It makes you happy to meet a beautiful person.
A person who can meet nice people every day is fortunate.
In life, you soon realize that it’s not easy to meet nice people. In fact it is quite difficult.
As a matter of fact, we tend to meet people we dislike rather than those we like, and we often meet offensive people rather than beautiful people.
When we meet people who aren’t greedy, like to share, and who have a glow about them, a good feeling automatically arises.
In addition, when you do come across someone like that then, without words, you feel at ease.
Perhaps, a beautiful mind and good feelings are “words” beyond words.
Not long ago, I met a young man who gave out this good feeling.
He was a teacher at a school teaching architecture for log houses after serving in the army. He had big eyes and didn’t talk much.
He was shy, not like most young men of today.
I asked him what he wanted to do.
He said he wanted to live by building houses for homeless people.
I also asked him about his own life style.
He answered that he wanted to live in a small log house on a mountain and take care of trees.
He had a very romantic though humble dream.
“I majored in architecture and I teach at this school in order to one day realize my dream,” he said.
Because of who he is, it’s just possible that he may realize his dream.
This strong wish of his coupled with his generous mind gave off a very good feeling.
Most people estimate others by their appearance or by their job.
And then they decide whether the person is good or bad based on those things.
That is a very calculated judgment.
You can’t smell the true fragrance of people by their appearance or by knowing the job they do.
Such a simple mechanical style of judgment can result in terrible mistakes.
Those mistakes cause the unhappiness that blocks us from meeting the beautiful person inside.
A story from the time of the Buddha illustrates this.
There was a wealthy man called Sudalda.
His property was managed by his friend whose name was Misfortune.
People told the wealthy man that he should fire his friend because no good could come of a manager with such a name.
But Sudalda said he couldn’t do that.
He couldn’t get rid of his friend because he knew that a name is only a name and not the true character of the person.
Sudalda could see his friend’s heart and his character; he was not affected by the outside, the simple name.
You have to spend some time with someone to find out what kind of person they are.
It’s nearly impossible to get to know someone just by looking at the outside.
The Korean proverb “it is very difficult to make out what other people really mean” exists for a reason.
You can’t figure out other people unless you get close to them and open yourself to them.
Even though someone looks good, that doesn’t mean that they are good on the inside, too.
People tend to be different on the inside from what you see on the outside.
To understand someone properly, you have to see the person with innocent (not judging) eyes and an open heart; you have to discard unreliable methods of assessment.
If you rely only on conditions and their appearance, you will miss the most important dimensions like their mind and their character.
When your eyes are innocent then you can see people properly; when your eyes are arrogant, you can only see conditions and appearances.
Innocence comes from wisdom.
When you have the wisdom of understanding the true meaning of life, then you can finally meet beautiful people.
However, people without wisdom only see the outside.
People who see appearances and conditions are not able to see the inside.
When you can’t see the inside, the beauty of a person is invisible.
As the sutra tells us, a foolish person tries to cook sand in order to make rice but a wise person cooks rice.
However long you cook it, sand can’t become rice.
A person who judges others by conditions and appearances can’t meet beautiful people no matter how long he goes around meeting others.
Only a person who sees the inside, disregarding the outside, can meet an unchanging and beautiful person who’s just like himself.

Do you have a beautiful person like yourself beside you now?
If you don’t, you should feel sorry that you don’t have the wisdom to look inside.