This Journey of Life

Life is a journey so beautiful...
 
Yes, this journey of life is truly beautiful, if the people around us are beautiful. No, no, I'm not speaking of outward beauty—a person's true beauty lies in their mind, their heart, their soul.
 
Imagine this: you're traveling to some coveted destination. Your pocket holds enough money, your hands enough time—with you is someone of striking appearance—I mean, someone everyone would call beautiful! Wherever you go, everyone is enchanted by your companion's beauty, but far from being captivated or drawn to the very nature you were eager to savor, they remain utterly unmoved by beauty's presence, thoroughly irritated instead. This person's vexation sours your heart completely. What use is reaching paradise itself with such a companion by your side—someone perpetually annoyed with everything in the world, whose complaints about life know no end? A fine face paired with a wretched disposition—carrying such a person becomes unbearably difficult.
 
And why shouldn't this be so, friend! Does a magnet attract copper? It doesn't, though copper too gleams bright! You think to yourself: I have everything in life, only happiness eludes me. You're not exactly bitter about life, you're simply weary... I'm not angry with you, life, I'm just bewildered... These days people have everything, yet somehow everyone feels terribly exhausted. We desperately need sleep, but sleep won't come...

Now picture this: a thirty-six by thirty-eight inch window, beyond whose bars a person gazes out, casting their sight again and again to see the vast sky, finding existence in the scent of wind, lost in dreams of sowing seeds of wonder in the eyes of children with their tousled hair wandering about.
 
Believe me and stand behind them once, try to think as they do... truly, you'll find peace. Through this person's eyes you'll lose yourself in the sky's vastness, in their perception you'll feel nature's touch, within them you'll sense the very essence of existence. They become a peaceful refuge where you can rest.

"They exist in life!" From this very thought the heart will hum a tune or two... You came into life and everything changed...
 
You know, don't you, that just as shiuli flowers drift down in the morning breeze, tenderness falls drop by drop from the words of someone with a beautiful heart!
 
Perhaps at your single word, life itself falls away gently like shiuli blossoms, though you remain unaware.
 
When something troubles your mind, don't dwell on it too much... it's just the mind—it thinks all manner of things! It's the mind's very nature to think and feel troubled this way! When we're too weary to find our way properly home, the heart suffers greatly!