The Dharma Transmission Gatha of Buddha Koṇāgamana

Original Text: The Buddha does not see the Buddha, yet knowing this is Buddha; if there were genuine knowing, there would be no other Buddha. The wise can perceive the empty nature of offenses, remaining composed and fearless in the face of birth and death.

Explanation: True Suchness is neither seen nor heard, neither perceived nor known. True Suchness itself does not perceive itself; the self-mind does not know itself. True Suchness does not awaken to or perceive itself. Thus, we understand that this mind which does not perceive True Suchness itself is Buddha. If someone claims that True Suchness possesses perception and awareness—that it can see forms, hear sounds, know the presence or absence of deluded thoughts, or enter or not enter meditative absorption—this "knowing" is the knowing of consciousness, not True Suchness. To mistake this knowing for True Suchness is to lose sight of Buddha altogether. True Suchness, devoid of perception and awareness, is the genuine Buddha, the true substance of Buddhahood.

Those with wisdom can recognize that all phenomena arise from and are manifested by True Suchness itself, the self-mind. They are devoid of inherent reality. Whether sentient beings commit evil or cultivate goodness, their actions themselves are also manifestations and transformations of True Suchness, with no actual dharma to be grasped. The nature of their offenses and blessings is also empty. All phenomena of birth and death are illusory appearances manifested by True Suchness, with no real dharma of birth and death to be attained. Birth and death are like illusions, dreams, or flowers in the sky—utterly ungraspable. Therefore, wise ones who have attained the Way, bodhisattvas who have realized that all phenomena are like illusions and dreams, no longer fear birth and death, nor do they seek nirvana to extinguish birth and death like arhats. Bodhisattvas continuously traverse the realms of illusory arising and ceasing within birth and death, journeying back and forth, self-liberating in various Buddha-lands and then liberating others.