Is it true that appearance is not the best way to judge a person?

We often say "Don't judge a book by its cover", which means that you can't judge a person's inner qualities by his or her appearance. This saying makes sense, but it is also biased in real life. Sometimes people can be judged by their appearance. Let's take a look with the editor below.

1. Don’t judge a book by its cover. This means that you cannot judge a person by his appearance alone.

So, from another perspective, that is to say, in addition to judging a person by his appearance, looks, words, etc., we must also look at his heart, cultivation, and behavior. That is, as people often say, we should not only listen to what he says, but also watch what he does and how he does it. The Book of Changes says that the Tao is one yin and one yang. If we call the surface yang and the inner yin yin, then we can only judge a person by combining his surface yang and inner yin, in order to truly know and understand this person accurately, comprehensively and completely. This means that the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" is consistent with the theory of Yin and Yang in the Book of Changes, and is therefore correct.

2. The practical origin of the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

In real life, many people often come to the conclusion that "you can't judge a book by its cover". "I" felt that the man looked familiar, but I didn't expect...; "I" really didn't expect that a man like him could marry such a beautiful wife... So, "I" sighed, it's true that "you can't judge a book by its cover"! So, why is there such a huge contrast in our judgments? In fact, we can find the answer from the previous analysis. Because everything has two sides, yin and yang, and although yin and yang are opposites, they are unified and inseparable. When we observe people, things, and events, if we only see the yin side or only see the yang side, then it is natural that deviations, contrasts, or even complete mistakes will easily occur. This means that our way of observing things is limited to the level of “seeing mountains as mountains and water as water”.

3. People can be judged by their appearance, but the prerequisite is that the person who judges them must have the ability to see the essence through appearance.

Although we say that judging a person requires a combination of external and internal qualities, in actual practice, the external is easy for us to capture, but the internal is difficult to grasp. So, what to do? In fact, the theory of Yin and Yang in the Book of Changes tells us that Yin and Yang are mutually rooted, interdependent, mutually reflective, interconnected, and so on. In other words, Yin can reflect Yang and Yang can also reflect Yin. There is an image of Yang in Yin and an image of Yin in Yang. From this we can see that as long as we have the ability to see from the outside to the inside and see the essence through appearances, then people can be judged by their appearance, and you are that person who can be judged by appearance. In fact, all Zhouyi predictions are based on "judging people by appearance", for example, looking at the face, palm, house, hexagrams, fortune, etc. That is to say, people can be judged by their appearance, but those who judge by appearance need to reach the state of seeing mountains as not mountains and seeing water as not water.

4. When judging a person's appearance, you should look at it this way: when looking at the appearance, you should be able to see the bad in the good, and the good in the bad; and when looking at the inner qualities, you should also be able to see the bad in the good, and the good in the bad. You should not generalize.

The Yin-Yang theory in the Book of Changes tells us that Yin contains Yang and Yang contains Yin. In other words, in addition to the division of Yin and Yang in all things, Yin can be further divided into Yin and Yang, and Yang can be further divided into Yin and Yang. Applying this theory to our appearance, if we see the good side on the "surface" while ignoring the bad side hidden in it, our observation will be biased, contrasted or wrong; similarly, if we see the bad side on the "inside" while ignoring the good side hidden in it, our observation will also be biased, contrasted or wrong. If this is the case, we will still sigh that "you can't judge a book by its cover". From this point of view, it is feasible for us to look at the appearance or the inner self, and the key to whether we can accurately judge people, things and events lies in whether we apply the Yin-Yang theory that divides things into two. This means that mountains are not mountains, and water is still water.

The above is an introduction on whether it is true that one cannot judge a person by his appearance. For more content, please pay attention to the Ziwei Mansion’s special topic on face reading.