Appearance

Born into this world, everyone wants to be beautiful. The value of beauty is so great that people often hold beauty pageants to find the most beautiful women. The winner, besides a generous prize, is courted by film studios and big fashion houses.

Almost all actors who play leading roles must have striking looks to win the sympathy of the audience.

In social dealings, a person with a pleasing face succeeds more easily.

Beauty is like a store of merit laid up for the person, leading to a happy life when opportunity opens. Conversely, an ugly appearance is truly a misfortune in life: such a person wins little sympathy from others and so fails more easily. Ugliness makes people suffer, and cosmetic clinics have grown rich by helping the ugly become more presentable.

There are many different karmic causes that form the karmic result of a beautiful appearance.

When Queen Mallikā asked the Buddha about the cause of beauty and ugliness, the Buddha answered that a person with a gentle mind and forbearance will be beautiful, and one with a mind of anger and hatred will be ugly.

The Buddha held that beauty created from a morally good state of mind is worth more than other kinds. People can create many other karmic causes to produce the karmic result of good looks, but beauty created from a good quality remains true beauty. In human history there is no shortage of beautiful women who used many cruel schemes to seize power and stirred up trouble everywhere. The merit of their beauty was created from some cause that was not true morality. From that merit of beauty they gained glory and spread suffering to others.

The Buddha did not encourage seeking beauty through other, temporary causes; he stressed inner morality as the foundation of outer beauty. That is beauty that is kind and lasting.

Indeed, whenever we flare up in anger, we make for ourselves an ugly, scowling face, with glaring eyes, furrowed brows, pursed mouth, bared teeth... If we make such an expression many times, in the next life that unpleasant look will become fixed for a long time. For a gentle, loving person, the face that appears is one of attentive eyes, a cheerful smile, a calm and gentle expression. Gradually that pleasant look will become fixed in the next life.

In life we meet many beautiful people, but of different kinds. There is a beauty that arouses pure affection and respect; there is a beauty that arouses base desire to possess. There is a beauty that shows nobility and gentleness. There is a beauty that betrays pride and conceit. There is a discreet beauty. There is a flirtatious beauty... The reason beauties differ is that each person has sown different karmic causes.

If someone creates beauty from a thoroughly cultivated moral state of mind, that beauty will radiate a holy, gentle, venerable air.

If someone often brings flowers to decorate the shrines of saints, they will receive both karmic results. One is beauty like a thousand flowers gathered together; the other is that they will acquire virtuous conduct like the saints'. Each religion has its own particular Saints. A believer who offers flowers to a given Saint will come to resemble that Saint's bearing. Or a person with no religious belief who only brings flowers to decorate the statues of the world's great figures will reap a similar result. A mind of devotion to a Saint or great figure creates a karmic result resembling that figure's bearing.

If someone seldom criticises others and often praises the good in everyone, they will also achieve the karmic result of a beautiful form. They seldom criticise anyone, so they are not ugly and criticised in return. They often praise, so they receive beauty and are praised in return.

If someone often uses their talent to paint pictures and statues of the Saints, enhancing their venerable look, a beautiful karmic result is evident. But painters who draw caricatures, turning the faces of famous people into distorted, grotesque, comical shapes, will suffer the karmic result of a horrible, freakish face in the next life.

Some people, seeking merit, spend money to build pagodas, churches, scenery, statues and to decorate temples... They are very good to the pagoda, the church, the statue of the Buddha or of Christ, but not good to the people around them. The karmic result is that they have a beautiful appearance, yet it reveals a few narrow, selfish traits that a perceptive person will notice.

It is true that if one knows how to sow causes, a person can create for themselves the karmic result of a beautiful appearance later, but that beauty has no connection with morality. Though beautiful, they may still be wicked people. According to psychology, the more a person attends to personal adornment, the narrower their heart. A person of good character is neat and moderate, neither dirty nor excessively dressy and showy. A person with flirtatious eyes is also someone of cruel and fierce temperament. Dissolute flirtatiousness and fierceness often go together.

In life we sometimes meet a few beauties who have no charm, or people with charm who are not beautiful.

Usually a beautiful person quickly attracts others at first sight but cannot keep their affection for long, for lack of duyên (charm). The Vietnamese expression "có duyên" is truly special. It speaks of something discreetly hidden behind that makes others yield. Only a person with duyên can keep others' good feeling steadily.

Nearly all great ladies of rank belong to this kind of person with duyên. When their husbands "wander off", they must return to them in the end. Courtesans, on the other hand, are mostly beautiful but "without duyên": the guest stops by for a moment and then is gone.

