If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

By not claiming greatness, the sage achieves greatness.

The gentle outlasts the strong.  The obscure outlasts the obvious.

One gains by losing, and loses by gaining.

 

True words often appear paradoxical

 

Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

 

A paradox is a seeming contradiction, two opposites that can never be reconciled.   Another example of a paradox would be, “Life is death.” Life and death are certainly opposites in the estimation of the world.

 

Let us examine the paradox to see what truths it may yield. Life is death; from the moment you are born into this physical body, it is on a destination to its physical extinction. All of its life is but a journey unto death.

 

 

Turn the paradox around.  Death is life. What truths could it yield?  Death is life. At the death of the physical body, there is release to the life eternal, where you came from and where you have always existed. No matter who the physical body incarnated as, death is the gateway to everlasting life.

The juxtaposition of seeming opposites produces extreme contrast, yielding truths not evident before.

It is in giving we receive

These words of St Francis seem to be a paradox, because surely giving is the very opposite of receiving. By giving something, you lose it and someone else gains it.

 

Examine the seeming paradox to see in what sense it could be true. To give is to receive.  This would make sense if you were giving to yourself, because then you would be the only recipient of all the giving you did, which would encourage you to do more and more, as there could be no penalty but only increase in giving.

So in the sense that we are all one and connected, is giving indeed the same as receiving.  Every person I might possibly give to, is my Self.

 

 

How quaint the ways of paradox

At common sense she gently mocks

W.S. Gilbert, “The Pirates of Penzance”

 

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