Jesus' "Baptism with the Holy Spirit" aims to realize a world where humans are one with God through spiritual rebirth, it appears to have blossomed as the cultures of Zen Buddhism, which regards the spiritual rebirth as one of its fundamental tenets, after being having conveyed to India by Thomas.

The representatives of priests and Levites sent by Sanhedrin to listen to the testimony of John the Baptist assembled in Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem in the eleventh month of Jewish calendar around the year 28 AD. (John 1:19) John told them, "I baptize with water, but right here in the crowd is someone you do not recognize. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." (John 1:26-27) From this description Jesus seems to have been included in the delegation of the priests and the Levites dispatched by Sanhedrin.

Jesus, who had made a debut to the religious society of Jerusalem with testimony of John the Baptist, returned to Galilee for a time, but a month later, at the Passover Feast, went to the temple with his disciples and drove away merchants from the temple. (John 2:13-25) Afterwards, he stayed in the Judean countryside with his disciples, and started the activity of baptizing with the Holy Spirit. (John 3:22)

We can see that the act of Jesus, that is, 'driving away merchants from the temple,' was clearly planned with the ancestor of Hanukkah, which their ancestors had recaptured the temple of Jerusalem from the Greeks and purified it and re-dedicated in the Maccabean Revolt, in mind.

His disciples seem to have been stunned by the violent behavior of Jesus who was driving out the sheep and cattle for sacrifice and overturning tables of the money changers.

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. He came to Jesus at that night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:1-8)

And Jesus told Nicodemus, "Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."(John 3:21) Then Jesus went out into the Judean countryside with his disciples and started to baptize with The Holy Spirit. (John 3:22)

Zen Buddhists often use the phrase "Die the Great Death and materialize the Great Rebirth (大死一番、再活現成)." It means that if you die once the Great Death and let go of all your attachments, you will return to your original self and materialize the Great Rebirth.

During the Tang Dynasty in China, a monk asked the Silla Zen master PoYan(新羅泊巌), "What is Zen?" BoYan replied, "A decayed Mound(古塚) is not a home" (Jingde Chuandeng Lu, Volume 17).

Zen Master PoYan must have warned, "To realize 'emptiness' after a great death must not be to deny 'form(色性)', escape from worldly troubles, or engage in zazen meditation among white clouds or old mounds(古塚), a form of 'dead tree Zen(枯木禅).'"

So what would one who has realized emptiness after a great death do if he returned to this world?

ZhaoZhou CongShen (趙州従諗778-897), one of the great Zen masters during the later period of the Tang Dynasty in China, asked TouZi DaTong (投子大同819-914) regarding this, "How is it when a man who has died the great death returns to life?" TouZi replied, "He must not go by night: he must get there in daylight." (The Blue Cliff Record 41st Case: ZhaoZhou's Man Who Has Died the Great Death)

Zen Master YuanWu KeQin(圜悟克勤), who compiled "The Blue Cliff Record(碧巌録)," gives a person, who studies this koan, pointers, "Where right and wrong are mixed, even the sages cannot know; when going against and with, vertically and horizontally, even the Buddhas cannot know."

Therefore, after sunset, do not wander in the darkness but illuminate the road with the flashlight and walk. You had better not to walk on thin ice, run on a sword's edge.

Asahina Sogen (朝比奈宗源1891-1979), the head of the Engakuji school of the Rinzai sect of Buddhism(臨済宗円覚寺派), translated and annotated YuanWu(圜悟)'s teachings as follows: "There is life in death. There is death in life. Only after a great death(大死) can one attain great life(大活)." As YuanWu said, "One must die a great death and then become alive again," one can only move on to a state of complete death (a great death) and achieve "rebirth (spiritual rebirth)."

In his "Records of Linji(臨済録)," Zen Master Linji Yi-xuan(臨済義玄) states, "The Zen view (見解)is that life and death are in harmony(循然)." In other words, "death" and "life" must be orderly yet flexible.

When Su Dongpo (東坡1037-1101), a famous Chinese literary and political figure in the Song Dynasty (宋朝960-1279), was relegated to Hangzhou (杭州), Zhejiang province (浙江省), as a viceroy, he visited the Chan Master Biancai (弁才), who was living in the Longjing Temple (龍井寺). Biancai apologized for his rudeness in not visiting the newly appointed viceroy earlier in order to greet him. He said, "There is a rule, 'neither to go out to receive nor to send visitors' in this temple. I have not changed it and just followed it. Please understand."

Dongpo roared with laughter and said, "I visit you not to be received and sent by you, but I would like to witness your practice and enlightenment. By the way, I heard that you diligently practice rules and laws. Which rules and laws do you practice?"

Biancai frowned and said, "What should be ruled is the self and what should be governed is also the self. Is there anything else?"

Dongpo immediately said, "The nature of one's heart is vivid. How do you rule and govern it? If you dare to rule and govern it with a rope which transcends space and time, you will only strangle it."

Biancai bowed his head and said, "Only a man who has died may be resurrected and transcend falsity and attain complete nirvana and freedom."

Indeed what could be happier than keeping one's heart free and vivid? However if he does not have mercy, he may fall into self-satisfaction. Only when one sinks into the sea of bitterness of this world and manages to clamber out of the water, one may obtain enlightenment with both mercy and wisdom. Biancai may have told Dongpo this truth.

According to the dialectic of the Gospel of John,

How then can a man possess eternal life?

When he said, "You are Huichao," Zen Master Fayan thrusted vivid Self in Huichao in front of his eyes.