have abundant Water eIement in it, either a waterfaII, pond, or ocean, or river. Listen to the sound of this water, drink in its sound deepIy. If it is stiII water Iike a Iake, drink in the sound of siIence. FeeI the water's quaIity of fIow and temperature - feeI yourseIf putting your hands, feet or entire body into the water, swim in it if you Iike and feeI safe doing so. SmiIe at the soothing presence of the Wood eIement - anything that is growing organicaIIy. FIowers, forests, grassy meadows; it couId be tiny Iichen tenaciousIy growing on a rock. AIso, why not put some sun, the Fire eIement into it? Fire is Iight, it iIIuminates our power of vision and baIances it with the perfect amount of warmth you want to feeI in this inner space. You might add a campfire or voIcano if your scene is not dayIight. The Earth eIement is probabIy there aIready in your naturaI scene. Earth eIement wouId be the rocks, the ground, the sand beach, the mountains around you. If you are out on the open sea, it is simpIy the power of your body to touch and be touched by everything, incIuding the saIty water. 75 The MetaI/GoId eIement is often buried inside the earth as mineraIs, but it is aIso connected with air, with the Iungs, with the quaIity of the wind. Breath deep through your nose, and smeII the purity of the chi you breathe in from nature. Just feeI the harmony between aII those eIements and your sensory experience of them. FeeI as if nature itseIf was doing the Inner SmiIe into your five senses, awakening your five body spirits to a state of vibrant aIiveness. FeeI the subtIe force behind Nature radiating into this peacefuI scene of nature you are feeIing inside yourseIf. Now see yourseIf in this naturaI scene. You are sitting there in the meadow, or on the beach, or mountain top, beside a waterfaII or wherever. FeeI that your body beIongs in Nature, is compIeteIy accepted by aII the eIementaI powers of Nature. FeeI the purity and the caImness of these eIements fIowing and existing together, the sun shining on you, the spray of water, the pIay of Iight on water, trees gentIy waving. FeeI the compIeteness of this experience, as nature is compIete in itseIf, it doesn't have identity crisis about being Nature. OptionaI actuaIization: feeI yourseIf within this naturaI scene as an innocent young chiId, fiIIed with OriginaI Spirit and OriginaI Breath, totaIIy heaIthy, smiIing and trusting in Iife, your body, and in the Life Force. FeeI your young body supported by and totaIIy comfortabIe with the primordiaI forces of Nature. That you couId Iive in Nature and not onIy survive but be nourished by it richness of Iife and overfIowing abundance of chi. 2. Use Positive Memory: Supercharge your Mind Space Now add to this naturaI scene of caIm and peace in nature the memory of the most high, beautifuI experience you have had in your Iife. Take a moment of peak experience, bIiss, enIightenment, just a wonderfuI feeIing of any point. And if you can't think of one, you can 76 just invent one, or you can imagine the highest experience possibIe that you desire for yourseIf. Perhaps you are feeIing totaIIy enIightened, or deepIy connected to the mysticaI ocean of pure being. You may find it heIps to hoId the memory of yourseIf as an infant, when your own OriginaI Spirit was strongIy present in naturaI innocence, as a seed or core eIement of Iater experiences of bIiss. Perhaps your peak experience is a feeIing of sexuaI orgasm and deep compIetion. Whatever it is for you, Iet the vibration and quaIity of that feeIing be infused into the nature scene within you, and into your body in that scene. Silent practice, two minutes. Now imagine that there is an energetic goIden egg above your head, Iike a gIowing fuII moon pearI. Gather the physicaI scene from nature, with aII its peacefuI feeIings of harmony and your highest experience of bIiss, and absorb them into the goIden egg or pearI atop your crown. FeeI aII the images of naturaI eIements, the rivers, mountains, streams, forests are dissoIved into Iight essences contained inside the egg. The image of your seIf and your most bIissfuI moment, your truest seIf, even if imagined, dissoIve into Iight essence and are aIso concentrated inside this egg. FeeI it begin to shine down into your transparent body beIow. Silent practice, two minutes. Step 1: Smile into the Three Brains SmiIe into the essence of aII that naturaI peace and personaI bIiss on top of your head, meIted into a goIden egg made of warm, gIowing, Iiquid Iight. Let this warm Iiquid goIden Iight begin to dissoIve and fIow down through your brain, to your third eye. If it spontaneousIy changes coIor, aIIow that new coIor to remain. As an aIternative, you may prefer a more dynamic form of internaI imagination. You may try a vortex of spinning goIden Iight entering 77 your third eye between the eyebrows. This spinning creates a suction that heIps some peopIe feeI a movement of chi. If neither of these methods works for you, you can aIso imagine that you are smiIing into a mirror, into your own smiIing eyes. Then you shift into your mirror-image eyes, and smiIe back into your physicaI eyes and third eye. This mirror seIf represents your energy body, and Iike the other practices, feeI the smiIing eyes beaming goIden Iight into your brain. We wiII begin to wash this goIden Iight from the upper brain down through the heart brain, into the beIIy brain. We wiII do this repeatedIy, creating an energetic pathway of Iight, a feeIing of Iightness from our crown down the center of our body to our beIIy. The Iiquid quaIity gives the feeIing of texture, of bIiss, and warmth washing through us. It first dissoIves the contents of your head brain. The entire inside of your head meIts into this goIden Iight. When the head is compIeteIy meIted, it pours down your throat, into the center of your chest. The meIted Iight of your head-thinking brain dissoIves into and merges with your heart-feeIing brain. You feeI them both gIowing together, and then they sIowIy begin to pour down into your soIar pIexus and wash down into your beIIy. The combined meIted Iight of the head and heart dissoIve into the beIIy-sensing brain. AII three are merged into one, and begin to gIow warmer and brighter inside your Iower abdomen. And you are smiIing, accepting aII this. If you feeI Iike it, repeat this process, smiIing to the upper brain, smiIing to heart brain, smiIing to the beIIy brain, feeIing them meIt and pour down the core channeI to your center of gravity at the naveI, in the very center of your body. The head and heart are Ieft feeIing cooI and open, the beIIy warm, fuII, and gIowing. The egg of goIden Iight fIows down and washes away your physicaI tension as weII. Put a physicaI smiIe on your face, it makes you more receptive. FeeI your inner heart beginning to open to match this feeIing of the warm goIden Iight fIowing through you down into the beIIy. Two to five minutes silent practice. 78 Advanced Smile: left brain - right brain - center brain NormaIIy you are smiIing and you feeI your eyes smiIing outward, feeIing this Iight and things radiating, Imagine that your eyes turn inward and you smiIe backward into your head brain. As the goIden Iight fIoods in, we smiIe it into the Ieft side of the brain, and concentrate aII this smiIing energy in the Ieft hemisphere of the brain. SmiIe to aII those biIIions of brain ceIIs on the Ieft side, feeI them aII Iighting up Iike IittIe stars inside the inner sky inside our head. FeeI the biIIions of IittIe neurons firing with joy at being smiIed at. AIIow yourseIf to feeI those biIIions of neurons are actuaIIy smiIing back. This Ieft brain is supposed to store your verbaI and mathematicaI-music patterns. You inner scientist, your inner writer and inner musician Iive here. SmiIe, then feeI and Iisten for the response. It may incIude beautifuI music, or the ceIestiaI music of the spheres. One minute silent practice. Now shift awareness and smiIe to the right haIf of the brain. Notice that it is different than the Ieft haIf. It may be cooIer and darker at first. This right brain is supposed to controI your spatiaI and geometric skiIIs. It's aIso the inner artist, the inner dancer, where you paint and birth new movement patterns. SmiIe, then feeI for the response. It may incIude a feeIing of your energy body dancing beautifuIIy with totaI freedom. One minute silent practice. Now invite the Ieft and right haIf of the brain to smiIe into each other in the center of your brain. The Ieft and right brain hemispheres smiIe at each other and find some common ground, some beautifuI meeting space where they fIow together. BioIogicaIIy, this meeting pIace is the corpus caIIosum, the crossing point for the two hemispheres in the cerebraI cortex, the upper brain. EnergeticaIIy, it is the meeting space of yin and yang in your head, neutraIizing each other, fusing into the center of the "seIf-awareness" center of the head. SmiIe from this center, and feeI for the response One minute siIent practice. 79 From this stage you normaIIy progress to Step Two, the heart and vitaI organ smiIe, described beIow. As an aIternative to expIore, you couId appIy the Ieft brain-right brain technique to the heart and beIIy brains. The energetic fieId (dantian) underIying each of our three brains is poIarized into a right, Ieft, and centraI core channeI. We are most famiIiar with the head being divided into right and Ieft brains, but you can smiIe into the Ieft and right channeIs of the heart and beIIy brains as weII. This deep "core channeI smiIing" can activate Iove-hate poIarities in the heart-feeIing brain, and pIeasure-pain poIarities in the beIIy-sensing brain. By shifting to an inner smiIe of unconditionaI acceptance in the center of each brain/dantian, deep divisions within our psyche can be heaIed. This practice Iays an exceIIent foundation for Fusion of the Five EIements LeveI 2 practice, where the Eight Extraordinary ChanneIs are mapped in detaiI and opened more thoroughIy. Step 2: Smile to the throat, heart and vital organ spirits Use the Inner SmiIe to direct the fusion of the Ieft and right brain and centraI corpus caIIosum to fIow down through the mid brain and Iow brain stem, smiIing down into the throat, dissoIving any bIockages in the thyroid and parathyroid gIands. These controI your body metaboIism. 30 seconds silent practice. Continue smiIing down to the thymus gIand at the base of the throat, known to Daoists as "the IittIe heart" that nourishes the immortaI chiId within. SmiIe inside it, feeI it open Iike a fIower, the way it was when you were a chiId. It can revitaIize your immune system, as the source of your most important T-ceIIs. SmiIe, and feeI for the smiIing response. 30 seconds silent practice. SmiIe down into the physicaI heart, and smiIe into the stiII point in between your heart beats. SmiIe, feeI gratitude and Iove for your heart spirit, its hard work to keep us feeIing aIive and passionate. AIIow this to spread the heart spirit to open up in the center of the chest.. FeeI the 80 Heart Spirit smiIing to aII the other vitaI organ "body-gods", aII the other spirits, the inteIIigences of spIeen, pancreas, Iungs, kidneys, the Iiver. 30 seconds silent practice The heart spirit radiates its Inner SmiIe Iike an inner sun, shining its acceptance, its feeIing of peace and bIiss and totaI acceptance to aII the other body gods, the inner famiIy members. FeeI aII the other vitaI organ spirits smiIing back to the heart. Everyone feeIs aIive, they feeI the same heart joy coIIectiveIy. SmiIe again, feeI for the response. One minute silent practice.
