Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (34)

How can one be adorned with major and minor marks (lakṣaṇa-vyañjana)?

The tathāgatagarbha has no marks, and the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—also have no marks. There is neither the mark of a human nor the bodily mark of a deva, neither male nor female form, no mark of an animal, no mark of a hungry ghost, no hell-realm bodily form, and no bodily form of an asura. Yet when the four great elements form a physical body, a mark is gradually created—the human form, the animal form, the forms of beings in the six realms, male and female forms are all transformed and produced. The tathāgatagarbha does not transform appearances arbitrarily or chaotically; He manifests them in accordance with the karmic seeds contained within the mind-essence.

Therefore, we should not complain about why our physical body is the way it is—why I was born as a woman, why I suffer from illness and pain, why my appearance is not dignified. If there is any complaint to make, blame the karmic actions you created in past lives. What appearance one has is determined by the karma one has created oneself. So if we wish to have a good physical appearance, we must create wholesome karma. Which appearance is the best? It is the Buddha's thirty-two marks and eighty excellent characteristics—the finest, purest, and most majestic appearance. But attaining such adorned marks is truly not easy: one must continually create wholesome karma, continually eliminate unwholesome and defiled karma, and finally one must also extensively create karma that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome in order to become a Buddha and attain the adorned majesty of the Buddha's marks. Merely creating wholesome karma to be reborn in the heavens is not enough; in the end one must create karma that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and only when the mind attains tranquility and non-action (praśama) can one become a Buddha and possess the most perfect and complete appearance.