The Transmission Gatha of the Twenty-Fourth Patriarch, Venerable Siṃha

Original text: 正说知见时，知见俱是心；当心即知见，知见即于今。

Explanation: When we express our views, knowledge, and opinions through speech, all these words and views flow out from our own mind; they are all the merits and functions manifested by our own mind, entirely the mind itself, neither different from nor identical with the mind. At the very moment when knowing and seeing take form, a portion of the seed-functions within our own mind becomes the discriminating activity of knowing and seeing—just as a piece of gold is forged into a ring, without losing the self-nature of the gold, while also possessing the function of a ring. Our own mind is likewise: it flows into knowing and seeing without losing its fundamental self-nature. The ring is made from gold; knowing and seeing arise from our own mind. The ring in its entirety is gold, but not all gold is the ring; knowing and seeing in their entirety are the self-nature of our own mind, but our own mind does not entirely flow into knowing and seeing.