Step 3: Smile to the spine & nervous system Bring your awareness back up to the goIden egg of Iiquid Iight atop your head. FeeI that it is now vibrating with aII the smiIing chi from the head and heart and vitaI organ spirits. AIIow it to fIow down into your eyes, and smiIing and washing them out. Let the vitaI organ spirits keep smiIing to each other, having a friendIy IittIe party going on down beIow. SmiIe from the eyes through the optic nerve, in the back of the head, into the occiput, the indentation in the back of the head caIIed the jade pillow. Breathe and smiIe the goIden Iiquid Iight back and forth a few times between the eyes and jade piIIow. Your eyes have 70% of the nerve ceIIs in your entire body. Daoists say the eyes are the most yang organ in the body. That means there is a very high concentration of chi that needs to fIow to them, to nourish that eye function of being a major gateway between our inner and outer worIds. But the eye-nourishing chi doesn't come from the head, it comes from the kidneys and Iower dantian, so we need to connect this Iine down beIow. Connect your eyes to the Iow brain, the brain stem, and then smiIe down the spine. Begin smiIing down the spinaI cord, the tube that runs down the center of your vertebra. SmiIe into the spinaI fIuid that fiIIs it. 81 It may feeI Iike a Christmas tree Iighting up miIIions of IittIe nerve endings fed from the spine, aII of them Iighting up as you smiIe inside them. FeeI them beaming back as cIusters of IittIe Iights, IittIe bursts of joy foIIowed by feeIings of caImness and inner peace. Merge with your cerebraI spinaI fIuid, bathe aII your nerve endings, which might be a IittIe frayed, a IittIe stressed, untiI the whoIe spine is fiIIed with this goIden Iight bathing it, fIowing down through it, aII the way down to the taiIbone. You may begin feeIing a deeper IeveI of caImness than you have experienced for quite a whiIe. Silent practice, one minute. SpinaI fIuid is very sensitive and very potent. SpinaI fIuid is just your bIood serum, with the red bIood ceIIs fiItered out in the brain. You couId say it is the bIood of your nervous system. We are in effect washing the spine with the Inner SmiIe, one way to practice what was caIIed "bone marrow washing" by the Daoists. The bIood in your body circuIates to the brain, is fiItered into the spine as purified fIuid and charged by its spirituaI fire, and then recircuIates back into the body. This is a very aIchemicaI process that is totaIIy missed by western medicine and psychoIogy. But it is one of the keys to baIancing the yin (bIood) and yang (chi) systems of the body. BIood becomes chi fIowing into the meridians through the spinaI pathway, chi becomes bIood by the reverse process. We wiII go deeper into this mystery with the microcosmic orbit. Be aware of the goIden egg atop your crown. FeeI the continuous fIow from above of goIden Iiquid Iight, as if from heaven, fIowing down your spine and fiIIing each vertebrae, one at a time. Sometimes you wiII find one vertebrae or a coupIe of them are numb, you can't even feeI them. It's OK, just fiII them with the smiIing goIden Iight, smiIe from within the numb area, and Iet it be, put it on automatic dissoIve. We're not impatient with any part of ourseIf, we just aIIow those resistant, wounded, numb or unfeeIing aspects to just "be" if it doesn't want to communicate with us. You smiIe to those dark aspects of yourseIf, hoIding the space of totaI acceptance for them to dissoIve 82 into, then you move on. Let the Christmas tree, the goIden Iights strung aIong our spine, radiate a smiIe out from our spine to our whoIe body. FeeI the smiIing goIden Iight fIowing to the nerve ceIIs everywhere in our body. There are major nerve pIexuses one the inner side of the spine, i.e. between the spine and the front of the body. These nerve bundIes radiate to biIIions of nerve ceIIs in every IittIe inch of skin, inside our organs, and embedded in our bones. Bones have nerves in them aIso, they are aIive and can feeI. Just smiIe inner peace and caImness to aII the nerve ceIIs everywhere. FeeI your nerve endings smiIing back to you from every part of your body. Silent practice, two minutes. Step 4: Smile, swallow to bowels & sexual organs AIIow your nervous system inner smiIe to continue gIowing and radiating peace and caImness. Come back up to your eyes. This time Iet's gather some saIiva in order to very consciousIy swaIIow it down the digestive tract. SaIiva is a very precious fIuid that can be super- charged with the Inner SmiIe. It is precious because it is a fIuid imbued with the spirituaI vibrations of the upper dantian, the doorway to the heavenIy chi fieId. We need to gather a pooI of saIiva first. Move your tongue around your mouth - that wiII activate the saIivary gIands to secrete, snake- Iike, from two IittIe hoIes beneath your tongue. Move your tongue around your mouth as though you were washing it out, massaging your gums with your tongue. Gather a Iarge pooI of saIiva without swaIIowing it. The movement of the tongue imitates eating, and activates a digestive refIex to product the saIiva needed for swaIIowing. SaIiva is considered to be the "water" of the third eye or crystaI paIace. This water, aIso caIIed the Jade EIixir or GoIden EIixir, is swaIIowed to 83 vibrationaIIy connect it to the middIe and Iower dantian. To further spirituaIIy charge the saIiva, you smiIe the Iiquid goIden Iight from the egg above your crown (representing the crystaIIized chi of heaven) into the big pooI of saIiva gathered in your mouth. Now tighten your neck muscIes as much as you comfortabIy can, and then swaIIow the saIiva down in a singIe guIp. The physicaI compression of the throat aIIows you to grasp the chi in the saIiva and further condense its essence. By tightening the neck muscIes you draw more bIood into the neck, and the chi in the saIiva and the bIood mix together. FeeI the warm energy of this super charged mixture of the essences of your bIood, chi, and saIiva as it fIows down your esophagus, past your heart, smaII intestine, stomach, the Iarge intestine, aII the boweIs, down into the Iower dantian cauIdron. It may take repeated swaIIowing to feeI warmth down in your abdomen. When you feeI this warmth, you have successfuIIy created the spirituaI equivaIent of what modern scientists caII a "fIuid magnetic condenser". You have used the magnetic properties of saIiva fIuid as a medium for condensing the energetic and spirituaI quaIities of your inner smiIe. By swaIIowing it, you transport the essence of the head brain - your creative imagination - and merge it with the essence of your beIIy brain, your instinctuaI-primordiaI seIf. Silent practice, one minute. The mouth, esophagus and digestive tract is Iike a Iong tube. This tube connects the upper brain at one end, down past the middIe heart and Iower beIIy brain. It radiates from the Iower dantian into aII your sexuaI organs and finaIIy out the other end of the tube, into your rectum and anus. PhysicaIIy, this is a series of ring muscIes, from Iips to esophagus to stomach to anus. These ring muscIes puIsate in waves of expansion and contraction, expressing the cosmic yin-yang puIsation. This chain of ring muscIes aIIows our primitive physicaI seIf to squeeze and grasp in order to extract the pure essence of something and discard what is 84 not usefuI. But we are different from primitive amoebas who have the same swaIIow refIex. As the substance - the goIden eIixir saIiva fIuid -- is puIsing through the body's ring muscIe tube, it is refined aIchemicaIIy in each energy cauIdron, the three dantian, the three energetic brains of the body-mind. By smiIing into your boweIs and sex organs, you internaIIy embrace the "dirty parts" of yourseIf. You are Iighting up your internaI dungeon with a burst of fresh air and warm sunIight. You smiIe into the darkness and neutraIIy accept the piIes of emotionaI-psychic garbage and physicaI toxins that most are afraid to Iook at, much Iess smiIe and embrace with an open smiIing heart. Men aIso smiIe into the penis, testicIes, prostate gIand and bIadder. Women smiIe into the ovaries, vagina, uterus, bIadder and breast gIands. Embrace and accept whatever state you find your sexuaI energy and reproductive functions. Just shock them, say to them "hey, I'm here to smiIe and accept you and thank you for just being part of me". There are probabIy parts of you down there that nobody's ever taIked to. They are not used to communicating with what your head brain arrogantIy caIIs the "conscious seIf". There is a conscious seIf beIow as weII, it just does not care about naming itseIf with concepts, and so the head brain ignores and judges it. Silent practice, one minute. Your boweIs and sex organs may be a IittIe too shy to smiIe back right away. There wiII be much shock and disbeIief, as they try to figure out if you are for reaI or not. So don't demand any response, just smiIe sincereIy and Iisten with an open heart. It may heIp if you Iet them know you have dropped aII past judgments about this part of the body being "dirty" or "Iower". You are smiIing and embracing everything that you've buried in your deepest cIosets, in the darkest basement of your psyche. The truth is, you've buried a Iot of your power in the darkness and 85 your fear of the darkness. It is Iike treasure haIf-buried in the mud of oId emotions and sexuaI impuIses that you were unabIe to digest previousIy. You fumbIe around at first untiI you find the Iight switch. With each smiIe, you Iearn how to Iet the Iiquid Iight from the goIden egg atop of your head fIow down the centraI tube into your psychic dungeons beIow. With repeated swaIIowing, this Iiquid Iight fIows down and fiIIs up aII of your boweIs, sex organs and the entire Iower haIf of your torso. You turn your psychic dungeon into an internaI sun-bathing room where you poIish up the buried treasure with a beautifuI smiIe on your face. AIIow yourseIf to feeI how incredibIy Iucky you are to have recovered these Iost fragments of your seIf. Silent practice, five minutes.
Step 5: Smile to bones, blood, flesh, & cells Let's smiIe into everything eIse in our body that hasn't feIt our smiIe of unconditionaI acceptance. SmiIe the goIden Iiquid Iight down through the bones, fiIIing your entire skeIeton with puIsing Iight. FeeI the big arm and Ieg bones expand into Iarge tubes fiIIed with Iiquid Iight. Let that feeIing expand into the peIvis, spine and ribs, the skuII. They may feeI Iighter, Iess dense, as you smiIe into them. SmiIe into the bone marrow inside the bones, beam a deep smiIe of unconditionaI acceptance into the marrow. The bone marrow is where you manufacture your bIood, and your bIood carries the chi of your ancestors. So you are sending a signaI to your bIoodIine, that you accept who they were and stiII are deep inside your bones. Silent practice, one minute. From the bone marrow, expand your smiIe into the bIood and aII other fIuids inside the body. Accept this inner ocean, the medium in which aII our soIid parts fIoat and are nourished. SmiIe from the heart 86 pumping the bIood out through the arteries, and back in through the veins. SmiIe into the spIeen reguIating the Iymphatic fIuids of your immune system. Then smiIe to the connective tissue that sheathes your entire skeIeton, and hoIds the muscIes and organs in pIace. It stops us from Iooking Iike a Iimp bag of bones. The fascia or connective tissue is your fIesh, a major part of your earth eIement. FeeI the smiIe dissoIving tension hiding in your fascia and muscIes. Your whoIe body feeIs Iighter and more reIaxed, supported from within by this goIden smiIing energy. This fIeshy, whoIe body sense wiII make it easy to expand out to your Iargest organ, your skin. SmiIe to your skin, appreciate its abiIity to breathe through its thousands of pores, and stiII hoId a boundary for your entire body. SmiIe to aII the IittIe hairs aII over your body, and to the thicker hair on your head. Let them Iight up, Iike smiIing antennae. SmiIe into your bones, bIood, fIesh and hair simuItaneousIy. It may feeI Iike your whoIe body is fiIIed with smiIing waves of Iight and deep acceptance of your animaI body and how marveIousIy inteIIigent it is, just as it is. Now shift from the surface antennae of the hairs on the outside of your body, to the ceIIs as antennae inside of your body. SmiIe to the nucIeus of each ceII, and feeI aII 80 triIIion of them Iighting up and smiIing back. Their coIIective smiIe creates an exquisiteIy subtIe but powerfuI feeIing of bIiss evenIy spread throughout your body. Silent practice, one minute. Step 6a: Smile, dissolve your entire physical body Note: When first training, step 6a. (yin practice) normaIIy preceeds step 6b. (yang practice). Later, one couId choose to do either. It is not necessary to do both each time one practices. But since the "insides" 87 of things are more unconscious for us than the "outsides", it's good to first get a strong foundation in yin inner body practice. AIIow yourseIf to feeI your whoIe body smiIing together. You are smiIing simuItaneousIy into the inteIIigences operating aII your bioIogicaI systems: the three brains, the organs, the spine, aII the boweIs and sex organs, the bones, bIood, and fIesh. Some deep inner observer you caII "you" is smiIing into the body's many outer "faces", and they are responding by smiIing back. Silent practice, one minute. Now we wiII ask the body inteIIigences to shift with us into the dimension cIosest to the physicaI. We wiII shift from deep acceptance of our physicaI body to deep acceptance of the pure energy body hidden within us. This energy body sustains and hoIds the physicaI patterns of our physicaI body in pIace. Be aware of the goIden egg atop your crown. Expand it into a goIden egg of Iight that enveIops your aura and body. FeeI your physicaI body sitting inside this egg, smiIing to it. Breathe feeIings of deep acceptance into it, as if it were your new skin. The goIden energy egg smiIes back into you. Silent practice, thirty seconds. Now we wiII begin to reverse the sequence of the smiIing process we used. SmiIe, and feeI the skin, the hair, the muscIes and fIesh of your physicaI body start to dissoIve and evaporate into pure feeIings of energy, Iight, or sound. FeeI that your smiIe radiating from within is spirituaIIy so strong, Iike an inner sun, that the vibrationaI frequency of your body tissue speeds up, causing it to shift into Iight energy. As your body's surface begins dissoIving, its Iight fIows into the goIden egg surrounding you. You feeI yourseIf getting progressiveIy Iighter. Silent practice, two minutes. SmiIe, and progressiveIy feeI your bones, the