Why are you beautiful?

5 min readApr 27, 2020

“If a person is wrathful and turbulent, is irritated by a trivial word, gives vent to anger, ill-will and resentment, he, as a result of his irritability, when born amongst mankind, will become ugly.”

“If a person is not wrathful and turbulent, is not irritated by a trivial word, does not give vent to anger, ill-will and resentment, he, as a result of his irritability, when born amongst mankind, will become beautiful.”

— Buddha

Turning on the news or carrying on your life during the coronavirus period, you are immediately inundated with tons of information or people; some really irritate you, and it would be like killing you if I were to repeat those junkies.

Don’t worry, as you are not the only one; frankly, we all have it simply because we drink from the same water and think alike on so many issues, especially when it comes to right or wrong.

And yet, you do feel irritated and the question is, what effect it may have on you and what you should do about this?

The effect is clear, it makes you ugly. When you are irritated, your whole self is dominated by anger, irritation, despise and like evils. If you step away from yourself or rise from your body, you could perceive that irritating person walking on the earth, emitting anger and vomiting irritation. You would not want to get close to that person, right? And yet, that person is none other than yourself. Looking yourself in the mirror, what an unpleasant face you see, right? And yet, that person is none other than yourself. As they say, life is a mirror; if you smile at it, you see a smiling face; if you show an irritating face to it, you see an irritating face.

Everyone admits that there are many irritating things and people; in times of crisis such as coronavirus lockdown, there are more irritating things and people. Why so? It is not actually that there are more irritating things and people, rather, that you have become more susceptible to irritation. No one can change things, and you cannot change other people or things. You can only change yourself. When you change yourself, you will find that the world has changed for the better.

How to do this? How to conquer or rise above irritation?

Show love and compassion; in other words, love your enemies; that is the only way to raise you up, that is the only way to get you away from irritation, and that is the only way to make you beautiful. Indeed, listen to Buddha:

Buddha talks about Kamma; taking him literally, he is talking about inequality amongst human beings from birth; taking him broadly, he is meaning that everyone is constantly born and reborn every moment, every day. We all have it, right? When we are happy and grateful, when we receive great news, we are so happy and we feel we are beautiful, and we see a beautiful face in the mirror, in the eyes of our family, in the eyes of our friends or a person in the street. On the other hand, when we are unhappy and irritated, we already see an ugly person, an ugly face in the eyes of others or even in our own eyes.

So how does Buddha conquer irritation? Well, he makes it clear, you can only conquer hatred with love; show hatred and you receive more hatred; show love and compassion and you receive love and kindness.

Were there not irritating things or people, then that would not be a human world; were there not hatred, then that would not be a human world either. The very feel and definition of anything and indeed any feeling is in the opposite. So, to enjoy a beautiful life, to be beautiful, one can only melt the opposite with love and compassion by accepting the reality. Isn’t your garden more beautiful with varieties? Isn’t your garden down to your nurturing? As you sow, so you reap. When you sow sunflower seeds, would you reap slugs? When you sow love, would you reap hatred?

Why love? Love is magic; it conquers hatred and it is the only remedy. In a prison, on the wall, is written, “there is no justified resentment!” It helps inmates; if we are all inmates in the human world and on the tiny spot of the earth, that statement certainly helps us. When you show irritation to others, when you show irritation toward yourself, when you feel others have wronged you, and when you believe you have wronged others and start to blame yourself to death, tell yourself, “there is no justified resentment!”

Heard the word, “equalizer?” Coronavirus is the equalizer; it treats the wealthy, the poor, the powerful and the powerless equally. In fact, the amount of money or power in the human pocket or hand is next to nothing when seen in the larger perspective; and indeed every being is equal, and every being can be good or bad, is doing good sometimes and is doing something nasty other times. So, why being irritated by others whereas you can be those others sometimes? Do to others as you would have others do to yourself. When you are nasty or irritating others, you certainly want others to show love and compassion to you, to give you the opportunity to reflect and improve and move on. Likewise, when others irritate you, you do not want to show resentment, as “there is no justified resentment in this world!”; rather, you want to show love and compassion, and to give them the opportunity to become a better being. Indeed, you want to be beautiful, so show love and compassion rather than irritation. Once you conquer yourself, once you change yourself, suddenly you will realise that the world has changed for you.

Thus, next time you feel irritation, say to yourself, “there is no justified resentment!” Say to yourself, “love thy enemies” In so doing, look yourself in the mirror and you shall see a beautiful face looking back at you!