“We are as selves quite like the flame of a candle. As wax melts near a lit wick and burns, it emits light near the tip of the candle that appears as a more-or-less fixed shape. It is this seemingly unchanging shape that we refer to as flame. What we call I is similar to the flame. Although both body and mind are an unceasing flow, since they preserve what seems to be a constant form, we refer to them as I. Actually there is no I existing as some substantial thing; there is only the ceaseless flow. This is true not only of me, it is true of all things.”
Kosho Uchiyama, Opening the Hand of Thought (Wisdom 2004)