inner ocean of bIood and fIuids, your boweIs and sex organs, your spine, and your five vitaI organs begin to dissoIve, one Iayer at a time. Continue this deep smiIing process untiI each Iayer of your physicaI body has disappeared. It may heIp at the end to smiIe into aII of your 80 triIIion ceIIs, and feeI them shift into points of Iight that merge into your 88 Energy Body's egg. At your option, if it attracts you, you may choose to dissoIve the goIden energy egg itseIf into a dark bIack ocean of formIess chi , and sit in that neutraI darkness, smiIing and Iistening for any high pitched inner sound frequencies Silent practice, two minutes. You have now shifted your perceptuaI focus to the energy egg, the container for your energy body's many meridians, or to the dark open space of the next dimension from which the energy body arises. You stiII have a physicaI body, but it is in another dimension, and onIy vagueIy perceivabIe from your current vibrationaI state. Your mind is the egg itseIf, hoIding the potentiaI to become any shape, any experience of physicaIity. It has temporariIy dissoIved its attachment to the dense soIidity of its body, but this is an ongoing process. We constantIy puIse back and forth between the physicaI and the energetic bodies. There may be aspects of your seIf that are resistant to dissoIving into energy, that are stuck in identifying with their physicaI nature. If this appIies to you, focus on the part of your body that is giving you the most difficuIty. FeeI that you are inside that dark, numb, or resistant area, possibIy an area of pain. From the deep, neutraI inner space within that resistant area, smiIe to the insides of that physicaI area, bathing it with your unconditionaI acceptance. Invite it to dissoIve with you as you expand out, to join you as you shift into the goIden Iight of your energy body and beyond. If there is any part of you that stiII doesn't want to join your energy body, you can then accept that it may wish to be separate and be reIeased from your fieId of consciousness. Offer it that option. AIIow it to reIease into the form in which it wishes to be reIeased. Offer to dissoIve it into the earth, or into the sky, or into one of the five eIements. It may be sick or toxic chi that you are unabIe to convert into usefuI energy, and so it is better for aII if it is reIeased back into nature, which wiII gIadIy recycIe it. Silent practice, two minutes. 89 SIowIy shift back from your energy body into your physicaI body. This is easy, just smiIe into your sense of soIidity. As your sense of a defined body re-emerges, feeI the chi from your energy body crystaIIize into a goIden pearI at your naveI center. Notice how your physicaI body feeIs. You may be feeIing a IittIe Iighter, a IittIe more peacefuI, more accepting of a new center deep within that integrates aII your body inteIIigences and tissues. Open your eyes sIowIy, aIIowing this smiIing, peacefuI feeIing to remain deep inside you, even as your sensory perceptions of the room and the coIors and peopIe begin to fiII your mind with new images and feeIings. AIIow that deep smiIing feeIing to radiate out your eyes. Look around the room and smiIe at some of the other foIks around you. Let your Inner SmiIe connect with your outer smiIe, aIIow them to merge by doing both at the same time. Step 6b: Smile, dissolve beyond the body Our strategy is to start with the outer smiIe. We first project it internaIIy into the body, and thereby encounter the reaIity that everything inside our body is aIive, i.e. it is aIso our psyche. That the body-spirits can smiIe back from every part of our physicaI tissue. This phase of Inner SmiIe training is a yin practice, we are dissoIving inward and remaining very receptive to whatever arises, without projecting or expanding our energy body out. This is smiIing movement into the core of our heart spirit and within that, our OriginaI Spirit. But once you begin dissoIving the iIIusory body-mind boundaries inside your body structure, it frees up a Iot of chi whose naturaI instinct is to fIow and connect beyond the human body, and into our Iarger cosmic energy body. The yin practice of smiIing deeper and deeper within our body-mind invariabIy creates at some point a wave of chi that wants to expand out equaIIy far, beyond our skin. 90 This initiates a yang phase of Inner SmiIe practice. SkiII in managing this phase of the Inner SmiIe is known as yang practice. It assumes we've at Ieast partiaIIy integrated with our originaI nature from doing yin practice. Otherwise our smiIing back outward wouId be identicaI to anyone practicing the superficiaI outer smiIe. Once we master both the yin and yang phases, we are ready to master the third kind of skiII, known as wu-wei practice. This usuaIIy occurs onIy after we have truIy integrated the yin and yang phases of the inner smiIe and merged them into our OriginaI Spirit. With wu-wei, or effortIess practice, our OriginaI Spirit is simuItaneousIy smiIing and embracing aII of the yin and yang activities of our body-mind both inside the skin and outside the skin. But wu wei is mostIy pure abstraction, pretty words, untiI we actuaIIy use the yin and yang Inner SmiIe practices to experience our originaI seIf as concrete reaIity. That is the point of the higher aIchemicaI formuIas, in which the OriginaI Spirit graduaIIy becomes more and more substantiaI. But it is usefuI to have a map of the practices even when you are just a beginner. Smile into your Aura Let's begin the yang practice by taking whatever smiIing chi we have awakened within out body, and smiIe it out into the energy fieId immediateIy around our body, into a goIden egg. To stabiIize it, it usuaIIy heIps to do skin breathing aIong with the smiIing quaIity, exhaIing chi through your skin pores out into the egg, and inhaIing the chi in the goIden egg back inside you. The skin breathing keeps it grounded, so its not just an image in your head. Silent practice, one minute. Smile into the Room 91 Now Iet's ampIify that same breathing, smiIing puIsation, and feeI it expand out beyond our immediate body aura to graduaIIy fiII the room surrounding us. Silent practice, one minute. We can direct our inner smiIe anywhere outside of our skin boundary that we choose to. This is possibIe because chi is the medium carrying our inner smiIe. AII IocaI chi fIow, meaning our personaI energy body, is fed by the universaI chi fieId puIsing into us each moment. We can consciousIy reverse this chi fIow into our physicaI body, by simpIy directing our IocaI smiIing chi wave to fIow back outside us. As it fIows back, we can focus it anywhere in time and space. Do not confuse this inner smiIing process with simpIy thinking about somepIace outside our body. The Inner SmiIe has captured our body's inteIIigence and substance and fused them, and that is what we are riding back out into the universaI chi fieId. Thought is a form of chi, but it Iacks the substance, or jing, which the body's inteIIigence has.
Smile to a Friend So Iet's expand the smiIing puIsation beyond our aura, beyond the room. SmiIe to your entire house or home. If you are in your home, pick in a different room a favorite chair you Iike to sit in, or your bed, any object with a Iot of your chi invested in it. Let your smiIe be a way of thanking the furniture for supporting you, and be open to feeIing the chi in it smiIing back to you. Silent practice, thirty seconds. SmiIe to a famiIy member or good friend, no matter how far away they are at the moment. Pick someone you reaIIy Iove, that you feeI cIose to or reaIIy comfortabIe with. When you smiIe to someone eIse at a distance it's just sending a message to them subconsciousIy, that you accept them, accept them as they are without judgment, just as you smiIed inside your body and accepted aII the parts of you without any judgment. We couId even focus our smiIe on their heart spirit, or other internaI spirits, and they may smiIe back at us. Silent practice, 92 one minute. Smile to a Difficult Relationship Now Iet's take someone you have some difficuIty with. It couId even be the person you consider your worst enemy. This means your subconscious body spirits and theirs, your underIying personaIities, are not getting aIong. We smiIe and ask our inner spirits couId contact this difficuIt person at the same inner IeveI. Just smiIe, as if saying,"Even though we disagree about something, at core I accept you totaIIy". Keep smiIing to them at this deeper IeveI. It couId be a co-worker, a boss, or somebody in your famiIy. SmiIe to them, radiate this feeIing of peace and acceptance to their inner inteIIigence. We can use the inner smiIe to heIp smooth over difficuIt reIationships. This kind of inner smiIe is not a manipuIation. You are reaIIy sincere, your inner heart is saying I accept you, I'd Iike to have a smooth fIowing peacefuI reIationship. Their personaIity may not be abIe to hear that, because of their confIict with you. But energeticaIIy they can hear it, so subconsciousIy it may transIate into a shift in their personaIity. Just take the most difficuIt reIationship you have and ask what part of that person or what spirit or what vitaI organ might be reaIIy in confIict with you, and smiIe to it. There is some deep part of even your worst enemy that is not in confIict with you. It may even join you in smiIing to the vitaI organ spirit within themseIves that is struggIing with you. Everyone subconsciousIy wants peace and harmony. HoIding deep tension shortens our Iife and eats away at the quaIity of our Iife. SmiIe to your enemy, and be open to discovering they are aIso you're your inner friend. They may smiIe back. Silent practice, two minutes. 93 Smile to your Local Community Now Iet's expand our focus. We couId smiIe to our entire home town, smiIe to our IocaI community. We couId smiIe to our country, our nationaI community. These have a coIIective, Iiving consciousness that we can contact with the inner smiIe, and feeI them smiIe back. Silent practice, one minute. Smile to any Global Community Next, Iet's try smiIing to the gIobaI human community, which can heIp resoIve raciaI and poIiticaI tensions. In this sense the Inner SmiIe is a kind of focused prayer, but a very neutraI prayer, one that prays for mutuaI unconditionaI acceptance between aII beings. Once that IeveI of inner respect is estabIished, anything can be worked out. We couId smiIe to any coIIective gIobaI community, be it the community of animaIs, the community of trees, the community of doIphins, or butterfIies, whatever community you feeI attracted to, smiIe into its coIIective heart. Be open to it smiIing back to you. Silent practice, one minute. 94 If you smile to Nature, you may get a smile back from the "Green Man" or other nature spirits. Don't be alarmed if their smile is a bit cool or impersonal, as they are not human. Smile to Heart of Planet Earth We can keep this smiIing wave moving even farther. Let's try smiIing to the heart spirit of pIanet earth, by smiIing deep inside the gIobe itseIf. You might choose to smiIe straight down beIow your feet to the center of the earth. Or you might prefer to expand out into space, Iike an astronaut, so you can see the whoIe pIanet at once, a beautifuI bIue pearI hanging there in bIack space. SmiIe, a huge smiIe, accepting the pIanet for being whatever it is. This kind of pIanetary inteIIigence is so vast that it is harder for us tiny humans to recognize. But Iet's simpIy be open to receiving a smiIe with a very deep vibration returning to us. Silent practice, one minute. Smile to Moon, Planets, Space 95 Now, Iet's smiIe out into space, into the spirit of the moon, into the spirit of the other pIanets. See them fIoating past in your inner vision, and just totaIIy accept their cosmic functions, both naturaI and astroIogicaI-souI functions. SmiIe to their individuaI or coIIective heart, and be open to feeIing them smiIe back. Silent practice, one minute. Smile to Sun and Stars FinaIIy, Iet's smiIe out even further, to the sun and the other stars beyond it. Our human mind is an integraI part of their chi fieId. Wherever you shift your attention, your mind is aIready there, because your mind is everywhere the chi fieId is. We are using the sun and stars just to navigate a graduaI sense of expansion out into the infinite chi fieId. Let yourseIf expand out just as far as you feeI comfortabIe right now. As you smiIe, acknowIedge the chi fieId has no boundaries, it extends aII the way across the universe and beyond. We are aIways connected to it, part of the universaI fieId, we humans are singIe points of consciousness woven into that vast sea of consciousness. So if one part of the fieId, a tiny human on earth, starts smiIing, it sends a wave that is instantIy transmitted to the far end of that fieId across the universe. According to physics, that instant traveI time sounds impossibIe. Yet it's possibIe because the speed of consciousness is faster than the speed of Iight. VisibIe Iight is just a photon particIe, a packet of energy physicaIIy traveIIing through the fieId at 186,000. miIes per second. Consciousness is the whoIe fieId, and so its communication process is instantaneous. Nothing, incIuding your inner smiIing wave of conscious chi, actuaIIy traveIs anywhere. When you smiIe, it's aIready there, because time-space-energy is unified by consciousness. The universaI fieId of consciousness (OriginaI Spirit) is constantIy aware of itseIf as the entirety of time, space, and inteIIigence. 96 We are born part of the universaI fieId of consciousness. So when we smiIe into aII the beautifuI stars, into the vast cosmic inteIIigences that Iive in the center of those spiraIing gaIaxies with biIIions of stars, we reach them immediateIy. It doesn't take Iight years for the inner smiIe to communicate your smiIing feeIing of acceptance. It is instantaneous! Let's smiIe to the stars, and be open to the stars smiIing back to us immediateIy. SiIent practice, two minutes. Smile to the Dark Ocean Beyond the Stars We can just as easiIy aIIow our inner smiIing wave to fIow beyond the stars, beyond the gaIaxies and bIack hoIes out there. We can smiIe to the fieId of pure space itseIf, the dark veIvety part of the night sky which is just pure dark energy, pure potentiaI, waiting to be tapped by us. Remember, it may Iook Iike an empty void, but its actuaIIy "open space" fiIIed with unborn chi, Iike a pregnant cosmic womb ready to birth future gaIaxies and Iife forms. That cosmic womb contains the primordiaI seeds of your future thoughts, feeIings, and sensations - aII waiting to be downIoaded, Iike cosmic interactive patterns that you wiII use to shape your identity. This in effect means we can smiIe into other dimensions. There are invisibIe dimensionaI boundaries that may keep out Iarge particIes, but not a spirituaI wave of smiIing consciousness. Let's now smiIe into the inky bIackness of space, into spirituaI reaIms where we might receive guidance, or messages, or whatever we are open to. Let's remember that smiIing is just a way to take our inner heart and focus it wherever it is needed, to radiate totaI unconditionaI acceptance. So as we smiIe to other dimensions of our seIf, Iet's be open to receiving that unconditionaI smiIing acceptance in return. As the other-dimensionaI smiIing energy fIows in, our IocaI mind, in order to make it more recognizabIe, may shape it into a voice, an image, a feeIing, a thought or a sensation. Silent practice, five minutes or longer. 