Inner Smile I
The goal of this guided meditation seems implausibly grand: to expand the mind to the furthest reaches of the universe and then shrink it down into your umbilicus.
And yet, anyone can do it.
Sit straight up in a chair, with your hands on your lap. There’s no time limit. As you become comfortable with the sequence, you’ll run through it in a minute or two. Read the exercise through until you’ve memorized it. As an FYI, Inner Smile doesn’t work precisely on sleep so much as reduce stress, anxiety, and even a tendency toward depression.
Massage Yintang and Kidney 1 twenty-four times, first clockwise and then counter clockwise. Close your eyes and take three long, deep breaths into your abdomen. Exhale slowly. Then, smile. See yourself smiling. Take another long, slow, deep breath in, and slowly exhale.
Send the Smile up to Yintang. Place your attention there and visualize yourself exhaling from Yintang. The area may begin to feel warm. Keep your awareness there and notice any feeling that may arise.
Take a deep breath in, and as you do so, imagine that you can move the Smile down your throat, out to your arms and down your torso, your back and buttocks, down your thighs and calves, all the way to your toes.
Take another deep breath in, and then breathe out. Let the Smile encompass your entire body. Imagine that your Smile is now a large bubble, and you are comfortably inside of it. Notice its color. Is it purple, or white, or clear, or another color? This is your protective bubble; use it anytime you feel invaded by people or situations that are stressful.
Imagine you see, or feel, the Smile bubble expanding, until it encompasses the room. Use your breath, so that when you exhale, you’re making the bubble larger.
Visualizing might not come naturally to you, and you do not need to do this perfectly.
Keep expanding the Smile, giving each area roughly ten seconds. Don’t overthink it. Let your Smile encompass your home; then your street and expanding it to take in your town or city. Then your state.
Allow your imagination to run free and even go wider now; expand your smile to encompass your country, the continent, the entire world. Expanding even more now, include the solar system. Then the galaxy. Let your awareness embrace the universe.
Now that the bubble has encompassed the universe (if you can’t see it just yet, don’t worry), reverse the process. See, or feel, the Smile enfold the galaxy; then the solar system, and then earth.
Now, let it shrink further to surround the continent, your state, your city, your street, and now, your building.
Finally, let the bubble encircle your room and then let it surround your body. As it gets smaller yet, imagine it’s the size and shape of a white pearl.
You’ve now got the universe in a small, white pearl.
Use your mind to place it 1 1/2 inches below, and behind, your umbilicus.
You have just completed the Inner Smile. You’ve also gathered a source of energy and placed it below your navel. With some practice, you’ll be able to access it at will.
Inner Smile II
This exercise connects the Inner Smile to Microcosmic Orbit.
With Inner Smile, you expanded your awareness out to the universe. You then shrank the universe to a small white pearl an inch and a half below your navel.
Apply light pressure there and breathe into it, using your breath like a bellows to pump heat into the white pearl.
Close your eyes and imagine that you can smile into them. Feel a warm smile shine in through your eyes.
Now, place your focus on your navel and see, or feel, the white pearl beneath it. Imagine the pearl is spinning clockwise twenty-four times.
Now circulate the energy in the other direction twenty-four times.
Day 1: Spend five minutes seated. Imagine the orbit spinning in both directions
Day 3: Increase to six minutes
Day 5: Repeat
Day 9: 7 minutes
Day 12: Repeat
Day 14: 8 minutes
Day 16: Repeat
Day 18: 9 minutes
Day 20: 10 minutes
Continue to do this, till you’re doing it for twenty minutes, twice a day.