People with duyên who win others' affection for a long time do so only because in former lives they persevered in meritorious deeds. Or they persevered in keeping the precepts, in unwavering fidelity to their spouse, trustworthiness to friends, filial respect to parents, loyalty and kindness to employers, and unceasing offerings and almsgiving... It is precisely the merit pursued with perseverance that created for them a duyên in the next life, so that everyone cherishes them for ever.

People who are changeable, who resolve to make merit and then abandon it halfway, or who seldom keep fidelity, filial respect, trustworthiness and loyalty to others, will receive the karmic result of lacking duyên in the next life. Even if beautiful, they will win people's affection only for a moment.

To see a person's duyên we need delicate intuition, because duyên does not show on the outside as beauty does. It is often hidden in the eyes and the complexion.

Fortune-tellers, relying on physical features and the colour of one's vital energy, judge a person's life. They can tell whether that person will live long or die young, be rich or poor, wise or dull... Skilled fortune-tellers can read some 60% of a person's life appearing in their body. So there is a correlation between karma and appearance. Karma has left its mark on a person's form!

For example, a person who in the past was hot-tempered and fierce and harmed others will suffer a terrible accident in this life. Karma has ordained it so. Alongside what karma has arranged, the trace of that fierceness is still printed in their eyes. Fortune-tellers see a "fierce light" showing in the eyes and conclude that this person will suffer a heavy accident. And indeed the accident happens.

For example, a person who in the past helped everyone, making them cheerful, peaceful and steady-hearted, becomes in this life rich and comfortable too. Alongside what karma has arranged, their face shows generosity, cheerfulness, steadiness and calm in the eyes, the smile, the unhurried bearing and the fresh, glowing skin. A fortune-teller sees these signs and judges that this person will become rich. The truth arrives just as predicted.

Fortune-tellers can also read many other subtle signs to judge a person, for example large ears are a sign of long life, thick ears of abundant wealth, clear, handsome teeth of riches and honour, a full, round jaw of merit in later life, a thin, small jaw of weakness or hardship in old age, eyebrows close to the eyes of a narrow-minded person, a broad forehead of early glory, a large, full, closed nose of building a great career...

In truth, it is not only fortune-tellers who can understand the signs of a person's appearance. Anyone with intuition can understand what each sign means. A person who formerly had no intuition looked into people's eyes and saw no meaning. After a time of practising meditation, intuition developed, and this person suddenly understood that every look, every expression, every smile is a manifestation of karma. These signs are a code written by the karma of previous lives for this life, and whoever reads it skilfully will understand a great deal about people.

Since appearance is a manifestation of karma, it also changes as karma changes.

A seller of oil named Bùi Độ (in the reign of Emperor Jing of Han), poor and wandering, was told by a physiognomist that he would starve to death, because two lines ran slantwise from his chin up to the corners of his mouth. One day Bùi Độ met a young woman sitting weeping beside a deep well. Asking what had happened, he learned that she was carrying gold to ransom her father from an unjust charge and had unfortunately dropped it into the well. Everyone said there was a huge python in the well. The young woman, in despair, wanted to end her life.

Bùi Độ took pity; thinking that he would starve sooner or later anyway, he risked his life, climbed down and found the gold for the young woman. Thanks to that, the young woman's family had its honour and standing restored.

When they met again, the physiognomist said in astonishment that Bùi Độ's mark of starvation had vanished and was replaced by the brilliant mark of a wealthy and noble official.

It was true: later the young woman, named Ngọc Hà, repaid his kindness by taking Bùi Độ home to teach, and pledged to be his wife before telling her father. Her father entrusted Bùi Độ to another friend to recommend him for office. During his separation from Ngọc Hà, Bùi Độ's heart strayed, drawn by the images of other beauties.

On his path to office, Bùi Độ stopped to visit the old physiognomist to thank him, but the man told him the mark of starvation had reappeared. Bùi Độ left in anger.

After becoming an official, Bùi Độ lost his character, rummaging out and forcing himself on beautiful girls, and the court ordered him arrested and brought to the capital for punishment. In fear, Bùi Độ fled into the forest and then starved to death beside a rock. Ngọc Hà, grieving, searched for her husband, saw the skeleton, and also collapsed and died beside it.

Bùi Độ's merit arose from the resolve to risk his life to find the gold and save the girl. That merit was so great that it completely changed his appearance and fate so that Bùi Độ became an honoured official. But then his ordinary, lustful character destroyed the old merit, so that the karma of starvation had enough conditions to appear again.

So appearance depends on karma and is not fixed. If we constantly know how to "risk our lives" to rescue and help others, surely our appearance and our fate will change for the better.