Remember the last time you went to the spa, and you saw a really paunchy Buddha smiling back at you, just as the massage therapist dug her elbow deep into your erector spinae? That smiling Buddha calmed your nerves with his reassuring smile, and somehow the pain and suffering in your life felt ok.
Fat, smiling Buddhas are soothing. And they are everywhere these days - even in your neighbour’s garden, hidden under the hydrangeas, grinning away like a blissed-out gnome on Molly. There is an army of reassuring sculptures across our cities, discretely doing our meditation for us, as we go about our hectic lives. As we traverse busy concourses at the airport, outsized Buddha posters smile down on us, reminding us to breathe and relax, despite climate change. What is WITH that annoying, slightly smug, heavily monetized, branded smile, that now wall-papers every sushi restaurant across the world? What does that smile even represent?
No doubt the factory workers in Thailand that are churning out thousands of concrete Buddhas for export are wondering the same thing. Where are all those smiles going, they wonder … into the bathrooms and office lobbies of the constipated, high maintenance, Working-West?
Somehow that grin taunts us as we go about our sweaty, sleep-deprived lives. It appears to be an x-rated, orgasmic smile when glued to the back of a bus, and yet it doesn’t come with a parental guidance warning. It’s definitely erotic, if not a tad salacious. And it constantly reminds us we are not feeling ‘it’, as we slowly claw our way up the corporate ladder.
But that smile is more than just soothing, or annoying. Its more that just a replica of some subtle porn-star-move, designed to titillate adolescent boys late at night in their bedrooms. That ecstatic smile, which may well have given its name to a rapture-inducing party drug, is attributed originally to a princely sage from India. That smile launched a thousand temples, a religious movement that now has over 500 million adherents across the globe. That smile means something, not only to Buddhists. It has real provenance. People want it. Inside of themselves. Permanently.
Of course stone Buddhas are not the only 'artwork' that has tried to capture the facial expression of ecstasy. As an artist I can vouch for the fact that it’s really hard to replicate that look of deep erotic surrender in any other material than real flesh, although some famous artists have actually managed to capture this most private of moments very beautifully, even in cold, hard marble. The seductive smile of bliss, when done well, looks deeply suggestive of a secret, personal pleasure that is both mysterious and illusive. Once the eyes close they look inwards, and there is a tell-tale softening of the edges of the mouth, which is often open slightly, with the neck thrown back, and the muscles of the jaw slack in deep surrender.
Just look at Bernini’s “Estasi di Santa Teresa D’Avila”, for example, for the closest thing to porn, available in the early 1600’s. Ecstasy was a recognizable ‘thing’, even then. in this amazing renaissance sculpture, which outraged many a good catholic who did not believe women should have physical pleasure, Teresa is full-bodied ‘gone’, as she is penetrated multiple times by God's arrow of bliss. Google it. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKRyhyJswqc )
So where does bliss reside these days? Is it still available to us, here, in today’s harried, work-addicted world, to those of us who are probably vaguely agnostic, prone to existential anxiety, and addicted to netflix ? No need for panic - bliss is still right here. Next time, take a peak at the faces of the Hare Krishna musicians as they dance right by you on the street, blissfully unaware of the rush hour traffic, and you’ll know its still a ‘thing’ – and its available to everyone, even in 2020, without buying it on the streets. It’s the smile that arises unselfconsciously and authentically from genuine inner transformation. I will talk more about what transformation is in future blogs, but for now you’ll have to trust me on this - that this particular kind of smile is real, and is one of the embodied markers of enlightenment.
It’s more than the hallmark smile your liver has, for a about a week, after a radical 'detox fast'. It’s more than the smile you have, for about five minutes, after a particularly satisfying love-making session. This smile doesn’t fade by the time you put your underwear back on.
The ancient sages of India made a science out of human transformation that tags you with a natural, instagramable smile that reveals the inner full-body orgasm of real awakening. No botox. No fillers. The real thing. Where the erotic and the spiritual meet - on the face. This is what transformation ‘looks’ like, which in turn, hints at what it 'feels' like. Just take a peak at the contemporary faces of these meditating musicians at ( https://youtu.be/M4AvH5E07wo ) to see for yourselves what I mean. Enjoy.
