According to Osho, paradoxes are a deliberate device to baffle and exhaust the logical mind so you can slip beyond it into direct glimpses of the transcendental. A Master’s contradictions aren’t doctrine but an operation—a hammer shattering mental habits and the ego’s need for consistency. When logic collapses, the clouds part: brief, sunlit moments reveal that you are more than mind, initiating real understanding.
Paradoxes confuse your thinking on purpose so it quiets down, and in that quiet you can feel the deeper truth beyond thoughts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why is zen called the path of paradox?
THE HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE. A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO. A MAN PASSES OVER THE BRIDGE; THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. And he went out of the palace and never came again. This is absurd, what he says -- THE HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE. How can the handless hold anything? But that is how it is happening. That which abides in you is handless, and is holding all kinds of things. God is handless, and is supporting the whole world. And you are handless in your innermost being -- you don't have hands or legs or a head, you are formless. But you are holding a thousand and one things. A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO. He says: A man is sitting on the water buffalo and still walking. He is saying: God is taking you, you are riding on him -- and…
I know you use paradoxes and contradictions, but my mind is still very logical, so I have difficulty understanding. If the tao says " the one who knows does not talk", and if you say once your words are uttered they are dead, and if you say that one cannot make an image of the divine, then why am I wearing an image which is a symbol of you as a mala, which inevitably forces me to talk about you? I fear that I am participating in the creation of a tradition.
He was meditating for nine years, facing a wall. Nine years, just facing the wall, continuously, and sometimes it was natural that he might start falling asleep. He fought and fought with his sleep -- remember, the metaphysical sleep, the unconsciousness. He wanted to remain conscious even while asleep. He wanted to make a continuity of consciousness -- the light should go on burning day and night, for twenty-four hours. That's what DHYANA IS, meditation is -- awareness. One night he felt that it was impossible to keep awake, he was falling asleep. He cut his eyelids off and threw them! Hm, now there was no way for him to close his eyes. The story is beautiful. To get to the inner eyes, these outer eyes will have to be thrown. That much price has to be paid. And what happened? After a few days he found that those eyelids…
Why is zen paradoxical?
It will assert itself in day-to-day life. When you meet a woman once a day on the beach she is totally a different animal. You are a different kind of animal too. Meeting for one hour, she is prepared for it, she is ready for it, she has rehearsed for it, she has been standing before the mirror for hours for it. You will not find the same woman if you start living with her twenty-four hours a day; it will be impossible for her to be so ready and rehearsed. By and by she will start forgetting about you. She will get ready only when you are going to the movie, otherwise she will not bother. Then you will see something else which was never there before. Then small things of life, trivia, assert themselves. Over small things she starts arguing -- and you start arguing too. Over small…
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD. OUT OF DISCORD COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY. IT IS IN CHANGING THAT THINGS FIND REPOSE. PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THAT WHICH IS AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF, AGREES WITH ITSELF. THERE IS A HARMONY IN THE BENDING BACK, AS IN THE CASE OF THE BOW AND LYRE. THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE, BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH. I was reading a pamphlet. They say, "Kill man! Murder every man! -- because if man lives, there can be no freedom for woman." But if you kill man, can you be there? The game needs both. Lilith disappeared, then the game could not continue, so God had to create a woman. That's why he tried one bone of man himself this time, because to bring a separate woman would again create trouble. So he took a rib out of Adam and created a woman. Hence, there is…
Question: I have heard that all buddhas in the past, present and future preached the same dharma and countless beings were saved from suffering. Is this not true?
ANSWER: YOU HAVE HEARD SOMEONE SPEAK OF DREAMS, AND YOU YOURSELF ARE ACTUALLY DREAMING. WHATEVER YOU FIGURE WITH YOUR DUALISTIC MIND NEVER MAKES A TRUE ACCOUNT OF MIND ESSENCE, THEREFORE, I CALL YOU A DREAMER. DREAM IS ONE THING AND REALIZATION ANOTHER. DO NOT MIX THEM TOGETHER. WISDOM IN THE DREAM IS NOT THE REAL WISDOM. ONE WHO HAS TRUE WISDOM DOES NOT HOLD SELF-RECOGNITION. BUDDHAS IN THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE ARE IN THE REALM BEYOND COGNITION. IF YOU SHUT OFF YOUR THINKING FACULTY, BLOCKING OFF THE ROAD OF YOUR MIND, YOU WILL ENTER A DIFFERENT SPHERE. UNTIL THAT TIME, WHATEVER YOU THINK, WHATEVER YOU SAY, WHATEVER YOU DO IS NOTHING BUT FOOLISHNESS IN DREAMLAND. QUESTION: WHAT KIND OF WISDOM SHOULD ONE USE TO CUT OFF DELUSIONS? ANSWER: WHEN YOU OBSERVE YOUR DELUSIONS, YOU WILL KNOW THAT THEY ARE BASELESS AND NOT DEPENDABLE. IN THIS WAY YOU CAN CUT…