A Simple Practice
“By being on the spot, your life can become workable and even wonderful.” Chogyam Trungpa
We can recite the Vedas, memorize ancient Buddhist texts and sing the Gregorian chants. We can declare our allegiance to a religion, belief, practice or teacher. Sit for a minute and scan the world religions: the teachings, teachers, sermons, art, iconography, cathedrals, mosques, temples, churches, sacred sites, desecrations, religious wars, chalices, robes, crowns, tapestries, charlatans, saints, holy people, and the holy grails. Scroll back further in time to the Indigenous peoples. Scan the complete timeline of humans. We excavate the mysteries of these people and their practices. We put their things in museums, and we make up stories about them. We wonder if they are worshiping a god or the sun.
It is so exhausting! And complicated. Too many egos, wars and misappropriations of the sanctity of a true spiritual path.
As the decades have rushed by, I have become less interested in rituals, sacred texts, icons and esoteric practices. My goal has been to take my practice to the streets, outside of the Buddhist temple and my home. I wanted to implement the teachings of compassion and wisdom.
I became very intentional about smiling as a spiritual practice.
My original focus was to smile at the forgotten population, old people. There are so many of them; those baby boomers now gone old. They are specters moving silently up and down the grocery aisles bent over their carts. Swirling around them are the distracted parents, caffeinated, suited up, dressed up office workers, the lithe and tenuous young people. I have been all of them. I began deliberately catching an older person’s eye. And smiled. Here is what happened. They look surprised. Then they straightened up, brightened up and smiled back. They perhaps felt really seen for the first time in a day, week or month.
Then I moved on to everyone. Intentional smiling. Not the automatic vacant smiling. Intentional smiling is when you engage with another human being right now. You silently share yourself with them. You honor them on the spot.
In traffic, on walks and at work I smile. No words. A smile. I have never had a person frown back. The unbearable softness of people waiting to be seen is overwhelming. The mutual heart openings are the best part of any day. How much smiling I have done in a day is a barometer of how awake I have been to the planet.
Smile quietly from the heart. A simple practice.
