The Dharma Transmission Gatha of Buddha Koṇāgamana

Buddha does not perceive Buddha; knowing this is Buddha.

If there truly exists knowing, then there is no other Buddha.

The wise can know the emptiness of sin's nature,

Serenely unafraid of birth and death.

Explanation: Suchness is without seeing, without hearing, without sensation, and without knowing. The self-mind of Suchness does not see itself, the self-mind does not know itself, and the self-mind of Suchness does not perceive itself. Thus, we realize that this mind which does not perceive Suchness itself is Buddha. If someone claims that Suchness possesses knowing and perception—that it can perceive 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 Suchness. To mistake this knowing for Suchness means there is no Buddha at all. The unknowing, unperceiving Suchness is the true Buddha, the genuine substance of Buddhahood.

The wise can know that all dharmas arise from the self-mind of Suchness; all that manifests is unreal. Sentient beings commit evil and cultivate good—their actions themselves are also manifested and transformed by Suchness, with no real dharma to be attained. The nature of their sins and blessings is likewise empty. All phenomena of birth and death are also illusory appearances manifested by Suchness, with no real dharma of birth and death to be grasped. Birth and death are like illusions and flowers in the sky—utterly ungraspable. Therefore, wise ones who have attained the Way—bodhisattvas who have realized all dharmas as illusory and dreamlike—no longer fear birth and death, nor do they seek nirvana to extinguish birth and death like arhats. Within the illusory birth and extinction of samsara, bodhisattvas ceaselessly traverse back and forth, attaining self-salvation and then the salvation of others throughout all Buddha-lands.