Other translations:

Verses on the Samadhi of Illusion from Texts on the Middle Way

From the Sutra of the Noble Collection:

Know the five skandhas are like an illusion
Don’t separate the illusion from the skandhas
Free of thinking that anything is real—
This is perfect wisdom’s conduct at its best!


From the King of Samadhi Sutra:

All the images conjured up by a magician
The horses, elephants and chariots in his illusions
Whatever may appear there, know that none of it is real
And it’s just like that with everything there is!


From Nagarjuna's Knowledge Fundamental to the Middle Way:

Like a dream, like an illusion,
Like a city of gandharvas,
That’s how birth, and that’s how living,
That’s how dying are taught to be.

 

From Chandrakirti's Entrance to the Middle Way:

There are two ways of seeing every thing,
The perfect way and the false way,
So each and every thing that can ever be found
Holds two natures within.

And what does perfect seeing see?
It sees the suchness of all things.
And false seeing sees the relative truth—
This is what the perfect Buddha said.


From the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by Shantideva:

Then wanderers, these dream-like beings, what are they?

If analyzed, they’re like a banana tree.
One cannot make definitive distinctions
Between transcending misery and not.

Under the guidance of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, translated and arranged by Jim Scott and Ari Goldfield, August 1999. Translation copyright 2012, Jim Scott and Ari Goldfield