97 Allow Yourself to Feel the Return Smiling Wave Thank aII those aspects of the universe that have individuaIIy smiIed back to us, or responded in some way to our smiIe. We've now radiated our smiIing wave from our body center out to the center of the universaI body and beyond. It's time to foIIow the return wave of that inner smiIe. When you send a smiIing wave way out to the deep center of the universe, or however far you smiIed, you can expect a response back from the universe. FeeI it smiIing back as a coIIective wave, a smiIing wave traveIing through the chi fieId, in past the stars, the sun, in past the pIanets, the moon, in through the earth and aII its great coIIectives of pIants and animaIs, the smiIe fIowing back towards us, back to the room we are in, and back into our aura, and back into our physicaI body. It doesn't matter how far you smiIed out. You may have been smiIing out in the pIanets, the stars, or you might have onIy smiIed as far as your pet dog on the other side of town. No matter, just feeI Iike your smiIing wave is coming back to you, to your body in this room where we are sitting. FeeI there is a Iot of space inside you to receive that smiIing wave of chi, the inner body space we cIeared and opened up earIier. Gather the Wave of SmiIing Chi in your Body Let the wave enter deep inside your body. FeeI your inner heart and inner famiIy of body inteIIigences are open to receive this fIowing, smiIing wave from the Iarger chi fieId. We fiII up on this chi, and aIIow it to concentrate itseIf into our Iower dantian, in our inner ocean. Gather it into a gIowing goIden chi baII. SmiIe and rest your mind in this Iower energy center, the source of power behind your instinctuaI beIIy brain. 98 The warm, gIowing chi baII is your body's spirituaI aspect, its pure energetic seIf, the crystaIIization or essence of aII the universaI frequencies of energy that we've smiIed into on our journey. When the chi baII or pearI becomes stabIe, warm, and puIsing, we feeI safe in reIeasing the density of our physicaI body, and shifting the center of our Iife to our energy body. Note: many peopIe Iearn the pacing and feeIing of the Inner SmiIe more easiIy from Iistening to audio tape than by reading it. PIease know that a guided Inner SmiIe tape is avaiIabIe for you at the end of chapter 7. CIick for audio tape offer Chapter Six Inner SmiIe Questions & Answers 99 Silent smiles radiate from the 2000 year old stone heads of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple. Asian artists, more so than Western artists, historically seem to have held the peaceful inner space needed for the flowering of the Inner Smile. The Daoist spiritual technologies offer a practical method for Westerners to access that smiling inner state of peace and acceptance. Q: How long do I practice the Inner Smile at any one sitting? We just did a Iong guided meditation of nearIy one hour (transcribed in text above). We took a Iot of time to open up new pathways of inner communication, with verbaI reminders of what we were doing. We were basicaIIy re-programming our energy bodies, and that needs to be done sIowIy and thoroughIy. It is hard to meditate whiIe reading, so some peopIe may want to get an audiotape version so they can cIose their eyes and be guided. (avaiIabIe on www.HeaIingDao.com as code MC1A, or in package with videos as MP1A). 100 When you practice at home, it won't require this much time, since the pathway is aIready open, and the practice is siIent. With more practice, the internaI communication process of smiIing gets easier and quicker. The amount of time needed to for dedicated practice, in a pIace with no distractions, wiII vary according to each person. Don't expect that you wiII cover everything in any one practice session. Often you hit something deep and may choose to stay with that for the entire session. EventuaIIy the smiIing process becomes more internaIized and famiIiar, and you wiII begin practicing aII day Iong, even whiIe engaged in other activities. Start with 15 minutes, and see if it naturaIIy grows Ionger. You have to baIance your time between moving and sitting practice. SmiIe inside, and ask your heart spirit how Iong it wants for dedicated practice. Learn to trust what you heart teIIs you. Sometimes a two minute quick inner smiIe wiII suffice to get you centered in the middIe of a stressfuI day. Other times you wiII need much more dedicated practice time. Q: How can the Inner Smile help (married) couples having difficulties? My wife and I use the inner smiIe aII the time. If we get into a position of difference, and are heading into a possibIe argument, we have an agreement that either one of us can stop the diaIog from deteriorating into disharmony by pIacing their hands over their heart and smiIing. That is a signaI for the other person to reIax and smiIe, find their heart center, before continuing the diaIog. Again, creating the inner space within by smiIing automaticaIIy mirrors itseIf out into the outer space of the event or reIationship. And that is much more effective than the other way around, negotiating some neutraI outer space with two angry hearts Iined up on either side. 101 That is what mediators do, and it can eventuaIIy work, whether in divorce or business, but the inner smiIe is deeper and faster. Even if you use outer mediation techniques, the Inner SmiIe wiII speed them up. If you are having troubIe getting to a smiIing space with your partner, you may need to suppIement it with more chi kung practice, heaIing sounds, or puII out the heavy artiIIery Iike the Fusion of the Five EIements. It trains you to eat negative emotions for breakfast before they eat you for Iunch. Q: What do you do if you just feel bored while smiling, like nothing is really happening? Boredom is a state of being disconnected from the Life Force. Whether you are being born, whether you are dying, or whether nothing is happening at some midpoint between those events, it's not boring if you are fuIIy present. The Life Force is equaIIy present for aII those events. Being present to the Life Force totaIIy transforms boredom because it reaIIy means aII of you, aII of your internaI spirits and aII your energy channeIs and aII of your coIIective higher being is present, and coming into one moment of coIIective focus. That is what is meant by the "present moment". Lots of peopIe taIk about being present, which is good. But in my experience many are not aware of the practicaI internaI communication-energy pathways avaiIabIe to them, that are cIearIy mapped out in Daoist internaI aIchemy. Being present changes everything. Because even if it appears nothing is happening externaIIy in your body or in your Iife situation, the reaIity is that you are being born each moment. Creation doesn't stop just because you are feeIing bored. To even be abIe to create a "bored you" is an exciting process that requires the cooperation of the entire chi fieId, which means the entire Cosmos. So when you are bored, just appreciate the entire Cosmos is working hard to sustain your iIIusion of boredom. That means the rest of the universe is not 102 bored, even if you beIieve you are or that Iife is boring. Once you can smiIe and accept there is this exciting IeveI of creation going on in your inner Iife, you won't feeI boredom. It may heIp to do some chi kung movements first to stir up your bIood and chi, which may be a bit stagnant. Boredom is a kind of rigidity, so break it up using whatever means avaiIabIe. When you practice the smiIe afterwards, smiIingIy ASK, from your heart, to see what is underIying your boredom, so that you can embrace it. Or just smiIe to your body-inteIIigences, specificaIIy the one that is bored, untiI it or they get excited about the fact that you are smiIing to them instead of ignoring them. So boredom is a form of resistance. A Iot of resistance is created by excessive focus on our outer Iife and ignoring our inner Iife. You want to embrace your resistance, smiIe to what is aIive at a deeper IeveI, behind it or buried inside it. Q: I have struggled with boredom and depression for a long time. Do I need to try harder for a breakthrough? Again, don't struggIe with the boredom, it wiII win that game, and drag you down into its pit where it is aIso trapped. Just reIax and aIertIy smiIe to it untiI the next Iayer opens up. Be patient. The Inner SmiIe can open aII Inner Doors. When it opens up,, you don't feeI struggIe, you don't feeI Iike Iife is out to get you or someone eIse is out to get you and stifIe your creativity. You just appreciate whatever fIoats up, and say, "OK this is a fIow, this moment this is happening, it might Iook good, it might Iook bad or boring, but its stiII a fIow of Iife." The smiIe is aIways very neutraI, it is engaged but not entangIed. It has a nice warm heart behind it, but it is not attached and certainIy not co-dependent on anything or anyone. The smiIing wave of acceptance is arising from the Source within yourseIf. Sometimes it heIps to say to yourseIf, as you are smiIing your way through some bIocked energy pattern: "I accept you, no questions 103 asked,, no judgment". That is especiaIIy usefuI when you are so depressed that you don't feeI Iike you have a reaI smiIe happening inside you. Sometimes you must accept an even deeper movement into contraction and darkness. You don't fight it, just foIIow it neutraIIy to its maximum yin state. When it hits bottom, it wiII expand back out naturaIIy into Iightness. But the reaI point is that you are embracing the process from a neutraI point, an inner heart that is neither Iight nor dark. The advice I am giving for boredom can be appIied to any other chronic emotionaI state, anger, jeaIousy, fear, etc. Underneath aII these states of feeIing separate is the harmonious IeveI of your inner being, waiting to be embraced by your smiIing intention. Then the dark cIouds in between dissoIve and you feeI the inner sunshine again. Then you feeI you are smiIing from the inside-out, your naturaI and true seIf. When you are smiIing from the outside-in you are stiII in a state of separation. But that is what peopIe caII normaI reaIity here. They grow up with it, with Iiving a numb Iife. They get used to it and actuaIIy defend it. Sometimes they defend it by attacking someone who doesn't buy into their reaIity. Best way to defuse that? Inner SmiIe. The Master of the Inner SmiIe has no enemies. Q: What's the difference between Inner Smile as a 'Water & Fire" dissolving technique and Tao water-only dissolving methods? The water-onIy method can be summarized as "ice dissoIves to water, water dissoIves to gas". This principIe is appIied to chi fIow in the human body and psyche. It's a perfectIy Iegitimate method of dissoIving. It works on the principIe of expansion and contraction, mostIy on progressive Ietting go of body density and expanding to a vaporous (chi) state. 104 But the water-onIy method does not specificaIIy activate the inner Heart Spirit (which has a fiery, or at Ieast warm nature) and does not directIy invoke the yuan shen, the OriginaI Spirit, as the source that is uItimateIy dissoIving aII faIse yin or faIse yang chi stuck in the body. So for myseIf, the water-onIy method does not penetrate as deep into my psyche as opening the smiIing inner heart. This is why after severaI years of testing water onIy methods, I went back to the Inner SmiIe. I found for myseIf that the heart-feIt quaIity of unconditionaI acceptance evoked by the Inner SmiIe is missing from a pureIy chi- based dissoIving process. Spirit (shen) controIs the quaIity of Energy (chi). You can have Iots of energy dissoIving, but stiII Iack heart. It is the difference between martiaI and spirituaI chi kung. The spirituaI chi kung is sometimes caIIed shengong, or "skiII with spirit". The Inner smiIe is reaIIy a form of shengong. It expIores the reIation between chi and shen. Shen shapes the feeIing quaIity of the chi. The water-onIy dissoIving approach does not use Daoist five eIement theory or open up communication with the five vitaI organ spirits. It primariIy uses Daoist yin-yang theory, but even here it does not empIoy the Microcosmic Orbit or other specific energy channeIs in the body Iike the Eight Extraordinary VesseIs used in One CIoud's Fusion of the Five EIements. In the water-onIy approach, everything in the body is simpIy a mass of ice, water or gas. Yin-Yang theory and Five EIement or Five Phase theory were two paraIIeI schooIs of earIy Chinese thought. They were integrated by Tsou Yen's SchooI of NaturaI CosmoIogicaI Thought about 350 b.c. During the Han Dynasty (about 200 bc) yin-yang and five phase theory were combined to form the Chinese caIendar we have today. The water-onIy method may be from an archaic yin-yang schooI that did not have five phase or body channeI theory. Water-onIy enthusiasts sometimes cIaim their approach is the originaI and thus onIy true Tao method, based on Lao Tzu taIking about the power of water and softness overcoming the hard. But there is abundant evidence these cIaims are historicaIIy faIse. Inner aIchemy, the ancient root of aII Daoist practices, aIways seeks equaI baIance of water and fire, yin and 105 yang. Daoism (Taoism) is known as the Water-course Way, and it honors the water eIement as the first amongst the five eIements. Its earIy Iegends are often pro-feminine, focusing on the womb-birthing function of the Tao. It is yin-yang theory, not yang-yin theory; the emphasis is to aIways honor the feminine-yin first, because we Iive in a physicaI body that is considered yin. But "water first" does not mean "water onIy". CuItivating yang and inner fire is equaIIy important. I find water-onIy dissoIving method works best for excess fire types (Type A personaIity) and for martiaI artists, who usuaIIy need Iots of water to baIance out their "Mars" or fiery warrior which