The Self-Natured Pure Mind Is Apart from All Realms of Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch, and Dharmas

Original text of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: 若汝执吝分别觉观，所了知性，必为心者，此心即应离诸一切色、香、味、触诸尘事业，别有全性。

Explanation: If you cling to the mind that can discriminate forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and dharmas—the mind that can feel the six sense objects, the mind that can observe the six sense objects—as necessarily being the originally self-natured pure mind, then this mind should possess its own complete intrinsic nature apart from all these states of the sense objects such as form, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It should not arise with the arising of the six sense objects, nor cease with their cessation. This means that this mind should be a mind that is self-existent, a mind that has always been there; it cannot be a mind that appears only because the six sense objects exist.

However, that mind of discrimination, initial application, and sustained examination ceases to exist when apart from the six sense objects; therefore it is not the originally self-natured pure mind.