Beauty is a blessing — and any blessing has its inevitable cause. In the same way that dignity comes from humility, beauty comes from a gentle and kind disposition, so the key to attaining radiant beauty is to start from the inside and work your way out.
What’s on the inside is reflected on the outside
By the time people reach middle age, their appearance can reveal the influence of their personality to the outside world, manifesting in their faces and bodies. Generous people usually have happy faces, while people with particularly rough personalities always look fierce.
In fact, the reason we do not see this at birth is that it is the projection of our long-term thoughts and behaviors that are exhibited on our faces. These features also indicate a person’s future destiny.
The appearance and character in childhood, adolescence, and youth are related to the genetic factors of our parents. The shape of the face and the body are related to the innate energy we receive, and the degree of beauty is caused by the habits and deeds brought from a previous life.
In the early stages of life, people live under the influence of their previous lives, while the later stages of life are influenced by their earlier stages of life. Therefore, a person must be responsible for his looks when he reaches middle age.
If you want beauty to shine through, you must first have beauty in your heart. Compassion is a particularly important factor.
For example, people who are more caring often exude a kind of extraordinary brilliance from the inside out, which makes them more pleasing to the eye, and others naturally enjoy being around them.
By contrast, people who are very selfish, cunning, and fussy are unattractive and even ugly. This is also something that seems to exude from the inside out.
Even if a person is lucky enough to have a beautiful face, unpleasing features will gradually appear if a person’s actions and intentions are not good. Such people will only appear pleasing to the eye at first glance, but they will appear unattractive after some contact.
It is indeed true that one’s appearance can be gradually changed based on one’s character, actions, and thoughts. Therefore, if you want to radiate beauty, you must first have a beautiful heart! Your character is revealed in how you handle things and treat others.
In essence, if your character is good, your appearance is good!
The magical cure for a better appearance
There was a sculptor who pursued modern art and often sculpted some popular non-human creatures, like demons and ghosts.
One day, a friend he hadn’t seen for a long time found that his appearance had become unsightly. The sculptor also saw that his looks had become ugly, and he was very upset. In order to rectify these ugly features, he went to the hospital for an examination, but the experts could not find the cause.
By chance, the sculptor met a highly respected man who assured him that his appearance could be corrected. But there was one condition — he was required to sculpt 100 Buddha statues. Relieved that his ugly appearance could be changed, the sculptor happily agreed.
After he returned home, in order to cure his ugly face as soon as possible, the sculptor stopped sculpting modernist art, and instead, began concentrating on sculpting Buddha statues as he’d been advised. During the days of carving Buddha statues, friends who came to visit found that his appearance had improved a lot. When he finished carving 100 Buddha statues, his friends said that his appearance had not only recovered, but that he looked better than before!
Later, the sculptor came to understand the reason for his ugly appearance. When he sculpted non-human ghosts and demons, he often thought about their images and bad deeds. Over time, these ugly images and thoughts settled in his heart.
There is an old saying: “Personality comes from the heart.” If a person’s heart is full of images of monsters and other bad things, his appearance will change in the direction of ugliness. When a person is focusing on good things, like the example of the sculptor carving Buddha statues, a person will always be imagining the majesty and holiness of the divine, and thus carry good things in his heart. His consciousness will preserve the light, compassion, and beauty of Buddha statues. Therefore, his heart and mind will gradually become bright and cheerful, and his appearance will also change for the better.
If a person has a kind heart, he will emit a kind of light from the inside out. Even though others might not be able to explain it, what makes this person more pleasing to the eye and draws others so that they want to be around him or her, is the kindness, compassion, and goodness that radiates from within their heart.
Translated by Patty Zhang
