x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Some years ago, on reading one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s wonderful books , I discovered the half smile. Thich Nhat Hanh encourages a practice of wearing a half smile upon one’s face, all the time.

I was not a smiley person, so this seemed like quite a challenge to me. What Thich Nhat Hanh said about the benefits of the half smile made good sense to me, and  as I need only the slightest encouragement to practice (rule 1: practice all the time), I started.

I practising creasing my face into a very weak curious smile (more like an eighth than a half) and without even looking in the mirror, I knew it looked insipid and silly. It was very uncomfortable and very forced.  After weeks of weak and wane smiling alone in the safety of my bedroom, I was about to give up when one of Heather’s favourite sayings (she had so many) came back to me – fake it til you make it

So I faked it – big time! Out I went. I ventured forth onto Auckland’s mean streets (and I’m talking Devonort here -  if you know it you know what I’m talking about) with my insipid quarter smile (it did improve slightly) on my face. I couldn’t help but wonder what those who saw it thought of me.  A looney? Some dope-head loser? Someone who just for whatever reason doesn’t understand just how really serious life really is? Hmmm maybe he’s about to go on holiday?

It wasn’t easy at all to begin with. I willed myself to crease my lips into that half smile.  I felt like something out of a horror movie, some poor humpbacked imbecile with a twisted grin etched upon his face, yet with the wherewithal to feel hugely self-conscious. For months I practiced; many times a day I would find my face empty of the smile, and I would force it on again, and concentrate on keeping it there. Good meditation practice I realise now, at the time it was, as it often is, more frustrating and difficult that illuminating in any way.

That illumination did happen however. One day as I was walking up Albert Street towards the Court House on my way to work, a woman walking towards me smiled. Everything stopped, stunned. Then the questions started. Why did she smile at me? What does it mean? I swivelled around, would she look back over her shoulder? No, she simply walked on. I stood there trying to work it out. It took me a while to realise what you probably already know, the woman had smiled back at me.

I smiled. Right there and then a seriously happy and completely genuine half smile creased my face. Right there on the footpath.  She smiled at me and I felt good. I had smiled at her and she probably felt the same. That was it. That was that.

Perhaps in this there is something of an answer to the existential realisations that I have previously pondered [see start diversing. ] Perhaps a simple genuine smile creased upon a face without reason, without intent, without purpose or attachment is the most effective way of commnicating that which connects us.

A few years ago someone I had only recently met and knew only casually, told me that what they loved most about me was my beautiful big smile. THAT was such a wonderful moment. I had done it, I had become a smiley person. I stopped faking some time ago and now my face just seems to be semi-permanently creased into that smile on it’s own accord. I love being happy, and I smile a lot, and maybe seeing my smile some others feel good and find their smile too.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dwV3Ak4oxM

I can’t hold onto this any longer. I was going to write some words to go with it, to add some context, but really what more is there to add! I love IT!!!

 HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

This one’s for EVERYBODY, and specially for Tobe, so Kate you’ll probably have to tell him to come and have a look. And tell him I want him to sit down and watch and listen to the whole thing!

Aint that cool.  You’ve gotta be feeling GOOD now!!

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

I was, and still am, in awe of that moment. It moved me, reminded me. It was, for me, a sign standing out amongst a mass of signs. It was a ‘mac truck’ of a sign – that is one that figuratively runs us over – one I could not miss.

And it came at a time of doubt as they often do. Once again I had been doubting my purpose, doubting my ability to be all I want to be. Doubting that I was reaching people, touching people, connecting with people. Doubting that I was spreading the dharma in any meaningful way.

And the universe reminded me.  Reassured me – look, look what can happen when you DARE to open your mouth!! In that moment the universe/GOD reminded me to SPEAK UP, reminded me of what I had said I wanted to do – to WALK and TALK.  The whole moment was a glaring reminder of the truly amazing human and spiritual connection that CAN be made simply by commenting on the weather to the person sitting next to us on the Tube or the tram or the train.  It was a reminder to me to be courageous and open my mouth. To speak.

And later as I wandered the streets of Putney and Richmond in a semi-dazed state with this humungous smile on my dial, supposedly on a mission to get Max’s birthday present I found myself in bookshops browsing through books, reading snippets of randomly opened pages…..my writing is interrupted by a call from Tobe in Aotearoa, calling to tell me that there is a conditional offer on the Trust house – MAGIC TIME – I am again in the zone – magic is happening, movement, change, dance… the wonder and mystery reveals itself - and was revealed to me last Saturday in the words on the pages of these books…

‘what is my greatest temptation? Introversion… That is the great temptation for those who misinterpret the words going inward and inner silence…Introversion is not a spiritual state however. Behind it lie all kinds of negative assumptions about the value of external life. The introvert is hiding his light under a bushel basket, the very thing Jesus warns against’

 

speak out

 

‘Human beings the logic suggested, live in societies 150 strong. Although many towns and cities are bigger than this, the number is in fact about right…It is in short the number of people we each know well’

 

make friends

‘It was a revelation to me to read that the just man, the holy man, is also, according to Eckhart, a likeable man…To him the just man is warm and happy and he laughs with God. The just man is the happy man. If in order to find GOD we have to be miserable and afraid then it’s a queer kind of GOD we are looking for’

 

be happy

 

‘Every country has it’s own native myth cycles: they are what makes the inner reality of the land. Thus it is very important for us to be familiar with the mythology of our own place…Once every tree, stone and spring had a tutelary spirit which those who approached it could seek out, with which they could establish contact.’

 

be open to all things

 

‘Time does not flow, any more than space flows. It is we who are flowing, wanderers in a four-dimensional universe. In nature all is given: for her the past and the future do not exist; she is the eternal present; she has no limits, either of space or of time.’

 

be present

 

Enough already, well almost. There is one more thing, one more piece of magic to recount. I was blessed on the Saturday – reminded of who I am, reassured that all is ok, all is good.  Reassured of my purpose. And then on Wednesday I received this message….

Found your book on ebay. Taken by your ID. So I clicked
through some more, read your ebay page, then onto your website.
And a little ebay purchase has taken me on travels, raised a smile and
found myself taken by your writings. I have similar interests and feel
we have similar journeys in life albeit on different roads. So I would
be proud if you would call me your friend. Aren’t friends great! Heh.

And that, simply that, makes it ALL worth while. Thank you John, thank you GOD, thank you UNIVERSE, thank you, thank you one and all.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x