One of the best spiritual practices I ever received was called "The Inner
Smile". One of the people I learned it from had gone to China to study under
some Taoist master who taught rare, very advanced practices which were still
kept very secret. Of course he had some concern after traveling to this
remote region that he might be rejected and he wouldn't get the teachings he
sought. After meeting the teacher and requesting the teachings he desired
the teacher said to him, simply "do you know how to smile at yourself?" The
student, who had practiced the Inner Smile as part of his practice for a
long time, immediately broke out into a smile realizing what the teacher was
referring to. "Oh yes" he responded.
He got the teaching he requested.
In ati-yoga and Dzogchen, there are methods to introduce the non-dual state
by mimicking the laughter of beings from other dimensions or putting oneself
into a state of constant laughter. We are told to practice these in strict
privacy as it can become so consuming, if outsiders observe you doing
this--they'd think you'd gone insane.
On 9/30/05 5:12 AM, "TurquoiseB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> One of the reasons I think some spiritual seekers don't make
> more progress is that they don't laugh enough.
>
> If you're not involved in the discussions between solemn,
> earnest, dedicated, "If you don't take me as seriously as
> I take myself I'll kill you" spiritual seekers and those who
> are more lighthearted, and are watching the discussions
> dispassionately from the sidelines, you can often see that
> they work out in ever-repeating samskaric cycles.
>
> One seeker pokes fun at the other for being so serious, and
> the first reacts by becoming even more serious. Or one
> lighthearted seeker, who is having a *really* good day and
> perceives almost *everything* as funny that day, laughs his
> way through his posts and includes a bunch of smileys to try
> to clue others into his mood. And how do the "serious seekers"
> react to this? They get even more serious, and try their best
> to keep the first person from being funny, or from expressing
> it. It's just the weirdest thing.
>
> I never found Hindu-based traditions to be big on humor, but
> to be honest my experience was mainly limited to a Hindu-based
> tradition that was so uptight that it claimed for decades that
> it wasn't Hindu. :-) In Buddhism it's a very different story.
> There is a LOT of laughter in Buddhism. If you get the time,
> there are a series of light-hearted Web pages called "Laughing
> to Enlightenment" that have some wonderful essays on this
> subject, and the ups and downs of actually being a happy
> seeker in a world full of people who feel that laughter is
> an affront to being a "serious seeker." In one of them
> http://www.hundredmountain.com/Pages/pageone_stuff/laughing_feb00/lau
> ghing5.html
> the author talks about a wonderful cartoon series called
> Dharma the Cat, which some of you may know. His insights
> into what makes the strip so funny have, in my opinion, a
> lot to say about recent attempts here to berate others for
> using smileys and just being who they are:
>
> "One of the reasons Bodhi is such a funny character
> is because he takes himself so seriously. Not
> laughing at oneself in one's earnestness only makes
> one's predicament funnier to others. In fact I have
> described Bodhi's character as `a novice monk who
> is stumbling earnestly along the Buddha's path,
> stepping squarely into every spiritual pitfall.'
> I think his unrelenting earnestness is the key to
> his funniness.
>
> "Also, people ask me, `When is Bodhi going to get
> it together?' Well, there is a lot more humour
> available in observing people's mistakes than in
> observing their successes. So if Bodhi is going to
> continue to give us his enjoyable `how not to'
> lessons, he is going to have to forego enlight-
> enment for quite some time -- in the true spirit
> of a Bodhisattva."
>
> That's really the issue, in my opinion. Many people
> who get uptight at laughter in others and attempt to
> stifle it are doing so because they are afraid that
> the others are laughing at *them*. And they're *right*,
> of course. And the more uptight they get about being
> laughed at, the more earnestly they attempt to berate
> others for (God help us!) *laughing*, the funnier they
> become to the laughers, and the more they laugh.
>
> The uptight, oh-so-serious seekers are really missing
> something. NOTHING is more liberating than *joining
> in* when someone is laughing at you. It indicates that
> you don't take yourself seriously, and thus that your
> problems *with* self aren't that serious. The opposite,
> seekers who get even *more* uptight when someone laughs
> at them in an attempt to help them laugh at themselves,
> may indicate a lot of problems with letting go of self.
> And thus a lot of laughs ahead for those watching.
>
> For those who want to check out Dharma the Cat:
>
> http://w