While Kok Tho Yip was a Zen Buddhist he learned about Jesus Christ and His willing death on the cross for His enemies. In contrast with his previous study with Zen monks, he compared the mind of Buddha to the mind of Christ – this comparison found Christ’s mind to be stronger, a truth that attracted him to Jesus.

<p>While Kok Tho Yip was a Zen Buddhist he learned about Jesus Christ and His willing death on the cross for His enemies. In contrast with his previous study with Zen monks, he compared the mind of Buddha to the mind of Christ – this comparison found Christ’s mind to be stronger, a truth that attracted him to Jesus.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Tell Them Ministries

Kok Tho Yip

Zen Buddhist Finds Real Peace


My name is Kok Toh. I'm going to tell you how I came from being a Zen Buddhist, a Zen meditator to being a Seventh-day Adventist. My journey started when I was 18 years old. I saw on television at that time, and this was during the time of the Vietnam War, there was a Buddhist monk and he wanted to protest against the Americans. So he sat cross-legged, like in meditating position, put a patrol on his body and lit himself and sacrificed himself against the Americans for his country.

And at that time I thought, wow, this man is courageous. He loves his country. There must be something strong, something godly in Buddhism. And when I was in London, when I was, well, at that time, 18, meditation was very popular. This was the time of the Beatles and the Beatles were meditating with something called TM, Maharishi, a guru.

And there were a lot of English books on meditation in London. So because I'm English-educated, I bought some meditation books on Zen. And that's when I began. Now, Zen is very tranquil, very peaceful and full of philosophy and art, you know. The traditional representation of Zen is Zen and archery where it's mind over matter.

When your mind is pure and clear, you can shoot an arrow and a hundred places you can hit an apple. So Zen was just romantic and at that time it was popular. It was social, it was cool, the Beatles were doing it, so I began to meditate, Zen style. Now Zen meditation is about emptying the mind, just like all other Eastern meditation, and now Christian meditation is learning to empty their minds. And 1 day, much later, about 30 years later, from when I was 18, when I was 38, I heard another story about another man, the man Jesus Christ.

He also gave His life, just like the Zen monk. But the Zen monk gave his life for his country against an enemy, the Americans. But here was Christ, and I read this story. Christ had no enemies. There were people who hated Him, people who crucified Him, people who tormented and cursed Him, but He loved them.

So He died on the cross for His enemy. And that was the big difference. I said, this man is stronger, stronger than that Zen monk. So I began to study Christ. And I started with my Christian friends, many Christian friends.

I studied with many denominations. And I learned more and more about Christ. But initially, as I studied about Christianity and Buddhism, they seem to have parallels, similarities. And of course, Buddhists do good, Buddha does good, and so forth and so forth. And as I was, I had been immersed in Zen, I became a Christian, I saw parallels and I thought they were identical, doing good.

Until 1 day, again, I saw how they diverged and became completely opposite. And I'll tell you the story. Buddha was a prince in a palace. The king and queen loved him and wanted to protect him from seeing death. So in the palace, they brought in young servants, the retired old servants, and Buddha grew up.

He got married, had children, never saw death. And 1 day, he followed a charioteer out of the palace walls. And for the first time, he saw a dead body. He saw death. And it traumatized him.

Now, the story about Buddha is like this. When he knew life only, he was happy. But when he saw death, the opposite, he saw, he knew duality, the opposite things. He got depressed, he freaked out. And finally he found peace in meditation.

Now the peace that he found in meditation finally happens when, like this. When the mind goes into deep meditation, it gets to a point they call the awakening, or the Hindu call it avaitha, or the English call it non-dual, where when Jesus knew life, he was happy. When he knew death, 2 things, duality, he was depressed. In meditation, you get to a point of non-dual, neither life nor death. You get beyond life and death and that's how he got liberated.

When he's freed from life and death, He's then freed from his karma. He got to a level of Buddhahood where he doesn't need to reincarnate. So it's liberation. Now, Jesus Christ was also like a prince, like Buddha, in a palace in heaven. No death in heaven.

And Jesus looked over the walls of heaven and earth, and there was death and suffering. Now, Jesus did not freak out, didn't get depressed. And he came upon to earth in the likeness of sinful flesh. Flesh that can get hurt, flesh that can get disenchanted, flesh that can get depressed. But it was in this flesh when He confronted death, He faced death.

Whilst Buddha got depressed, feared death and meditated to get away from both life and death. Jesus came into our flesh, faced death and conquered death for us, for love's sake. So this is strength. This is additional strength. So it taught me that I shouldn't just meditate, find tranquility and peace, and escape the difficulties of this world.

Escape is precious. Escape the problems that we have between life and death. That it is Jesus who comes in His strength into us to give us the strength to face death, to face the difficulties of this world. And so I learned something new and something that has given me strength to face life, to help others with their life, to confront reality as it is. That's the strength of Christianity.

So I want to make the appeal to you to move away, to not think about finding your way of tranquility in Eastern meditation, not even in Christian meditation which uses Eastern techniques. But to come to God, to follow Christ, and he will give us strength, Not just for ourselves, but for our friends, our family, our loved ones, for our community. That's where strength is. It is in God. So I make this appeal, I want to praise God, and I want to say, God bless you all as you think and meditate on these things.

Or if you

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Zen Buddhist Finds Real Peace

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