Why do you say Be Yourself Be Beautiful?

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh,Thay, answers questions on 21 June 2014. Question 7. Plum Village Monastery, France.

(Bell)

(Bell)

(French) Dear Thay, dear Sangha,

Here you say 'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

But...

Nature is really beautiful,

but men and women,
physically,

I don't think that it is always like that.

For example,

I cannot understand how you do

when you are in front of us meditating,

to be so sure of yourself physically.

How do you know, for example
that your nose is not going to run.

The human body is...

I don't think it is so good

if you don't wash yourself,
shave yourself and so on.

It is not so beautiful.

If you don't cut your hair,
you are not so beautiful.

I don't understand how do you manage

to feel so well physically.

In front of us.

How do you manage
to be so comfortable,

to feel so beautiful in front of us.

I don't understand.

(Laughter)

(Sister) Can you say it also in English?

Here in Plum Village,
we say 'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

When I look at most of the girls,

I find them really beautiful.

But when I look at people,

sometimes I don't find them beautiful.

So I don't understand why you say
'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

Sometimes we are not beautiful.

That is why we are here.

We use make-up, for the women,

we take care of our appearance, etc.

I don't find myself so beautiful.

(Sister) Our friend asks

how are people to feel beautiful
and be in front of many people.

Beautiful in this body.

(Sister) To feel comfortable
in his own body.

So confident in his body.

(Sister) The microphone?

(Man) I don't understand how you do
to be so confident in your body.

Because my body always makes me flush.

(inaudible)

Interesting question.

(Laughter)

We agree with each other
that Mother Earth is beautiful.

Right?

She knows how to preserve her beauty.

She does not need cosmetics.

And yet she knows how to transform.

She has the power of transformation

and healing.

We have to learn from her.

To me, Mother Earth is a real bodhisattva.

A very beautiful bodhisattva.

Having a lot of virtues,

like non-discrimination.

Mother Earth does not discriminate.

Mother Earth does not say,

"You are beautiful,
you are not beautiful.

I am beautiful,
I am not beautiful.'

Mother Earth never says
'I am beautiful.'

She is beautiful, but she never says
I am beautiful.

(Laughter)

If we practice well enough,

we will see that we ourselves
are children of Mother Earth.

You cannot deny it.

Buddhas, bodhisattvas, saints,

even terrorists,

are children of the Earth.

Right?

As children of the Mother Earth,

we carry Mother Earth inside of us.

Right?

Mother Earth is not only outside of us,

she is also inside of us.

If you look into yourself,
you see Mother Earth.

You carry Mother Earth.

If Mother Earth is beautiful,

we are beautiful.

There should be no complex.

(Laughter)

If Mother Earth is beautiful,

we are beautiful also.

The problem

is whether we know
how to preserve our beauty.

If Mother Earth has no discrimination,

we have to learn

non-discrimination as a virtue.

This person is beautiful,
that person is not beautiful,

I am beautiful enough,
I am not beautiful enough.

That is discrimination.

Since we have a lot of discrimination,

we have a lot of fear,

we are afraid
that we are not beautiful enough.

We have no confidence.

The problem is

that...

whether we know
how to preserve our beauty,

and preserve the virtues

that our beautiful Mother has.

I think that
the teaching of the Buddha on love

is very crucial,

very helpful.

Mother Earth is very loving.

Very compassionate.

Loving kindness

and compassionate.

She loves without discrimination.

She does not prefer
one species over another.

Can we do that?

Mother Earth has a lot of compassion.

She is able to help us heal

if we know how to go back to her
and surrender to her.

We can get the healing from Mother Earth.

Our practice of Touching the Earth

as our practice of walking meditation

is to help us to go back to the Earth

and get the healing that we need.

Even the Buddha
practises Touching the Earth.

There is a mudra called bhumisparsha,
'earth touching'.

The Buddha is touching
the Earth with his hand.

He is in connection with Mother Earth.

We, humans,

we lose that kind of contact
with Mother Earth.

We are alienated
from Nature, from Mother Earth.

That is why we become sick.

Because of that lack
of non-discrimination, equanimity,

we begin to suffer.

