A smile is the happiness you find right under your nose. The moment you smile, the universe smiles back at you.

(If you want to uncover the secrets of how to put your smile to work for you, skip to the last paragraph below.)

When you meditate, you practice with your present moment awareness. As soon as we get off the cushion, we get captured by the day's flow and can't connect with the awareness we had while meditating. How do we bring meditation awareness into the rest of our life? Most meditation instruction doesn't usually model this, yet this is the vast majority of our life.

1.4% of my day is spent in formal meditation.
98.6% of my day represents the rest of my life.

Even if you two hours every day meditating.
8.3% of the day spent in meditation.
91.7% spent in the rest of life.

We have to find a way to undermine the boundary between a formal period of practice and what happens in ordinary life. It's helpful to be less precious concerning the formal sessions and less cavalier about the rest of your life.

Bring happiness to your day by putting your smile to work for you. Let smiling be the queue that starts the cascade of falling back into awareness. Throughout the day, every time you notice you are not smiling, smile. Let your cheeks rise, stretch your lips, let the energy of your smile move about your face how it wants. Notice that this energy can move down your throat and into your chest and belly. Notice the energy as it spreads out into your body. You need only a half-second for this. At first, the feelings may be vague. You may only remember your smile a couple of times in the day. With practice, smiling will become a superpower, instantly connecting your awareness with the present moment.