Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Thirty-Three)

Seeing the Falsity of All Marks from the Perspective of the Water Element

The water element originally has no marks of male or female—it has no marks at all—yet a mark emerges out of emptiness, which proves that all marks are false and illusory. Why can these marks manifest? Because there are karmic seeds, seeds of marks. The tathāgatagarbha manifests the marks of male and female and all other marks in accordance with karmic seeds. If the karmic seeds are those of a man, the tathāgatagarbha transmits the seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind to form a male appearance; if the karmic seeds are those of a woman, the tathāgatagarbha transmits the four great elemental natures of the seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind, creating the physical appearance of a woman. Originally, earth, water, fire, and wind have no marks, and the tathāgatagarbha also has no marks, yet the physical body that is created has different appearances—and these appearances are false and unreal. Because marks are conjured up through illusion, they originally do not exist, and later they can vanish again: from nothing at all a mark is formed, and then it changes back into nothing at all—this is precisely what it means to be false and illusory.