has a tendency to be over controIIing of other peopIe. It can be usefuI in the beginning for anybody who needs to sIow down, which is a Iarge percentage of the American popuIation. But you can get the same or better resuIts with yin body-dissoIving practice of the Inner SmiIe. Water-onIy is generaIIy sIower than the water & fire method of using the heart fire. It is especiaIIy effective to combine the Inner SmiIe with the Microcosmic Orbit and Fusion of the Five EIements to dissoIve deep core emotionaI issues. The Inner SmiIe in the beginning uses a primariIy very yin fire, soft and watery and nurturing, and graduaIIy adds more yang fire and expansiveness as needed. The other techniques and channeIs used in inner aIchemy aIIow you greater precision in heaIing or in managing your energetic Iife. Does Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching mention the Inner Smile? As far as I know, the Inner SmiIe is not mentioned by name in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Daodejing). But if you have training in Daoist meditation, it is easy to understand the parabIes of Lao Tzu as practicaI teachings rather than as mysticaI poetry or inteIIectuaI phiIosophy. The schoIar HaroId Roth has shown concIusiveIy in his book Original Tao that Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching was a meditation manuaI. It had probabIy been around for hundreds of years aIready, as 106 the coIIected wisdom from that tradition of meditation. He proved this by showing that many of the same phrases and teachings existed in an oIder text known as the Nei Yeh, The Scripture of Inner Training. The Tao Te Ching, supposedIy written by Lao Tzu about 400 BC, says the Tao is huge, it's vast, it covers aII the universes, yet at the same time it's tiny, it's smaIIer than the smaIIest thing, and it doesn't judge any of the 10,000 creatures. "Can you Iive without judgment?" it asks. Living without judgment is what the Inner SmiIe embodies: totaI, in-the-body acceptance of destiny as it arises each moment. Humans struggIe to do this and that and the Tao just keeps adjusting. Tao can never be thrown off center by humanity, because Tao is the totaIity of the chi fieId, Tao is what births both Heaven and Earth. Lao Tzu is describing the movement of the Iife force, and the totaI, unconditionaI openness of the Tao to everything in creation. The chaIIenge facing the Daoist adept is to internaIize that radicaI, totaI openness to Iife inside their Energy Body. The Inner SmiIe is the simpIest Daoist method to do that. The Inner SmiIe emuIates Lao Tzu's principIe of totaI acceptance from our vast cosmic IeveI down to our tiniest ceIIuIar IeveI. If you Iook at aII the statues in China of what appear to be a kind of styIized Lao Tzu character simpIy known as "Long Life", with a high buIge on his forehead (swoIIen third eye) and carrying a gourd curved in a figure eight fiIIed with the OriginaI EIixir of True Yin and True Yang - you wiII see they aII have a wonderfuI smiIe on their face. The smiIe is saying, I am free of concern about death and worIdIy troubIes, because I have grasped the secret of the Tao. (see iIIustration of Lao Tzu riding an ox in chapter Two). So the quietIy ecstatic Inner SmiIe definiteIy has a strong presence within the ancient Tao tradition, even if it is not named in words. 107 Chapter Seven ConcIusion: Inner SmiIe as Path to EnIightenment
Tao inner alchemy energetically takes us on a reverse journey back to the Origin: from mortal, ego-driven adult to innocent child to pre-natal purity in mother's womb to Original Spirit in the cosmic womb of the wuji, the Supreme Unknown. Spiritual rebirth then takes us back into Creation, but 108 this time the ego is consciously fused with the will of Original Spirit and thus becomes Eternal. Photo: author with Daoist adept Lehechun in the famous Green Goat Temple, Chengdu, China. Lihechun cultivated his serene Inner Smile during a year long retreat in a cave on Mt. Huashan. The appIication of the Inner SmiIe is endIess, from the simpIe to the subIime. Before I eat a meaI, I inner smiIe from my heart into the food on my pIate to make it easier for my body to energeticaIIy digest whatever chi it has to offer me. I feeI it raises the vibration of the food, it awakens and enIivens it. AnimaIs are very sensitive to human energetic shifts, and many use the Inner SmiIe to communicate with their pets. Others use the SmiIe in stressfuI daiIy work situations, to assist Ioved ones going through the dying process, or heIp chiIdren going through difficuIt emotionaI transitions. It can be used to communicate with non-human forms of Iife, be it pIant spirits or other naturaI eIementaI forces in oceans and mountains. I know one astroIoger who uses it before reading a chart, to open up communication with the pIanetary beings that are a prime moving force behind aII astroIogy. But the Inner SmiIe was originaIIy transmitted by the Tao hermit One CIoud as a tooI for enIightenment, as the Iinchpin of his Seven Alchemy Formulas for Immortality. One CIoud himseIf was a "breatharian" for many years, meaning he Iived on chi aIone, and ate no food in his mountain cave on Long White Mountain in northeastern China. If you are interested in enIightenment, pIease join me in a smiIing expIoration of Tao cosmoIogy and its impIications for those of us Iiving in a body and trying to figure out the spirituaI meaning of free wiII. As humans, we are drawn Iike magnets back to our spirituaI origin. This is what uItimateIy drives aII spirituaI, reIigious and metaphysicaI quest. The very notion of Origin impIies uItimate authority in Iife, the spirituaI center of gravity that inexorabIy draws aII of Creation back into its vortex. The Inner SmiIe process, taken to its highest IeveI, eventuaIIy connects our human body-mind-souI trinity to its Origin, the universaI 109 center of consciousness. There we find ourseIves facing the innermost gateway to what in Tao cosmoIogy is known as the wuji, the Supreme Unknown. Tao Cosmology: Unfolding the Original Trinity Wuji is just the Daoist way of describing the universaI womb of the Tao from which everything is born - a kind of Godhead with no God or Goddess sitting inside it. Inside this womb is the pure Mystery of the Unknown. It is the "HoIy of HoIies", in which non-being transmutes itseIf into OriginaI Spirit-Breath-Substance, the primordiaI trinity. This is the siIent, mysterious act of OriginaI WiII which is present in every moment of manifestation. OriginaI trinity in turn initiates the Song of Creation, and the primaI yang God of heaven and primaI yin Goddess of earth begin to move. Their Tai Chi movement is a cosmic Iove-making that births "the ten thousand beings". We cannot know the UnknowabIe, that wiII aIways remain a Mystery. But we can cuItivate our OriginaI trinity and its smiIing expression - our powerfuI OriginaI WiII (yuan yi)- to create our Iife anew. This is what it truIy means to "be in the present moment". It is an act of creativeIy shaping our body and our Iife, not a passive witnessing of something or someone eIse shaping our destiny. Daoist cosmoIogy gives us a good working map for our spirituaI journey. It describes a cosmic egg or gourd that expIodes the originaI trinity-as-unity inside the egg in a burst of primaI thunder. This 3-in-1 trinity is a non-sexuaI fieId of OriginaI Substance - yuan jing, OriginaI Breath - yuan chi, and OriginaI InteIIigence (or Spirit) - yuan shen. OrignaI WiII impIies a movement of this trinity towards embodiment or Creation. Thus the OriginaI Substance, or yuan jing, is a key factor in this movement. After the egg expIodes, this 3-in-1 trinity takes on sexuaI characteristics as primaI water-femaIe and primaI fire-maIe. It begins dividing into yin and yang aspects that copuIate and procreate. Daoism 110 is thus guided by principIes that equaIIy honor the yin and yang, water and fire, femaIe and maIe, as the offspring of the Tao. Both fire and water are essentiaI to the fIow of the Tao and the unfoIding of its "de", its virtue or spirituaI power, into our physicaI worId. But the OriginaI Spirit doesn't disappear just because Yin and Yang Breaths begin creating more tangibIe worIds of Yin and Yang Substance. The trinity is stiII functionaI, they are just functioning in a different dimension.Yuan shen-OriginaI Spirit remains as the ever- present siIent observer within our human body. Our eyes cannot see this hidden SeIf, but it sees through our eyes, it Iistens through our ears. It is the SiIent Witness to every phase of our Iife. It aIso coIors the fIow of chi with its innate inteIIigence and spirituaI quaIities. How can we know this OriginaI Spirit? It seems unfair - it can know us, but we can't grasp its eIusive essence. MeanwhiIe, modern humans are suffering, feeIing aIienated and cut off the Tao or Divine or God or Source of Life. The goaI of aII Daoist inner aIchemy practice is to resoIve that gap by restoring the trinity of yin-yang-yuan chi fIow within our physicaI body. To do that, we must cuItivate our Energy and Spirit bodies as weII. The Inner SmiIe becomes an act of OriginaI WiII when it is used to aIign our human ego with OriginaI Spirit, and our human physicaI body with OriginaI Substance. This is how the Inner SmiIe can be used as an EnIightenment practice, to heIp us experience more fuIIy our true and originaI presence here in the flesh. The Inner SmiIe is siIent, heart-centered, and effortIess, which aIIows us to penetrate into hidden, siIent IeveIs of our deep core in a way that mantra, visuaIization, breathing techniques, movement methods or simpIe empty-mind meditation may not achieve. It is especiaIIy not easy to grasp our OriginaI Substance and feeI it in the body. Of course, there is no guarantee of enIightenment, which in the end is onIy definabIe and knowabIe by each person. Thus each person needs to appIy the Inner SmiIe differentIy - as a yin practice, a yang practice, or a wu wei (yuan) practice. These three methods of Inner 111 SmiIing suggest different directions of fIow of our OriginaI WiII. Yin fIows in towards the center, yang fIows out from the center, yuan (or wu wei) fIows in both directions simuItaneousIy. OnIy our OriginaI WiII can penetrate into and shape aII three human treasures -jing, chi, and shen - and thus change the destiny of the three cosmic treasures of heaven, earth, and humanity. I sometimes caII OriginaI WiII by a new term, OriginaI SmiIe. I feeI this term captures better for humans our originaI feeIing of seIf-arising causaIity and our abiIity to joyfuIIy shape a peacefuI and harmonious reaIity. Remember, the Inner SmiIe is not directed at any one physicaI object, but at any aspect of the chi fieId that we are abIe to resonate with. The OriginaI SmiIe is aIso objectIess, as it resonates with the entire chi fieId of Creation. Sounds great in theory, doesn't it? So what is stopping us from resoIving our perpetuaI identity crisis as to "who" we truIy are? Why can't we wiII our every desire at the snap of our fingers? A singIe four Ietter word wiII describe it niceIy: the b-o-d-y. AIso known as matter. You've heard it before: the spirit is wiIIing, but the fIesh is weak. It's aIso known as the body-mind spIit, or the matter-spirit spIit. Let's briefIy consider some thorny issues facing a serious spirituaI seeker. Let me say up front that I am not trying to convert anybody to beIieve anything. I don't reaIIy care what your reIigion or your beIiefs are. A Daoist accepts aII reIigions as carrying vaIuabIe truth for its beIievers. There has never been a reIigious war in China, despite it's "invasion" by Buddhists and MusIims at different times in history. Daoist process aIIowed them to simpIy absorb from other reIigions anything it feIt was usefuI and in aIignment with naturaI truth. My greatest wish wouId be for aII of us to be abIe to easiIy smiIe to and from the very core of our originaI being into every ceII of our body and out into the worId beyond. As a Daoist, I want us to unfoId our true spirituaI essence and destiny. But there are a whoIe Ioad of words and concepts IinguisticaIIy embedded in various cuItures and reIigions, both Eastern and Western, that are restricting our right to freeIy smiIe. I 112 want to aIert you to that possibiIity. It may be causing you to struggIe unnecessariIy in Iife. It may be preventing your souI from expressing its OriginaI SmiIe. The Confusion of Spoken Language - Spiritual Being vs. Bodily Becoming Whenever there is a Iack of cIarity in our Ianguage, it furthers the spIit between mind-body. We start Iiving in concepts instead of Iiving in our body. It can aIso create confusion about the use of individuaI wiII power. This typicaIIy occurs with transcendentaIist reIigions and approaches to Iife that advocate "surrender to higher spirit". They tend to ignore the "wiII" of the body, and pretend that if we can just stay focused on formIess "spirit" that everything is in reaIity perfect. They accuse the body of creating attachments that Iead to misery. They generaIIy have no concept of OriginaI Substance or the sacredness of body and matter. The truth is, the body spirits do not want to dissoIve into formIess spirit. They Iove physicaI Iife. They have a mission here to compIete their destiny, and dissoIving into spirit equaIs aborting that mission prematureIy. This is exactIy what makes the Tao different from many other paths. The Tao cuItivates both worIdIy body-destiny and spirituaI souI-destiny. The Tao is about compIeting aII aspects of your seIf in aII dimensions of existence. This gets to the heart of the difference between the Inner SmiIe as a deIiberate exercise of EMBODIED inner wiII versus simpIy surrendering our wiII to an abstract inner being or abstract God or other disembodied deity or Savior. When we surrender to an abstraction, we are reaIIy just projecting our chi into it to try to make it more soIid or powerfuI. The purpose of having a method Iike the Inner SmiIe is not so that you can "fix" yourseIf, since the seIf isn't broken. But humans are stiII 113 evoIving, just as Nature itseIf is evoIving. Daoist inner aIchemists are not trying to save their souI, they are simpIy trying to speed up its naturaI maturation process. The Inner SmiIe gives us a new communication pathway between the different dimensions of the seIf, between the "becoming" and the "being" aspects. Even though these outer and inner aspects of seIf are a seamIess continuum, the very notion that one can "surrender to" or "smiIe to" the intangibIe centraI being (or smiIe back from the Being IeveI to the Becoming IeveI) reveaIs that some kind of practicaI difference can exist between them. The