"The Mind Itself Creates the Buddha"

Third, from "for this very reason, you" down through "arises from the mind's own contemplative thought," this makes plain the conclusion, exhorting toward this benefit. This makes plain that, fixing the mind upon contemplating the Buddha, one should simply form the understanding of a buddha directly. From the crown of the head down to the very feet, hold this contemplative thought without ever relinquishing it, observing each mark in turn without the slightest pause. One may visualize the mark upon the crown of the head, or the white curl of hair between the brows, on down to the thousand-spoked wheel marks beneath the feet. As this contemplative thought is formed, the Buddha's own image, dignified and excellent, its every mark complete, appears clearly and distinctly. For it is precisely because the mind attends to each and every mark in turn that each and every mark thereby appears — should the mind fail to attend to it, these many marks could never be beheld at all. It is simply that the mind's own contemplative thought creates them, and they appear directly in response to that very mind. Hence it is said that this mind itself is the thirty-two marks. As for the eighty subsidiary marks of physical excellence: once the Buddha's own major marks have appeared, all these subsidiary excellences follow along with them. This makes plain directly the Tathāgata's own teaching to every practitioner of contemplation: to observe him in his own complete fullness.

As for "the mind itself creates the Buddha": this means that, relying on one's own faithful mind attending to this mark, one thereby brings it into being, exactly as it is formed. As for "the mind itself is the Buddha": the mind is itself capable of contemplating the Buddha, and, relying on this very contemplation, the Buddha's own body appears — and this is itself the mind-buddha. Apart from this very mind, there exists no other, separate buddha at all. As for "every buddha's own perfect, universal knowledge": this makes plain that every buddha has attained perfect, unobstructed wisdom, and, whether deliberately intended or not, is forever able to know completely the mind of the entire Dharma-realm — so that, the very moment any being forms this contemplative thought, that buddha appears in accordance with that very mind's own thought, as though being born from it directly.

Now, there are practitioners who take the meaning of this single approach and turn it into a contemplation of the Dharma-body according to consciousness-only doctrine, or into a contemplation of an intrinsically pure buddha-nature — but this understanding is gravely mistaken, and bears not the slightest resemblance to what is actually meant here. Since it is already said that this visualized image provisionally establishes the thirty-two marks, how could the true suchness of the Dharma-realm body possibly possess any mark that could be attended to, or any body that could be grasped at all? For the Dharma-body itself is without form or color, entirely beyond anything the eye could behold, with nothing else in kind to which it could ever be compared — and it is for this very reason that empty space itself is taken as an analogy for the very substance of the Dharma-body. Further, this present gate of contemplation, and every other like it, points only to a specific location and establishes a specific mark, settling the mind and grasping this very object — it does not, in any sense, expound the doctrine of formlessness, of thought altogether relinquished. The Tathāgata, foreseeing from afar that the sinful and defiled ordinary beings of this latter age could not even attain settling the mind upon an established mark, how much less, then, could they seek this matter apart from all marks entirely? This would be like someone possessed of no skill or mastery attempting to build a house suspended in empty space.