Jesus left Judea and went through Samaria to Galilee. He came to a town called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus sat down by the well. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"

The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" The Samaritan was an inhabitant of the ancient Israelite kingdom of Samaria. Jews despised Samaritans and did not associate with them, for they believed that Samaritans had mixed with other races.

Jesus answered her, "If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

The woman said, "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well?"

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Give me this water now."

He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

"I have no husband," she replied.

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

The woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Jerusalem has been the centre of, not only the Jewish, but also the Christian and Muslim faiths. Therefore Jerusalem has also been the major source of conflict in the Middle East. However, Jesus has already told the Samaritan woman how to avoid such conflicts about two thousand years ago.

The September 11 attacks and the former premier of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto's assassination both originated with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948. However, dismantling Israel, in order to return it to the Palestinians, seems as difficult as dismantling the United States of America, or Japan, in order to return them to the native American Indians or Ainu (a Mongoloid people who live in a group of islands near Japan and Russia) respectively. In fact, we can observe numerous cases similar to the issue of Israel in the history of the world, such as the Kurds, Tibetans and Russian minority tribes' independence movements.

If the Japanese are to use Yasukuni Shrine as a place for confession and repentance for their history, since the first emperor of Japan “Kami Yamato Iware Hiko no Mikoto” advanced to the East from Kyushu, in order to improve relationships between Japan and countries which were invaded by the Japanese Army, such as Korea and China, Israel too should confess and repent for the acts of Jews in the Middle East since the Israelites, led by Moses, left Egypt, moved into the promised Land, which brought calamity to the local inhabitants and the founding of Israel in 1948, which also brought calamity to the non-Jews in the region. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers from Jews, Muslims, Christians and others, will worship together to form a new community in which the Jews and non-Jews will live together peacefully.

There was a scholar named Deshan (779-865), who was convinced that he had got the unsurpassable, true and complete doctrine of the Diamond Sutra, one of the most important Buddhist texts, in China Shu province in Tang Dynasty (618-907). He wrote a famous commentary on the Diamond Sutra called Qinglongchao.

The word came to the scholar that a sect of Buddhism called "Chan Zong" which advocated "freedom of scriptures" and "no establishment of words and letters" had flourished in Hunan, the south of China. Deshan packed up all his books and commentaries on the Diamond Sutra, put them on his back and left immediately to take the long journey to hear first-hand this new teaching.

When he came to Lizhou he saw a small tea shop on the roadside and asked an old landlady to serve tim-sam to him. Tim-sam, pronounced as 'dianxin' in Mandarin Chinese, means tea cakes or light meal, associated with 'yumcha' meal in the southern China. Dianxin also means “to refresh one's mind” as an equivoke.

The old landlady glanced at Deshan's load of books and asked, "What is all that you are carrying?" "This load I am carrying is my commentaries on the Diamond Sutra," said Dshan. The landlady immediately asked, "I have heard it said in the Diamond Sutra that past mind, future mind, and present mind cannot be grasped. Which mind do you now intend to refresh with my rice cakes?"

Deshan was completely stumped and asked instead where she had learned these scriptures.

After getting an introduction from the old woman, Deshang met Lung-tan who dwelt on the top of the mountain nearby from the shop. They had a long conversation about the Buddhism doctrine until midnight. When Deshan left Lung-tan's temple, he could not see an inch ahead, so Lung-tan lit a paper lantern and handed it over to Deshan. But as Deshan took the lantern and began to leave, Lung-tan blew out the light in the utter darkness. At once Deshan was enlightened.

In the Diamond Sutra there is a famous saying often quoted by Buddhists, namely, "One should abide nowhere and yet develop one's intentions." It is learned that the entire doctrine of Diamond Sutra is condensed in this short scripture. Hui-Neng Da-Jian, the Sixth Patriarch of the Chinese Chan School, is also said to have left his ordinary life and become a priest immediately after he had heard someone chanting this scripture on a street in Guangdong.

All religions have their holy mountains or holy places of pilgrimage. But if we have spirit and truth, we can worship anywhere, as Jesus told the Samaritan woman. And if we abide in some place, we may even lose our minds (spirit and truth).

It is not only the venue for worship but also lovers, beloved children, companies, countries, jobs and so on, if we cling to these, we may lose our mind. The Samaritan woman, who said with no hesitation, "I have no husband", seems no less worldly wise than the old landlady who had Deshan completely stumped.

When Jesus' disciples, who returned at almost the same time that the Samaritan woman left, urged Jesus to eat something, Jesus, who appears to have been excited, said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” If Jesus hadn’t met the woman, he might not have had the opportunity to say these words. He might have been so contented that he forgot he was hungry. (Eko-an Hensho-koji 2008/01/03)

According to the dialectic of the Gospel of John,

【thesis】　"A man can possess eternal life through accepting testimony of the Son of man and being baptized by him." (John 5:24)

【anti-thesis】　But "The one who comes from the earth cannot accept the testimony by one from heaven."(John 3:32)

How then can a man possess eternal life?

【synthesis】　"If you want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, you can just go back to the word which was with God in the beginning (John 1:1) and certify that God is truthful. (John 3:33)"

When he said, "You are Huichao," Zen Master Fayan thrusted vivid Self in Huichao in front of his eyes. (The Origin of Christianity P.171)