Sit and Smile

by Faye
(Canada)

My next Exercise in Being comes from an account in Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love. She has just spent four months in an Indian ashram where she has disciplined herself gradually to the point where she can meditate for hours at a time.

She has now come to Bali to work with a Balinese healer and medicine man. He had invited her during a reading about two years before - he said she would return - he would teach her what he knew and she would teach him English.

After her first day with him, he gives her the first lesson. He says it is the easy way for Westerners to meditate - Sit in silence and smile.

Basically, this is what he says in his broken English:

Yoga is too hard, you do it with a serious face and it scares all the good energy away.
To meditate, all you have to do is sit and smile.
Smile with your face,
Smile with your mind,
And the good energy will come to you and clean away the dirty energy.
Even smile with your liver.
Don't hurry,
Don't try too hard,
don't be too serious.
Just smile.

Let me know how this goes for you.