Wisdom...

 

When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.

Milarepa 

“Just as it is known that an image of one's face is seen depending on a mirror but does not really exist as a face, so the conception of "I" exist dependent on mind and body, but like the image of a face the "I" does not at all exist as its own reality."   Nagarjuna 

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."    Nagarjuna 

What we call the body, is not feet or shins;
The body, likewise, is not thighs, or loins.
It's not the belly nor indeed the back,
And from the chest and arms the body is not formed.

The body is not ribs or hands,
Armpits, shoulders, bowels, or entrails,
It is not the head, and it is not the throat.
What is the "body" then, in all of this?

If the "body" spreads itself
And with the members coincides,
Its parts indeed are present in these parts.
But where does "body," in itself abide?

But if the "body," single and entire
Is present in the hands and other members,
However many parts there are, the hands and all the rest,
You'll find and equal quantity of "bodies." 

If the body is not outside or within its parts,
How is it then residing in its members?
And since it is not other than its parts,
How can you say it exists at all?

Thus there is no "body." It exists through illusion,
With regard to hands and other parts, that "body" as a notion is conceived----
Just as on account of its specific shape
A pole of stones is taken for a man.

As long as the conditions are assembled,
The body will appear to be a man.
As long as all the parts are likewise present,
A body will appear therein.

Likewise, since it is a group of fingers,
The hand itself does not exist as such.
And so it is with fingers made of joints----
And joints themselves consist of many parts.

These parts themselves will breakdown into particles,
And particles divide according to direction.
These fragments, too, lack partless parts; they are like space.
Thus even particles have no existence.

All form, therefore, is like a dream,
And who will be attached to it, who thus investigates?
The body, in this way, has no existence;
What, therefore, is male and female?

From The Way of the Bodhisattva, By Shantideva
Stanza 78 through 87