'Awakening Buddha Smile' means awakening our natural potential for kindness, compassion and friendliness, whatever is here, with a sense of equilibrium. A vital part of these triple virtues is that everything is welcome. Feeling 'good' is not always mandatory. If you are feeling good, fine-but also allow space for pain or hurt, or any other feeling you may usually try to avoid. This represents compassion in its most genuine form.

We want to get in touch with the universal kindness, compassion and friendliness of non-judgmental awareness that is not bound by narrow domestic walls, ideas and isms. Everything else without distinction is included, exactly as it is, without compartmentalising. Allow resistance to be there; it is valuable for you to watch your resistance, especially to friendliness or compassion. Getting in touch with this can be painful but also healing. Kindness can make you feel uncomfortable, afraid or angry.

It can also be threatening to look with kindness at things that we don't like about ourselves. We often need to be critical or harsh to ourselves when we do things that aren't 'good'. Looking with kindness towards those things might feel like we give in or agree. Kindness brings forth compassion. And compassion is both restorative and transformative. Watching yourself from a distance, not with critical judgment but with kindness, friendliness and compassion, is meditation. It awakens fresh awareness. This awareness is intelligence. This intelligence is a Buddha smile.