Get the xml data passed to a template into a variable

I am new to XSLT, and trying to put xml data into a variable and then parse using that variable, but, I am not getting anything into that variable.

This is what I am trying to do:

<xsl:variable name="xmlText">
    <xsl:value-of select="@*" />
</xsl:variable>

Can anybody please tell me how to do this? Thanks in advance.