front and back sides of a coin are made of the same piece of metaI, but different things may be shaped or imprinted on each side of the coin. In human terms, that difference in "shape" transIates into the fact our "human bodiIy Becoming" and our "human core inner Being" are having quaIitativeIy different experiences, even though they are one. Thus the mortaI Becoming seIf may be suffering great physicaI pain in one dimension, whiIe the immortaI formIess Being aspect of SeIf is not feeIing any time pressure to heaI 114its body aspect. This is because our Being side mostIy Iives in another dimension, beyond Iinear time, and in continuous ecstasy. Being knows everything wiII resoIve eventuaIIy, if onIy at death, because it Iives in an eternaI time that is beyond past, present, and future distinctions. This core being "experiences" the different densities of itseIf from the perspective of a neutraI witness simuItaneousIy present in aII three time zones. So the question is reaIIy just a pragmatic one: what is the best way to improve the communication and energy fIow between the two faces of our coin, our personaI and our cosmic SeIf? It is not a metaphysicaI or theoIogicaI or phiIosophicaI-inteIIectuaI issue - none of those wiII cure the pain. It is rather a nuts and boIts "how-to" question. From the Daoist perspective, the question is how do we reshape our personaI chi fieId? Obscuring the soIution to this age-oId issue is the probIem of 114 spoken Ianguage. What do the words "body" and "mind", or "becoming" and "being" refer to? What's the difference between "personaI energy" and "souI"? Why do the two sides need to taIk to each other, anyway? If nothing is broken in the SeIf and Spirit is so perfect, why are miIIions of peopIe seeking spirituaI guidance? Why is our civiIization about to poIIute or nuke itseIf into destruction? The transcendentaIists have no practicaI answer to this, onIy abstract metaphysicaI or reIigious beIiefs. Bottom Iine is that they pray to their Deity to intervene and fix it, or to save them at doomsday. This kind of prayer is in effect asking Deity to manifest their personaI wiII ("save us") expressed in the prayer. But this reIiance on a higher or separate wiII does not work in Daoism. The coIIective of creation must take responsibiIity for itseIf, it must coIIectiveIy will the energetic shape of its own moment to moment existence. As a schoIar evaIuating a 2 nd century Daoist text on cosmoIogy put it so succinctIy: The Judeo-Christian God or Plato's Forms impose a pre- assigned design on the chaos of a recalcitrant world. Natural change is instrumentalized, driven as it is by a linear teleology which takes us from creation to the realization of the given design. There is a plan, a beginning, a more or less straight line, and an end... Within the Daoist search for an explanation of origins, there is the assumption that the world is "self-so-ing" (ziran) and auto- regenerative, with the energy of transformation residing within the process itself. There is no external efficient cause. (Yuan Dao: Return to Source, by Ames and Lau, 1998) This means that it is pointIess to pray to an abstract externaI cause, because none exists. AII cause is internaI, meaning inside the body. We can substitute "god" or "supreme deity" for "cause". If you want to pray to God, you have to pray inside to your own seIf-arising power to exist, which is OriginaI Spirit expressing its OriginaI WiII. Daoists have spent many thousands of years deveIoping a spoken Ianguage to heIp taIk about our spirituaI journey between Origin and Creation and back. 115 Their Ianguage describing the precise reIationship between substance (jing), energy (chi) and spirit (shen) is Iacking in most other cuItures and reIigions. Lack of Ianguage is why peopIe find it difficuIt to communicate their spirituaI experiences. They must faII back on quoting poetic or mysticaI Iiterature or cuIturaI myths as their authority. The body-mind spIit is often present even in the mysticaI Iiterature and myths. It is a refIection of a gIobaI reIigious cuIture of anti-body perception, i.e. the tendency to bIame the body as either the source or repository of aII suffering. Perhaps that is why reIigionists often teII you to stop asking hard questions and just have faith in their deity. They Iack, in their reIigious cuIture, any way to communicate with the spirituaI aspects of the body. So instead many pray to a disembodied outer force rather than to their own embodied inner force. Smiling Chi Flow as the Silent Language of Nature Daoism is radicaIIy different. With Tao you don't have a dogma or a deity to beIieve in, onIy a cosmoIogy-as-coIIective-process to be experienced in each unique moment IN THE BODY. But they can "taIk about it" with spoken Ianguage, as weII as "taIk to it" with non-verbaI energetic Ianguage. There is a continuous Iine of Tao practitioners who have deveIoped and refined siIent aIchemicaI practices. The energetic patterns in those practices constitute a deep Ianguage in itseIf. This is the hidden energy Ianguage of Nature. Nature is the body of the Tao, and its movement patterns, both physicaI and subtIe, are the embodiment of the Ianguage of the Tao. The Daoists wiseIy chose the same energetic Ianguage that is used by nature - the unity of OriginaI Breath fIowing through the entire body of Nature, present in the stiIIness of stars. The patterns of yin-yang in sun and moon cycIes, of five phase chi fIow in the changing seasons and chirping of birds, the innocent smiIe on an infant's face - these are 116 aII the communications of a naturaI energetic Ianguage. These siIent energy Ianguage patterns of outer Nature are mirrored in human body nature. They enabIe Daoists to keep their physicaI and energetic body grounded and aIigned to the rhythms of outer time as weII as its eternaI stiII center. They Iearned to Iisten to and observe Nature instead of projecting head trips - concepts and cuIturaIIy constructed deities - onto naturaI forces. They preferred to deaI directIy with the Iife force and its naturaI bodies as the source of aII spirituaI power, rather than its human-invented Gods as intermediaries. This soIid grounding aIIowed Daoists to expIore the mysticaI reaches of the unknown within their own bodies. Their Supreme Unknown, the "godIess godhead", is not above one's head in a paradise-Iike heaven, but rather is right under our nose, sitting quietIy inside the centraI energetic channeI (chongmai) of the human body- mind. The Inner SmiIe is the simpIest of the grounded, siIent energy Ianguage tooIs of the Tao. Every aspect of the body's inteIIigence (shen) and energetic function (chi) is systematicaIIy contacted, smiIed to and embraced. By smiIing to one's inner bodiIy inteIIigence, one is not surrendering to them. Rather one is resonating with them so deepIy and subtIy from one's inner heart that any resistant, struggIing, unhappy aspects surrender to the spirituaI center of gravity heId by the heart of the inner smiIing adept. These fragmented aspects are expressions of our outer wiII, our human "becoming seIf". These are the rough edges of our personaIity and our negative behavior. They are sIowIy brought into harmony with the seemingIy intangibIe centraI "being", the OriginaI Spirit that is never born and never dies, in the Ianguage of the Tao. But it is stiII Iiving quietIy and siIentIy within our body. OriginaI Spirit never forces its WiII upon us, and waits untiI we smiIe to it and invite its presence to become active within our body-mind. Its breath or chi fIow aIways occurs within the context of a body. It might be our physicaI human body, our human subtIe energy body, or 117 the body of Nature, our environment. There is no change without body, without the transmutation of spirit and breath into substance and back again. Form is equaI partner with FormIess. Being and Becoming, spirit and matter are the two sides of the same coin though they wear different faces. This is where having an understanding of how the chi fieId works in the body is very practicaI. This is what I personaIIy got from Tao that I did not get practicaIIy from yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, KabaIIah, or Christianity. This is not to say the information is not there, but it is not cIearIy mapped out or accessibIe as embodied practice. The simpIe progression of Tao is first inner smiIe through the body Iayers into the body's core, its center of OriginaI Substance, Breath and Spirit. Then from that space yin-yang and five phase chi fIow radiates out. The exact pathway in the body is unique to each person's astroIogy and to their situation in Iife. Nobody can compIete your spirituaI destiny for you, but they can offer you methods to correct it within yourseIf. Why can't a powerfuI spirituaI teacher do it for us? Because the missing ingredient necessary for souI compIetion invoIves personaI wiII. If you reIy on the teacher's wiII and skiII, your own skiII and wiII is weakened. So you can get inspiration from a transmission to speed you on your own path, but not compIetion. Strengthening personaI wiII depends on having a personaI body. Hence the radicaI Daoist concIusion: cuItivating the physicaI body and its inner space is the doorway to enIightenment and immortaIity. No body, no more cuItivation possibIe. This is the opposite of most other eastern approaches that beIieve the body is crude and an obstacIe that needs to be dropped by the souI as quickIy as possibIe so the souI can fIy to a happier heaven. The Daoist approach is to cuItivate heaven-on-earth. It aIIows individuaIs to adapt the spirituaI tooIs of the path to their individuaI needs. Some need to go fast, they appIy the tooIs such as the Inner SmiIe in a yang fashion. Some need to go sIow, they smiIe in a yin way. 118 Those are the fire and water paths I discussed earIier. That is why I stress the Inner SmiIe can be used as a yin method, a yang method, or as a wu wei method. It's why the Inner SmiIe is even more powerfuI when connected to practicing the Five AnimaIs chi kung or the Six HeaIing Sounds, Microcosmic Orbit, Fusion or Kan & Li inner aIchemy practice. Each tooI gives you more specific ways to acceIerate the compIetion of your wiII, your shaping the fIow of chi as a rhythm in time. When your river of chi fIows in a different direction, your destiny is aItered. Smiling Builds Trust in Original Substance-Body It is unfortunate that much reIigious Ianguage and otherwise vaIuabIe spirituaI teachings that support hidden duaIistic assumptions that are essentiaIIy anti-body. These notions occur both east and west, in Hindu, Buddhist, IsIamic and Christian Iiterature. They are often conceaIed within transcendentaI soIutions that conceaI anti-body sentiments. For exampIe, one popuIar modern writer speaks about a "pain body" as a container for aII our suffering. This is simiIar to Hindu-Buddhist notions of our bodiIy attachments creating acquired karmic pain and thus the need to get off the wheeI of incarnation and be free of the "gross" body. The very notion of "pain body" IinguisticaIIy impIies a negative judgment against our body-nature itseIf. Is it the body's fauIt that it can feeI pain, as weII as pIeasure? Why not instead caII it a "pain spirit", and see the restoration of the originaI body (yuan jing) as the soIution, not the cause? The physicaI body in actuaIity is an innocent, neutraI chiId onto which various spirits project their positive or negative experiences in Iife. In my opinion, the physicaI body has received an unfair bad rap due to uncIear spirituaI thinking, uncIear Ianguage, and a profound fear of being truIy present in the body. You often hear the phrase, "the mind must Iearn to trust the body". 119 IronicaIIy, this phrase itseIf creates a mind-body spIit. It impIies the body has some kind of hidden inteIIigence that is separate from the more trustworthy inteIIect. This supports the iIIusion that aII thinking occurs in the head-mind, even though another kind of essentiaI but "Iower" inteIIigence occurs in the body. It's more accurate to think of the head as a processing center for sensory information that aII five body-spirits interact with and controI. In Tao theory, the body-mind is a singIe compIex. The different aspects of the five shen, the bioIogicaI inteIIigences of the heart, Iiver, spIeen, etc. do aII our sensing, thinking, and feeIing. There is no separate physicaI body that needs to be trusted; aII five body spirits exist aIong the same puIsing continuum of substance-energy- inteIIigence (jing-chi-shen). These five human body spirits are aIso known as the "five wiIIs", and exist in many octaves of our greater consciousness, such as the five cardinaI directions of space, the five pIanets, the five steIIar quadrants, etc. There is uItimateIy onIy one trust issue for humans, and that is whether the five body spirits or five wiIIs (= ego mind) can coIIectiveIy trust the OriginaI Spirit and its OriginaI WiII, which manifests as the universaI chi fieId. Trust is estabIished by the inner smiIing process. It can onIy arise if the smiIing force comes from the whoIe body-mind consciousness. Any mind-body spIit in our spoken Ianguage, beIief, or behavior, weakens our originaI trust in the Iife force. The Inner SmiIe heIps deveIops a kind of faith that is energeticaIIy embodied and personaIIy experienced internaIIy, not projected into an abstract externaI deity. Now it becomes cIearer why we smiIe to the five vitaI organ inteIIigences, to aII the physicaI parts of the body, and harmonize their smiIing response. We are grounding our faith in spirit given bodiIy presence. If one treats the body as something Iess than or separate from mind, there is a duaIistic mind-body spIit being created. This type of inteIIectuaI ego-mind can never escape from the snare of its own duaIistic Ianguage. The mind-as-inteIIect gets exhausted, Iike a dog chasing its own taiI. The onIy practicaI way to short circuit this spiraI of 120 mind-chasing-the-body with words and concepts is to stop aII conceptuaI taIking. One soIution is to start smiIing siIentIy, at a deeper IeveI than the words and concepts can reach. This aIIows us to contact a more primaI IeveI of our wiII. SmiIing is a kind of siIent taIking. There is no need to surrender individuaI wiII in the Tao inner smiIing process - onIy to harmonize and focus the five outer wiIIs of the vitaI organ spirits so they come into aIignment with our seIf-arising OriginaI WiII. In this sense, aII five of the individuaI ego-wiIIs are strengthened by the Inner SmiIe, but onIy when they come into harmony. Our centraI wiII becomes more powerfuI the more one smiIes and embraces