Meditation Amsterdam - Why does the buddha smile while meditating?
Hello everyone, welcome to another little entry for the Amsterdam Meditation Blog.
In today's entry we'll discuss the background behind that famous buddha smile while he sits in lotus meditation pose. In some cases its a full blown laughter though the slight smile is the one we'll focus for the purpose of this article.
In order to tie that buddha smile to our meditation topics I would like to use it to explain it as a tool and also as a result. In other words the slight smile during meditation, as with many other topics in the mind-body duality, is a two way street.
For some time now it has been shown that the separation that had plagued Western medicine between mind and body is effectively not there. The nervous system acts as a bi-directional highway that ensures that your state of mind affects your body, and the feelings in your body have an effect on your thoughts and your mood.
This is why the term holistic became some popular at some point. In order to eliminate syndromes that modern medicine could not really tackle, a mind body approach was required, using the combination of things like meditation and diet to bring the full system to a better operating level.
Many branches now utilize this holistic approach, for example in the area of personal development where it is known that our posture affects how assertive we feel, and even the levels of testosterone that our body produces.
The reason I mention this, is to clarify the effect of the smile as a tool for meditation. You can try this for yourself and start to embody the results straight away. Experiment with the difference between meditating with a frown on your face, or even just a neutral expression. Then give yourself permission to have a very slight smile.
During meditation, this should not be a smile that strains your face after certain time, and in fact it may even be an imaginary one where the muscles barely even move, but the mind will make it real and its effects on the pleasantness of your meditation session will be felt.
So it seems the Buddha knew this trick and when he smiles during his meditation he is using the smile as a tool, using his body to affect his mind in a positive way. This by the way can be seen in many of the statues of the god Shiva as well.
The second angle to the smile of Buddha can be described as the smile of enlightenment due to the time invested in meditation. It is in other words a result of meditation.
This is the smile of someone who on a deep level knows and understands that everything passes and that all we see around us is a divine play of form. Someone that knows that nothing on the outside can make you happy or miserable and that no success or failure can tell you who you really are.
Only meditation and yoga can bring the mind to this realization though some have seemingly reached it spontaneously. It is no doubt a "knowing" smile, peaceful, blissful, loving. A smile of a mind that has nothing left to prove because it understands that, as the Zen saying goes:
"Every snowflake falls in its appropriate place".
Once this is understood not just conceptually, but really lived and embodied, there is no inner conflict left, and a small but meaningful smile arises. Lets hope we all get a glimpse of it through our practice.
Namste
Pablo
www.meditationamsterdam.com
In today's entry we'll discuss the background behind that famous buddha smile while he sits in lotus meditation pose. In some cases its a full blown laughter though the slight smile is the one we'll focus for the purpose of this article.
In order to tie that buddha smile to our meditation topics I would like to use it to explain it as a tool and also as a result. In other words the slight smile during meditation, as with many other topics in the mind-body duality, is a two way street.
For some time now it has been shown that the separation that had plagued Western medicine between mind and body is effectively not there. The nervous system acts as a bi-directional highway that ensures that your state of mind affects your body, and the feelings in your body have an effect on your thoughts and your mood.
This is why the term holistic became some popular at some point. In order to eliminate syndromes that modern medicine could not really tackle, a mind body approach was required, using the combination of things like meditation and diet to bring the full system to a better operating level.
Many branches now utilize this holistic approach, for example in the area of personal development where it is known that our posture affects how assertive we feel, and even the levels of testosterone that our body produces.
The reason I mention this, is to clarify the effect of the smile as a tool for meditation. You can try this for yourself and start to embody the results straight away. Experiment with the difference between meditating with a frown on your face, or even just a neutral expression. Then give yourself permission to have a very slight smile.
During meditation, this should not be a smile that strains your face after certain time, and in fact it may even be an imaginary one where the muscles barely even move, but the mind will make it real and its effects on the pleasantness of your meditation session will be felt.
So it seems the Buddha knew this trick and when he smiles during his meditation he is using the smile as a tool, using his body to affect his mind in a positive way. This by the way can be seen in many of the statues of the god Shiva as well.
The second angle to the smile of Buddha can be described as the smile of enlightenment due to the time invested in meditation. It is in other words a result of meditation.
This is the smile of someone who on a deep level knows and understands that everything passes and that all we see around us is a divine play of form. Someone that knows that nothing on the outside can make you happy or miserable and that no success or failure can tell you who you really are.
Only meditation and yoga can bring the mind to this realization though some have seemingly reached it spontaneously. It is no doubt a "knowing" smile, peaceful, blissful, loving. A smile of a mind that has nothing left to prove because it understands that, as the Zen saying goes:
"Every snowflake falls in its appropriate place".
Once this is understood not just conceptually, but really lived and embodied, there is no inner conflict left, and a small but meaningful smile arises. Lets hope we all get a glimpse of it through our practice.
Namste
Pablo
www.meditationamsterdam.com
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