We think that we are
more beautiful than someone else,

we believe that we are
less beautiful than someone else,

or we believe that
we are equally beautiful.

This kind of complexes
make us suffer a lot.

If we try to buy cosmetics,

if we do plastic surgery,

it is because we don't have confidence.

We don't know that
we are beautiful like that.

We think that in order to be beautiful

you should be like that,
like this, like that.

You have a notion of beauty.

But for Mother Earth,

non-discrimination is the way she looks.

If we learn that way of looking,

we can see that everything is beautiful.

A swan is beautiful,
a horse is beautiful,

a monkey is beautiful,
a frog is beautiful.

A flower is beautiful,

a grass blade is also beautiful.

Everything is a wonder,

everything is beautiful.

Not only the lotus is beautiful,
but the mud is also beautiful.

That is the mind of non-discrimination.

You know that in Plum Village
we have the practice

that has been invented for the children,

the pebble meditation

about beauty and freshness,

and solidity and freedom.

The children get four pebbles
and practise.

The first pebble represents a flower.

'Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.'

You are born as a flower
in the garden of humanity.

Look at the babies,
they are very beautiful.

They are all flowers.

Their face is truly a flower.

Their tiny hand is a flower.

Their tiny foot is a flower.

The child is beautiful
when she sleeps,

the child is beautiful when she plays.

We, adults, we have lost
our beauty and freshness

because we don't know
how to preserve that beauty.

We cry too much.

And our eyes are not limpid
and beautiful any more.

We have many wrinkles
because we worry too much.

Practising 'Breathing in,
I see myself as flower,

breathing out, I feel fresh'

is to restore your flowerness,
your freshness,

that you have lost.

Many of us have lost
some of our freshness and beauty.

Beauty understood
the way Mother Earth has.

If you are not fresh,
not natural, not beautiful,

you are not happy,

you have not much to offer
to the person you love.

So the first pebble represents beauty,

a flower, freshness.

Breathing in, I see myself.
I do not imagine.

I don't need to imagine

because I am a flower
in the garden of humanity.

I can restore my freshness, my beauty,

even if I am over 80 years old.

(Laughter)

All persons can be beautiful,

can be fresh also.

Our practice of meditation
has to do with this.

The second pebble represents a mountain.

'Breathing in,
I see myself as a mountain,

breathing out, I feel solid.'

Solidity is part of
the beauty of the Earth.

When you are not stable,
when you are not solid,

people cannot count on you.

Happiness is not possible
if you are not stable,

if you are not solid.

So to breathe like that is
to restore solidity, stability,

and not to allow the past,
the future, the worries,

to pull you away.

You are solid.

You are solidly established
in the present moment.

Solidity is a part of...

is a very important element of happiness.

The third pebble represents peace, calm.

Breathing in, I see myself as still water,

peaceful, reflecting things as they are,

not distorting.

And if you are peaceful,

not disturbed by anger and fear,

then you are beautiful.

That is what makes you happy,

and that is what you offer
to the person you love.

If you are not peaceful,

you don't have much to offer him or her.

Peace is possible with the practice
of mindful breathing,

mindful walking,

mindful embracing our sorrow, our fear.

Peace is possible.

And then the last pebble is freedom.

'Breathing in, I see myself as space,

breathing out, I feel free.'

The moon is beautiful
because she has a lot of space around her.

There will be a full moon in a few days.

And we can practice
contemplating the moon together.

So if we are free from worries,
fear, and anger,

we are beautiful. We are happy.

We are truly beautiful.

And when you look at a person,

if you see that person has freshness,

has solidity, has freedom,

you see real beauty.

A person like that
does not need cosmetics.

A person like that does not need
plastic surgery.

And people like to come
and sit close to that person.

If you have that kind of peace in you,

that kind of space, freedom in you,

that kind of solidity in you,

you have confidence.

If you don't wear lipsticks, powder

and a good, expensive dress,

you are beautiful anyway.

Confidence comes from that.

That is why the sentence

'Be yourself, be beautiful'

is to encourage people
not to seek beauty from the outside,

not to have a complex

and to be yourself
as a child of the Earth.

Then you have true beauty.

(Bell)

(Bell)