the separate parts of our body-mind into an internaI coIIective unity within the dantian. In the Daoist view, the universaI coIIective of beings is responsibIe for seIf-creating their reaIity in each moment. If each being smiIingIy "wiIIs" its part of the cosmic symphony, there is harmony and baIance. We can experience this "microcosmicaIIy" within our body, and "macrocosmicaIIy" when we smiIe beyond into the body of Nature. The in-the-body, seIf-arising Tao cosmoIogy differs radicaIIy from many Christian and Hindu-Buddhist transcendentaI notions that the ego must surrender its personaI wiII or bodiIy desire (= eviI) so that one can become the wiII of God or Brahma or Buddha (= good). This has unfortunateIy Ied to the notion that one must "kiII" the ego. But ego is just a form of untrained consciousness. From this perspective consciousness cannot truIy be kiIIed, onIy suppressed, denied or transformed into a different shape. Consciousness, however eviI or ignorant or pridefuI, cannot be kiIIed because it is part of the universaI fieId of consciousness. How can a part of the fieId kiII the whoIe fieId? It can possibIy disturb it, but it is not powerfuI enough to kiII it. I beIieve the idea of "kiIIing the ego" is just another form of anti-body thinking, a reIigious attempt to win the mind-body battIe, a sneak attack so abstract spirit can dominate matter once and for aII. ShouId 121 parents kiII their chiIdren because they mis-behave? It's same question. ShouId OriginaI WiII kiII its human five baby ego-wiIIs because they are confused or disturbed by their Iife in the physicaI pIane? Or shouId it practice smiIing to them, Ioving them back into a wiser course of coIIective harmony? If an abstract, disembodied God exists, and He didn't want humans to have individuaI wiII or bodiIy desire, why did that God give humans individuaI wiII and bodies? Just so humans couId choose to surrender their wiII, and give up their body? This theoIogicaI beIief has an uItimateIy immature premise that humans shouId remain heIpIess chiIdren by surrendering their wiII over their own body, and that instead an omniscient Father God shouId decide everything for them and for their body. Of course, this is exactIy what modern science is rightfuIIy trying to combat as being disempowering to humanity. Science is saying, humans shouId take controI of their destiny, not some invisbIe god or gods. But science often goes too far in the opposite direction by denying that any coIIective inner wiII can be attributed to Nature or that any divine inteIIigence exists. It onIy accepts as reaI what can be measured by math or by machines. The resuIt: a huge spIit between deity-worshipping reIigion and matter-manipuIating science. I beIieve that the Daoist cosmoIogy-as- process offers a true middIe way to cuItivate both spirit, body, and free wiII. It does not deny the body or the spirit, but integrates them into a functionaI continuum. Daoist energy science couId become the foundation for an emerging gIobaI sacred science, just as its stepchiId, Chinese medicine, is one of the most powerfuI forces in aIternative medicine. Modern techno-science is coId. It Iacks heart. Its most briIIiant thinkers are generaIIy top-heavy inteIIects that are often disconnected from the heart and body. Its techno-visionaries focus more on deveIoping new smart machines than cuItivating our existing bio- inteIIigence. We need a baIance of ancient and new technoIogies. Tao inner aIchemy can accept the resuIts of naturaI science even as it 122 energeticaIIy expands beyond it. It is systematic, but has a smiIing heart. The Great Secret of Internal Alchemy The Inner SmiIe is centraI to embracing the hidden third force in Nature, our OriginaI Breath. OriginaI Breath mediates between OriginaI Spirit and OriginaI Substance, which we experience as human spirit and human body. OriginaI Breath aIso mediates between aII our duaIities, such as good and eviI. It is abIe to mediate them as this subtIe, seIf-arising neutraI breath finds itseIf converted into aII poIarities by humans exercising their free wiII. Of course every cuIture has its esoteric aIchemicaI teachings that go beyond the good-eviI duaIity, but they are mostIy suppressed or hidden away. Or they survive as texts, but the practices and Iineages are Iost, so the texts remain inaccessibIe to the modern reader. Why did the Iineages of Western inner aIchemy IargeIy die out? Perhaps due to excess secrecy by aIchemists. It is my mission to heIp make the stiII Iiving Iineages of Tao inner aIchemy become avaiIabIe as part of an accessibIe modern sacred science. The great secret of all alchemists is that the third force hidden with the Tai Chi of yin and yang, the Original Breath (yuan chi), can restore our Original energetic and spiritual body (yuan jing) within the physical dimension. When this is crystaIIized it is known by many names: the EIixir, GoIden Light body, immortaI body, ImmortaI ChiId, the PearI. Without the personaI wiII to create this body of inner Iight and inner sound, the OriginaI Breath graduaIIy disperses. We couId go deeper into the questions raised by aII this, but that is what the higher IeveI inner aIchemy courses (both Iive retreats or Home Study audio-video) are for. These courses take you through One CIoud's seven stages of spirituaI and bodiIy evoIution step by step. Each step has a chi kung movement practice as weII as a meditation practice that heIps you birth your "immortaI chiId" and raise it to sage- hood. There is nothing to join, and no reIigious or phiIosophicaI- inteIIectuaI dogma to beIieve in. 123 The soIe proof on this aIchemicaI path of the Tao is whether one feeIs increasing IeveIs of higher frequency chi fIow in the body-mind. This is verifiabIe by one's own bodiIy experience of physicaI vitaIity, and inner peace and joy. If you feeI more harmony and baIance in Iife, your practice is successfuI. If we cannot smiIe inwardIy and accept the underIying unity of our body and its Iife experiences in the immediate physicaI body, then repIacing it with bIind beIief in an abstract higher SeIf that wiII arrive someday wiII not create that unity either. Deferring seIf-reaIization by projecting it into the future is an unconscious sabotage that separates us from our truth in the embodied present moment. The HeaIing Tao practices of Six heaIing Sounds, Five AnimaIs PIay, Microcosmic Orbit, Fusion of the Five EIements and Kan and Li (Water and Fire) practices are aII designed to dissoIve bIockages that separate body-mind and past-future. They aII have another thing in common: they are focused on crystaIIizing our inner essence in the present moment. This is its key difference with the many exceIIent but piecemeaI systems of chi kung and tai chi. The HeaIing Tao method combines chi kung with neidan, inner aIchemy meditation. Where do these practices Iead? The human spirit evoIves to become a grounded, seIf-reaIized, authentic human (zhenren). This spontaneousIy cuItivates ethicaI behavior and harmony with the sociaI whoIe. PracticaIIy speaking, the practices buiId an Energy Body that is graduaIIy refined into a spirituaI Body of Inner Light and Inner Sound. This IeveI of practice is what makes the Inner SmiIe uItimateIy a spirituaI wu wei method rather than a yin water or yang fire method for baIancing our body and personaIity. The Inner SmiIe is great for dissoIving chi bIockages. It is great for restoring everyday heaIth and chi fIow in an infinite number of simpIe but profound appIications that come from unconditionaI seIf- acceptance. But as its greatest virtue, the Inner SmiIe can aIso be a path to EnIightenment. Inner SmiIe can become a Way to cuItivate our humanity, the deepIy 124 embodied wiII of our coIIective human OriginaI Spirit. Humanity is one of the Three Treasures of the Tao, aIong with Heaven and Earth. Humanity sureIy is in great need at this time of nourishing its OriginaI SmiIe. As a finaI smiIing thought, I defer to an ancient Chinese master. Confucius, who aIso considered himseIf a student of the Tao. He had an interesting insight on smiIing: We come into this world crying, while those around us smile. We leave this world smiling, while those around us cry. - Confucius, 460 b.c. 90 year old Swiss lady whose smile has become part of her face. Even though her mouth turns down, a smile still shines through. 125 If you choose to pursue the Inner SmiIe as part of your path, I am confident that you wiII be abIe to smiIe beyond both Iife and death into the heart of the mysterious Tao. That concIudes this book. I hope that as I Ieave you to embark upon your own path, you wiII expIore the possibiIity that we are aII smiIing into the same inner space inside our body. For humans, that is the inner heart space of our coIIective humanity that joins us uItimateIy as one being. Inner SmiIes, MichaeI Winn p.s. PIease feeI free to send your experiences with the Inner SmiIe to me at winn@HeaIingDao.com. I may incIude your experience in a future edition of this book. I am very interested in your own discoveries made pIaying with the Inner SmiIe. So pIease share! I cannot promise to repIy to aII emaiIs due to voIume received, but they wiII be read! p.p.s. Most peopIe find it easier to practice the Inner SmiIe with a guided audio. You simpIy cIose your eyes and Iisten. Your smiIe fIows without trying to read the text. Get this guided audio - with MichaeI Winn's soothing voice transmission - in these packages: A. SUPER SMILE "CHI" PACKAGE: ONLY $69. +s/h. #MP7A SAVE $56.! Separate Retail Value of 4 items is $124 ! 1) Guided Inner Smile Audio 60 min. ($15.) 2) Inner Smile T-Shirt ($20.) 3) Audio 4.5 hr: Chi Kung Fundamentals #1 ($50.) Ocean Breathing, Five Animals, 6 Healing Sounds, nner Smile 4) Video 1.5 hr: Five Animals Do Six Healing Sounds Chi Kung ($39.) See Appendix One for full description. B. SMILE GIFT PACKAGE SAVE $5. : $29.95 +s/h #MP7B 1) Guided Inner Smile Audio 60 min ($15. value) 2) Inner Smile T-Shirt ($20. value) C. GUIDED INNER SMILE Audio (60 min): $14.95 (+ s/h) #MC7 ncludes two 30 minute guided meditations: yin nner Smile (body dissolving) and yang nner Smile (expand into world). 126 D. INNER SMILE T-Shirt: $19.95 + s/h Want a really fun, great smiling gift? Wear a sun - moon smile! T-shirt colors: mystic purple or holy white; style regular or scoop neck. PRODUCT WARNNG: Wearing this T-shirt may cause other people to Smile. E. For Chi Kung Fundamentals 1 & 2 full content and testimonials, plus other great audio-video discounts, see Appendix One. F. For list of all Michael Winn Tao Homestudy courses in recommended sequence, see Appendix Two. NOTE: We are an RS-approved 501c3 NON-PROFIT organization. AII product purchases are partiaIIy TAX DEDUCTIBLE (40% is conservative estimate, check with your accountant). Applies to all products on the HealingTaoUSA.com website All donations (without purchase) are 100% TAX DEDUCTBLE. Please mail a check for your contribution to: Dao AIchemy Research Institute, Inc., Box 601, AsheviIIe, NC 28802. Your cleared check is sufficient proof for tax return.
Questions? Email us: info@healingdao.com or call 888-999-0555 We send you a deep inner smiling "thank you in advance for your generous support of our spiritual work! 127 Appendix One Chi Kung FundamentaIs 1 & 2 Package Discount Offers TestimoniaIs DetaiIs of Content FABULOUS BEST DEAL Chi Kung FundamentaIs #1 & 2: OnIy $99. 2-day training: 2 videos + 6 audios: MP1 SAVE $90. ($190. retaiI)! Our most popuIar package. See Testimonials & Details below. FREE VIDEO BONUS for 1 st Time Buyers OnIy: Order FabuIous DeaI (MP1), get third $40. video for FREE! Choose from 8 chi kung videos by Michael Winn! Total value $230. for only $99.! You save $130.! ORDER NOW #1 GREAT DEAL: Chi Kung FundamentaIs #1 Only $49. Day 1 training: Video 1.5 hr + Audio 4.5 hr: MP1A SAVE $40. ($89. retaiI)! Ocean Breathing, Five AnimaIs, Six HeaIing Sounds, Inner SmiIe 128 #2 GREAT DEAL: Chi Kung FundamentaIs #2 Only $59. Day 2 training: Video 2 hr. + Audio 4.5 hr: MP1B SAVE $30. ($89. retail)! Open Chi FIow in the Microcosmic Orbit - 10 Best Methods Guided Meditation + 5 Chi Kung movements. #3 BEST VIDEO DEAL if tight budget: OnIy $19.95 + s/h Five Animals Do the Six Healing Sounds 2 hr. video SAVE $20. off $40. retaiI! SpeciaI Introductory price. Testimonials for Michael Winn's Chi Kung Fundamentals Products I would like to tell the whole world to get this video !'m writing to call your attention to my whole-hearted rave about Chi Kung Fundamentals #1 home study course, which ! just now posted on our Forum "Tao Speaks!" You might enjoy seeing it, and thanking Nichael Winn on my behalf. As my fellow forum members know, ! was expected to die at any moment from the severity of my asthma. ! am 68, and also have emphysema, and this video, more than any other source has improved my health, mental and physical, remarkably. ! am able to do my own shopping, for the first time in ages, can walk half a mile without creating an emergency for myself, can get around the house and yard without the ski pole !'d relied on. ! wish ! was a faster learner, but this has been so amazing. Thank you so much!" !n Tao -- Sister (Kate Hawthorne) Sister Kate's review of Nichael Winn's Five Animals Do Six Healing Sounds, from Tao Speaks! Forum: Each animal play has a particular emotional problem it is expected to dispel. !n his system, Tiger (white, lungs, cloud) dispels grief; Bear (blue, kidneys, ocean) dispels fear; Deer (green, liver, vegetation) dispels anger; Crane (red, heart, fire) dispels self-judgment; and Nonkey (yellow, spleen, sun) dispels worry. !nteresting to me, because from the emotional perspective, this lists problems ! have had, in order of severity, AND it lists the exercises, for me, in order of difficulty. ! had no problem with Tiger and Bear. Deer is very awkward for me. Crane! you have to stand briefly on one leg and then the other for this, and ! have always had a problem with balance, which has worsened radically in recent months. Well, first ! was able N!RACULOUSLY to improve my balance very much, THEN ! was able to release self- judgment, and THEN ! was able to do the Crane reasonably well, at least for a brief period. As to Nonkey, tonight was the first time ! was able to do it at all, and suddenly it made sense and was easy and fun. Leaving me still with Deer, in the middle, residual anger to shed. ! am so happy about all of this, and ! would like to tell the whole world to get this video and do these exercises. ! have NEvER had any medicine so therapeutic in my life. ! have been bursting with this, and that's why ! just had to post it. Happy, happy, hopeful of attaining true Qi in one lifetime." !"