[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [宗鏡錄](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016) › [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt) › 85.19 # 宗鏡錄 85.19 English (machine translation) 85.19 - **Language:** English ### [85.19](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85.19) Answer: "Measure" is the mind that can cognize. Only by contrasting with the conventional does one speak of the real; by relying on the false does one establish the actual. Rebuking distinctions, one discusses equality; dismissing differentiated characteristics, one sets up suchness. These all obtain through opposition, and are named 'setting up teachings to break attachments.' If one can wipe away both conventional and ultimate, and dissolve both emptiness and existence, understanding that the extreme is none other than the middle, with no extreme to be abandoned, and penetrating that the middle is none other than the extreme, with no middle to be preserved; and once the wisdom that realizes is gone and the principle that is realized is also quiescent, only then does one transcend citta-measure and enter the gate beyond opposition. If there is attainment or non-attainment, arising or non-arising, all of it does not go beyond citta-measure. The verse in the \*Laṅkāvatārasūtra\* says: / Free from all views, / and free from conception and the conceived, / unobtained and unborn: / this I call citta-measure. / Neither nature nor non-nature, / nature and non-nature are both transcended; / as for that citta being liberated, / this I call citta-measure. / Suchness and the realm of emptiness, / nirvāṇa and the dharmadhātu, / various mind-made bodies: / these I call citta-measure. / Therefore the \*Nirvāṇa Sūtra\* says: 'If there were any phenomenon surpassing nirvāṇa, I would also say it is like an illusion, like a transformation.' Because nirvāṇa is signless, if one grasps its signs, it is merely the direct perception of one's own citta, not true nirvāṇa. Hence the Buddha said: 'Supposing there were a Buddha surpassing nirvāṇa, the mind tending toward what is attained would also become citta-measure; what is manifested by one's own citta is entirely illusory transformation.' Thus one knows that approximations of form and traces of words, or wonderful understandings that flash in an instant, are all governed by citta-measure; not a single phenomenon has ever not concerned citta. If one can awaken to the mind having no mind, and understand that objects have no objects, both principle and measure dissolving together, one may enter the mirror of the source. - [Previous: 85.18](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85.18) - [Next: 85.20](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85.20) - [Up: 85](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85) ## Linked texts (1) - [宗鏡錄](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016.85.19) — Classical Chinese --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85.19](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.85.19) · Pramāṇa