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In Zen teachings, impermanence is the first of the three marks of existence. Everything changes, nothing stays the same. The second mark of existence is no-self, which derives from the first: If everything changes and nothing stays the same, then there is no such thing as a fixed self. The self is only a passing notion, a changing story, relative to its momentary position in space and time. Suffering, the third mark of existence, derives quite logically from the first two. We don't like impermanence, we want to be someone, a fixed self, and we want that self to last. Lacking that fixity, we suffer.

An actor's face is a mask, a screen for our cultural projections; it both is and isn't her own. So when we suspect an actor of having had plastic surgery, we denounce her not only for trying to deceive us but also for tampering with a face that has become partly ours.

Maybe this is just more solipsistic projection, but we all spend a lot of time alone with our reflections, and here, in the kagami-no-ma, is where we are most naked and most vulnerable to our own self-love and self-loathing. The mirror room is where, every day, we confront our hopes and desires, our delusions and disappointments, our aging and our mortality, and there's something sweet and sad and incredibly brave about our willingness to do so. We put on our makeup and our mirror faces. We suck in our cheeks, and lift our chins, and turn our heads to better deflect the light and shadows. We greet our mothers and fathers with affection or dismay. We engage in subterfuge and wishful thinking, but we keep coming back, every morning, and look ourselves in the eye and somehow pull ourselves together enough to get out the door and face another day. This, in itself, is kind of heroic.
But let's not get carried away. Let's not be misled. Because, after all is said and done, all we really know is this: our eyes are horizontal and our noses are vertical. Just this.