How are you beautiful?
If you don’t think you are, you should think again. We are all beautiful. In a multitude of ways.
Unfortunately, there are many social cues confining our views of beauty to physical appearance – and sometimes only certain types of physical appearance. And yet there is so much more to beauty than our external, skin-deep features. The evidence is all around us. It is also inside us.
Consider my kung fu class. We are a diverse group of students in the school, of different ages, shapes, sizes, and abilities. When I first began training, I found myself measuring my performance – my ability, skill, and pace of learning – in terms of others. I didn’t intend to be like that. In fact, I enjoyed being new to martial arts, and found it freeing to be one of the older students, with no previous experience, of whom there were likely low expectations. But years of competitive sports (and perhaps work) have trained deeper patterns of behavior and analysis than I may like to admit. As I participated in classes, I couldn’t help noticing who was “good”, couldn’t keep a part of my brain from judging whether I might also be good, and at what speed I might be improving. Breathing, moving, stretching, learning new forms of animal-inspired movements, I found myself aware of my progress, wanting to do so at the same pace as others, yet also realizing that the essence of the tradition – the art of it – was contrary to that expectation and desire. The goal was – well, what was the goal? Was it to be regularly eligible for a graduation to a new belt stripe or a new belt itself? Was it to master challenging movements and animal forms, developing discipline? Was it to personally develop, in ways not just physical?
This week, during a graduation ceremony, I let myself watch, when I personally wasn’t active in testing. In previous graduations, I’ve not necessarily done that, as I’ve often used the non-participation time to mentally rehearse what I was about to be asked to do. This week, though, I tried not to think ahead. Instead, I tried to appreciate what others were doing.
Some fellow students performed impressively; they knew movements and their bodies executed sequences with crisp efficiency. Other students were less accomplished; athleticism seems less natural to them, as is the demonstration of martial art learning in what may be called an athletic manner. Clearly, some of us appeared better than others, in how we moved, breathed, and demonstrated certain “forms”. And some of us appeared worse.
Which wasn’t the point. Because all were beautiful. Which was the point.
There is beauty in the physical prowess of the athletically gifted, yes. But there is also beauty in the enthusiastic effort of the awkward. There is beauty in the steadfast focus, the committed honesty, the engagement in learning from people of all varieties, abilities, and backgrounds. There is beauty in the smile of achievement, of doing.
And there is beauty in the flow of presence. Remember!, my mind hollered just before I began one form. Clear, my breath gently corrected. Flow, my heart beat. Be, a voice not my own whispered.
When you close your eyes, literally and metaphorically, a new universe of beauty opens. An attunement is possible, to sounds, smells, tactile experiences, pulsations of life, sensations of movement and being. When you don’t try to be beautiful, when you instead try to be kind, to be honest and open, to be humble and appreciative of opportunities and moments, beauty finds you. You can then flow in it. It can flow in you. You and beauty can co-create.
Now open your eyes. Imagine a group of people in a martial arts school, ages eleven to fifty-eight. See the clumsy honesty of nervousness, awkwardness, and the diversity of physical ability. Feel the integrity of the individual student, performing her or his best, and that of a supportive class, leaning in. Know that this all occurs in the protected setting of a school whose sifu, or teacher, defines the goal of kung fu as the alleviation of suffering. It is beautiful, is it not?
Whether or not we possess physical features that others may find attractive, we are blessed with many other qualities, other aspects of our being and spirit that anchor and embody the very essence of beauty: the experience of harmony and belonging. Some of these qualities and features may seem subtle or insignificant. They are not. Caring, kindness, compassion, truth, love – these virtues are integral to beauty. None of us holds these features as steadfastly as we may hope to. Yet in holding them at all, even for brief periods of time, even for moments each day, we hold them – and we hold beauty – for others.
So behold. You are beauty incarnate.