Reading Faces

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One thing that I have really loved in my life is the ability to read faces.

No, I don't mean the ability to look at someone's smile and know they're happy, or to see their frown and know they're sad.

I mean the ability to read faces, as in the ancient Chinese art of mien shiang. With the proper know-how, you can understand a lot about a person from their face alone. Check out this picture from the Mien Shiang Institute. On that face you can see lines of grief, of lost love, of heartbreak. You can see a "suspended needle" between the eyes. All of these "wrinkles" are actually forms of information--which is to say, to one person they are just wrinkles, and to a face reader, you can see a person's life in them.

Personal experience

I've been studying mien shiang for about ten years now, and early on in my journey I decided not to take it too seriously, because in one of my closest relationships, the other person's nose indicated some life issues that I knew were false for that person.

Only then, years into knowing this person, they confessed a lifelong secret that ended up confirming what their face had said all along. I took it as a verification that mien shiang can actually be very accurate.

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Being able to read someone by their face gives a person a lot of opportunities to serve and a lot of chances to treat people the way they need to be treated. If you can look at someone and know immediately that their primary emotion is worry, that they have a difficult relationship with their father, they struggle with money but have talents in the creative arts--that's a lot of info to pick up based on nothing more than a glance at a face. But all that knowledge can be used to treat others more kindly and more personally.

Colors, marks, sizes, shapes

In face reading, everything matters. The size and shape of each part of the face. Its coloration. Any marks--wrinkles, moles, warts, skin tags. They all have meaning. The ears reflect our early childhoods--but also reflect certain talents, such as musical ability or creative writing. The eyebrows signify the capability for anger (the more eyebrow you have going on, the more prone to anger). The area between the eyebrows, the yin tong, indicates the relationship with the father. The overall shape and coloration of the face itself indicates the primary Chinese element that person channels (metal/grief, fire/mania, earth/worry, etc). If you know what you're looking at, you can discern a lot about a person by examining their face alone.

Mien shiang is a very Taoist skill. And as you know, I do love the Tao!

Possible class?

I've thought about teaching a series of classes on this skill for some time. If anyone is interested, please leave a note in the comments. I'm still trying to decide if I want to do it.

Conclusion

The face is an amazing source of information. Face reading can turn images into information and be an amazing tool for healing (through facial "diagnostics" both physical and emotional) and just for getting to know people better.