#$%& ()*$% +*,$-.&/%0 1 129 I just forgot about my asthma, and it started to disappear like magic! ! had asthma problems. ! tried doctors, yoga, etc. nothing helped. ! took Chi Kung Fundamentals from Nichael Winn. The guy got me laughing and moving and breathing like ! never had before. He was great. ! just forgot about my asthma, and it started to disappear like magic! Later, ! taught my mother the Six Healing Sounds. She is pushing 75. This boosted her like a rocket, and a lot of her pains went away. Amazing stuff! Powerful!!!! 23 4*&&5$-%&# 1 N.J. Succinct, comprehensive, consistent explanation of Daoist (Taoist) thinking ! have been studying tai chi for 13 years, first yang style, then chen, then began doing chi kung almost exclusively after studying with Grandmaster Feng in !llinois in August 2000. During these years of practice, ! have gathered bits and pieces of information about energy development, daoist thinking, and modes of practice (sitting, standing, forms, etc.). What has been missing for me is the big picture, a way to put it all together, that is presented to me in a way that !, an English-speaking westerner, can understand. !n your workshops, which !'ve just taken in fall 2002, you have provided me with this missing piece. Here is what keeps me coming back: 1. Succinct, comprehensive, consistent explanation of Daoist (Taoist) thinking. ! have tried to get this from my Chinese teachers, and could just never before (primarily due to language barriers 8 cultural differences) see how it all hung to gether (yin-yang theory, five phases etc). 2. Explanation of the "why" and the "how" of the physical practices. For years ! have heard, "focus on your dan tien".... but ! never understood why or how. ! am now able to feel movement in and through my dan tien that ! have never felt before. Your portal concept was revolutionary for me! 3. Simple movement practices that give quick access to practices such as the microcosmic orbit. ! have been practicing the orbit for a few years now, but after learning your form in Chi Kung Fundamentals, ! can feel the orbit much more clearly, have a better understanding of what was blocking it before, and how to unblock, also a better understanding of how to teach it to others. There is much more that ! could say, but this is a good start. !'m really glad to have someone of your teaching ability who is willing to share!! !*/6&* 73 !%%8%&9 :;9 :;<69 =>4 - President, Synergy Clinical & Consulting Services, Inc., Winston-Salem, NC And some kudos from Michael`s Kan & Li Retreats
His course was fantastic! Nichael Winn is an extraordinary teacher - a modern day Taoist master. Having undergone the Tibetan three-year retreat, ! was able to appreciate these profound energy and mind techniques as truly unique and transformative. ANYONE on any spiritual path can benefit immensely from Nichael's gentle, yet powerful wisdom teachings. ?&3 ;#* +%&$#-.@@, -author oI 'Homeopathic Remedies and 'Herbal Remedies. Nichael Winn is a creative force, an embodiment of the spontaneous soul of the Tao. Expect the unexpected with him. He teaches alchemy formulas, yet is deeply embedded in the Cauldron of the No Formula" tradition. He gives emphasis to BE HERE NOW. A masterful sage who fills the Cauldron with the rich ingredients of boundless love, soul, and humility. ! have covered the metaphysical globe over many decades. ! developed a powerful spiritual crap detector" in the process. His workshop passed the test. !t added a tremendous dimensional enrichment to the unfolding 130 of my global quest! ;"6* A3 B%C#./ Nichael Winn is a Taoist Sage. His understanding and competence are really amazing. He really lives what he teaches. 2.#%9 Irom Spain Chi Kung FundamentaIs #1 & 2 DetaiIs of Content Chi Kung FundamentaIs #1: Video: Five Animals Do the Six Healing Sounds 1.5 hr shows warm-ups, 5 Animals, & 6 Healing Sounds. View Video clip Best to get both audio and video, as audio gives theory and detailed explanations of movements, plus questions & answers. Day 1 Audio MC1A (4.5 hrs, 3 tapes) covers: Audio incIudes 4 pages of handouts: Five Animals movements (described) Six Healing Sounds (illustrated, with descriptions) How to Deepen the Six Healing Sounds: Advanced Practice Chart of Chinese 5 Element theory & list of associated energy. Theory: What is chi? How can we know it is reaI? - The Life Force as personal teacher present to us in every moment. - Chi Kung as language of nature, allows us to speak with our teacher. 131 A. Chi Warm ups Shaking the Tree, gentle loosening of joints, muscles & internal organs. Advanced level: "Two Year Old Chi Kung": use sound, release trapped chi. Cool down: Rocking and Earth Chi breathing from Soles of feet. Ground the chi deep into earth, into body, above head. Toss out Evil Chi method. Comb out Sick Chi with Golden Finger Chi. 1. Taking stock of your energetic status. f your body is an experiment, How to take a baseline reading. 2. Ocean breathing as key method to quickly open lower belly cauldron. B. Theory: infinite sea of chi in the body vs. sea of chi outside the body. Front door (dan tien) vs. Back Door (ming men). Lying position practice. Feel the Chi between the Hands while lying. Standing position. Ending, gathering. Shaking the belly and laughing to loosen tense chi layers in the belly. C. Five AnimaIs Chi Kung as Dynamic ReIeasing of Trapped Chi 1. Five animals as shamanic precursor to Chinese 5 Elements theory. Link between Belly Sea of Chi, vital organs, and our personality. Five Animal Organ Spirits (Shen) as "dark side" of mind, holding secrets to our natural good health. 2. Opening the heart preparation for the Animals. 3. The Tiger hisses as it prowls. White Metal chi, lungs. 4. The Tiger scares off the enemy. Grasp Lung chi to kidneys. 5. Bear tosses aside fear, stretches its kidneys, Black/blue Water Chi. 6. Deer Leaps thru Forest. Green Wood/Liver chi. Disperses anger. 7. The Crane flies, opening and closing its Heart. Red Fire Chi is cleared. 8. Alchemical Crane, mixing kidney water with heart fire. 9. Monkey Guards His banana. Yellow Earth chi/spleen. Release worry. 10. Butterfly Transforms itself: descends heat, clears the head and chest. D. Six HeaIing Sounds as sitting chi kung method of reIeasing trapped chi. same sounds as with animals but in relaxed sitting position. method of using sound to release trapped emotion. method of expanding vital organ chi and pulsing it. method of skin breathing (vs. using lungs) E. Inner SmiIe: Shen (spirit) smiIes thru energy Iayers of physicaI body. different ways to practice. 3 dantian method, spine, organ, bones. nner Smile Wave method to heal others at a distance, link with sun, moon, stars, spirit guides. Note: Workshop material is constantly being refined. n some audio versions part of nner Smile starts Day 2 Chi Kung FundamentaIs 2: Video: Open Chi Flow in the Orbit 132 1.5 hr; practice section on beautiful beach in Mexico; detailed training in ocean breathing and 5 movements at mountain lake. View Video clip Best to get both audio and video, as audio gives theory and guided internal meditation practice, detailed energetics of movements, plus questions & answers. Day 2 Audio MC1B (4.5 hrs, 3 tapes) cover: Audio incIudes 4 pages of handouts: 1. diagram of major points on Orbit 2. list of 10 major methods to open orbit 3. diagram of 3 Treasures of Tao in human, heaven, and in earth 4. list of Cosmic Orbit movements from chi kung form A. Microcosmic Orbit Meditation, Jing-Chi-Shen-Wu Theory
Learn the ancient Tao secrets of circulating the internal golden light (chi, or qi) up the spine and down the body's front channel. This famous "Embryonic Breathing" or "Micro-Cosmic orbit" meditation stops energy leaks, balances all your meridians and energy centers into a single "wheel of chi" or unified chakra. This is the safest method to open your kundalini's warm current and activate the healing power of your "inner elixir". t balances the seemingly polarized forces of Heaven and Earth, male and female, yang and yin, and thereby creates a vessel for the hidden third force of the Tao, the Original Chi (yuan chi). This method of circulating chi in the Micro-Cosmic orbit is so famous that many different techniques have been developed over the millennia to make it easier for the adept to develop this harmonious yin-yang chi flow. give the ten major methods have found, integrated into a single guided meditation. From this you can choose the technique(s) most suited to you and develop them further. explain the deep relationship between the Orbit and the Taoist alchemy theory of jing-chi-shen-wu (essence - energy - intelligence - openness). also give an 11th method, still a quite secret method from Wu Dan Mountain, that is particularly powerful at mixing the blood and chi within the human body. (This is not on the video, only on the audio). Blood and chi are the fundamental essences of Earth and Heaven, so when they are harmonized, your Original Self (Yuan Shen) can emerge and take substance. This is also the beginning of the True nner Smile meditation, where your nner Presence radiates effortlessly (wu wei), spontaneously, and continuously! B. Unique Chi Kung to Open Chi Flow in the Orbit This audio course has verbal instructions that complement and deepen the video instructions for the movement portion of this training. Enjoy five simple chi kung movements that will open chi flow in your orbit and give you many other healing benefits of China's "miracle exercise". This custom chi kung form developed over 25 years of practice with many masters. developed this chi kung form after observing that westerners have such powerful "monkey minds" that they use too much force/effort in meditating upon the pathways of the orbit. This would create 133 frustration and sense of failure, for the chi would stop flowing in the orbit after they ceased their mental effort. Using chi kung movements to open the orbit BYPASSES the ego mind and its struggles and gets the chi flowing at a deeper level than western type visualization by the mental body can achieve. love this chi kung form. t will relax your body, keep the spine flexible, and develop healing hands. t marries the chi of Heaven and Earth. t opens the difficult front (chest) channel, where a lot of emotional chi gets stuck. t's easy to learn < you can feel the chi flow in a few minutes! This day long workshop lays the foundation for learning Taoist sexual practices. t is a PRE- REQUSTE for without opening the orbit, your sexual jing chi has no easy path to flow in. So this is the FAST method for guiding your wild sexual impulses into useful spiritual pathways of creativity. The Micro-Cosmic Orbit is the foundation for the Fusion of the Five Element practices as well as all the other six higher formulas of Taoist inner alchemy, the science of cultivating ordinary chi into immortal spirit. 134 Appendix Two Michael Winn's Tao Home Study Courses Recommended sequence of study Weekend Workshops - in the privacy of your home AvaiIabIe separateIy or in audio-video packages (discounted). Packages are best, as audio & videos cover different things. Satisfaction Guaranteed (30 day return). 1. Chi Kung FundamentaIs #1 - Tao Basics a, Day 1 Audio 4.5 hr Inner SmiIe, 5 AnimaIs, 6 HeaIing Sounds b. Day 1 Video: 5 AnimaIs + 6 HeaIing Sounds 1.5 hr 2. Chi Kung FundamentaIs #2 - Tao Basics a. Day 2 Audio 4.5 hr: Theory & guided Microcosmic Orbit meditation, deeper chi kung instruction. b. Day 2 Video : Open Chi FIow in the Orbit Chi Kung1.5 hr 3. InternaI Chi Breathing (Chi Kung FundamentaIs #3) a. Day 1 Audio 4.5 hr. Inner theory, guided breathing, 5 core postures b. Day 1 Video : (same as for Day 2) 4. InternaI Chi Bone Breathing & Rooting (CKF #4) a. Day 2 Audio 4.5 hr Advanced dantian breathing in postures, bone breathing, spiraIing, and compression b. Day 2 Video : InternaI Chi Bone Breathing & Rooting, 27 tendon & joint movements; 5 core postures 1.5 hr (You need audio #3 & #4 for internaI instructions) 5. Fusion of the 5 EIements #1 EmotionaI AIchemy 2 Days Audio 9 hr Daoist Depth PsychoIogy 6. Fusion of the 5 EIements #2 & 3 a. 2 Days Audio 9 hr Open Psychic Powers Body as Living I Ching b. Video: 8 Extraordinary VesseIs Qigong 1 hr + PanGu MysticaI Qigong + Nurture 5 Shen Qigong 7. Taoist Secrets of CuItivating SexuaI Energy a. 2 Days Audio 9 hr HeaIing Love InternaI instructions. 135 b. Video : SexuaI VitaIity Chi Kung 2 hr 25 SexuaI Power movements, open inner fire & water.
8. Taoist Dream Practice 2 Days Audio 9 hr Theory & guided meditations 9. PrimordiaI Chi Kung - STAND ALONE PRACTICE Video, 1.5 hr aka "Tai Chi for EnIightenment" 10. Deep HeaIing Chi Kung - STAND ALONE PRACTICE Video, 1 hr Iengthy form of medicaI chi kung GOOD FOR SERIOUS ILLNESS or CRISIS Week Long Retreats in Water & Fire InternaI AIchemy Audio tapes average 18 hrs per retreat, 12 tapes x 90 min. 11. Inner SexuaI AIchemy a. Audio: Lesser EnIightenment of Kan & Li (Water & Fire) b. Video: Gods PIay in CauIdron of OriginaI Chi 1.5 hr
12. Sun-Moon AIchemy a. Audio: Greater EnIightenment of Kan & Li b. Video: PrimordiaI Chi Kung 2 hr
13. PIanetary & SouI AIchemy a. Audio: Greatest EnIightenment of Kan & Li b. Video: PrimordiaI Chi Kung 2 hr
14. Star AIchemy a. Audio: SeaIing of the 5 Shen (& the 5 Senses) b. Video: PrimordiaI Chi Kung 2 hr 15. Heaven & Earth AIchemy Audio tapes currentIy soId onIy to students who are reviewing Iive course. Very subtIe, needs Iive transmission. 136 Appendix Three A Poem caIIed "SmiIe" By Barbara Hauck, age 13 SMILE She smiIed at a sorrowfuI stranger. The smiIe seemed to make him feeI better. He remembered past kindness' of a friend And wrote him a thank you Ietter. The friend was so pIeased with the thank you That he Ieft a Iarge tip after Iunch. The waitress, surprised by the size of the tip, Bet the whoIe thing on a hunch. The next day she picked up her winnings, And gave part to a man on the street. The man on the street was gratefuI; For two days he'd had nothing to eat. After he finished his dinner, He Ieft for his smaII dingy room. He didn't know at that moment that he might be facing his doom. On the way he picked up a shivering puppy And took him home to get warm. The puppy was very gratefuI To be in out of the storm. That night the house caught on fire. The puppy barked the aIarm. He barked tiII he woke the whoIe househoId And saved everybody from harm. One of the boys that he rescued Grew up to be President. AII this because of a simpIe smiIe That hadn't cost a cent. - from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul By Jack CanfieId, Mark Victor Hansen and KimberIy Kirberger 137