Journey Out Of Nothing: My Buddhist Path to Christianity

By Martin Roth

While in his twenties and thirties, international journalist and best-selling author Martin Roth, living in Japan, became deeply involved in Zen Buddhism. So much so that he co-authored a reference work on the subject, “Zen Guide.”

Now he explains the attraction of Buddhism to himself and to other young Westerners. He also recounts – often in amusing detail - some of his adventures.

He became possibly the first Westerner to complete a famous pilgrimage to thirty-three temples in northern Japan. On another pilgrimage he spent three days hiking through some of Japan’s holiest mountains, sometimes standing under frigid waterfalls in purification rituals. He stayed at famous monasteries, often participating in morning worship services full of dazzling ceremonies.

He introduces some of the fascinating people he met. These include the young priest who lived and meditated in a giant soy sauce barrel; the professor who devised “commuting Zen” meditation for his strap-hanging one-and-a-half-hour rail commute to work each day; and the American advertising executive who became head of his own Japanese Zen temple, a place where Caroline Kennedy, now US ambassador to Japan, stayed during her honeymoon.

But he also explains why his interest in Buddhism began to fade, and why, today, he is a Christian.

This short book (18,000 words), part travel adventure, part memoir, part spiritual odyssey, will entertain and inform.

Contents:

Introduction
Chapter One – First Steps
Chapter Two – Learning about Buddhism
Chapter Three – A Series of Newspaper Columns
Chapter Four – Writing a Book
Chapter Five – Zen Adventures
Chapter Six – Was I a Buddhist?
Chapter Seven – Kyoto
Chapter Eight – Heading North
Chapter Nine – Christian Zen
Chapter Ten – Buddhist Art
Chapter Eleven – Doubts
Chapter Twelve – Becoming a Christian
Chapter Thirteen – Buddhism and the Book of Ecclesiastes
Chapter Fourteen – Talking with Buddhists

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Roth
• Release date: May 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311818607

Martin Roth

Martin Roth is a veteran journalist and foreign correspondent who lived in Tokyo for seventeen years and whose reports from throughout Asia have appeared in leading publications around the world. He now lives with his family in Melbourne, Australia, where he enjoys walking his black Sarplaninac mountain sheepdog and drinking coffee in the city’s many wonderful cafés.

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JOURNEY OUT OF NOTHING

My Buddhist Path to Christianity

Martin Roth

Copyright © Martin Roth 2014

Published at Smashwords

JOURNEY OUT OF NOTHING: My Buddhist Path to Christianity

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Visit the author websites at http://www.authormartinroth.com and http://www.martinroth.com.au.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One – First Steps

Chapter Two – Learning about Buddhism

Chapter Three – A Series of Newspaper Columns

Chapter Four – Writing a Book

Chapter Five – Zen Adventures

Chapter Six – Was I a Buddhist?

Chapter Seven – Kyoto

Chapter Eight – Heading North

Chapter Nine – Christian Zen

Chapter Ten – Buddhist Art

Chapter Eleven – Doubts

Chapter Twelve – Becoming a Christian

Chapter Thirteen – Buddhism and the Book of Ecclesiastes

Chapter Fourteen – Talking with Buddhists

About the Author

Introduction

For seventeen years (1976 to 1992), during my twenties and thirties, I lived in Japan, working first as a journalist, then later in banking. It was during this period that I became enamored with Zen Buddhism. So much so that I co-authored a book on the topic, Zen Guide, aimed at helping Westerners who were coming to Japan to study and practice Zen Buddhism.

I was a regular participant in meditation at several Tokyo Zen centers. At the same time, the writing of my book sent me to some of Japan’s most famous temples and monasteries. Often I stayed one or more nights, participating in morning services and other activities. Along the way I met many other Western Zen practitioners.

Yet gradually my interest waned. Then I left Japan and moved with my family to Australia. Within a short time I was attending church, and soon I was baptized and a devout Christian.

This book is about my experiences in Buddhism and seeks to explain its appeal to me and to other Westerners.

I start off with some background on my life, and how, after traveling to Japan I joined an English-language Zen group. This led to a series of newspaper columns, followed by a book.

I introduce some of the fascinating people, Japanese and Westerners, whom I met, and the temples I visited. Because I was writing a book I was sometimes able to gain access to famous temples that were normally off-limits to tourists.

But doubts set in, and I detail my fading interest in Buddhism, and how, eventually, I became a Christian. Finally, I try to provide some guidance on how to talk with Buddhists about Christianity.

Chapter One

First Steps

Can you be searching for God without knowing it? In my case the answer was yes. A spiritual hunger lay deep inside me. I was on a spiritual journey. The problem was, I did not realize it.

I was born and raised in New Zealand. My father was a Jewish refugee from Vienna, Austria, and my mother was a New Zealander from a traditional Anglican family. But both had abandoned their respective religions for extreme left-wing politics – for some years my father was a Communist - which was a kind of religion in our house.

There wasn’t an anti-nuclear rally we didn’t attend – and, frequently, organize as well. As an elementary-school boy, while other kids made model toys with their carpentry sets, I was hammering together protest banners for the next demonstration outside the American ambassador’s residence.

My parents were deeply cynical about so many things in life. They were especially scornful of religion and of people who practiced religion. Growing up in such an environment I readily absorbed those attitudes, and from a young age I too was cynical about life. It all seemed pretty meaningless.

Later, the Vietnam War was raging, and at university I was actively involved in the protest movement. Politics for me, too, became a kind of religion.

After graduation I worked for a year as a journalist then headed overseas for work and adventure. I went to Israel, where my father’s brother had been sent as a boy during the war. I met my cousins there and spent six months on some kibbutzim. I even learned a little Hebrew.

But I took no interest in the religious side of my Israeli experience. My relatives were secular Jews. I didn’t try learning about the Bible. I never attended a synagogue.

In any case, several Israelis made it clear to me that I was not Jewish. Judaism passes through the mother, they said. My mother was not Jewish, and so, therefore, neither was I.

This would apparently not have deterred Hitler from sending me to the gas chambers. And more recently a Messianic Jew told me that in biblical times Jewish heritage was passed through the father, not the mother. So, according to the Bible at