Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin
Endless Path Zendo, is a lay Zen Buddhist community. Intimate and non-institutional in atmosphere, we are dedicated to realizing the Buddha Way in the midst of our own ordinary lives, finding our center of gravity in the creativity of Zen, and the Way of the Bodhisattva.
Zen teacher (roshi) Rafe Jnan Martin began traditional Zen practice in 1970, becoming a personal disciple of Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen. After Kapleau Roshi’s retirement, he practiced with Robert Aitken Roshi, founder of the Diamond Sangha, then from 2002-2016 worked intensively with Danan Henry Roshi, founding teacher of the Zen Center of Denver and a Kapleau Roshi Dharma Heir as well as a Diamond Sangha Dharma Master.
Rafe received full lay ordination in 2009, and in 2012 received inka—recognition of his successful completion of the Diamond Sangha/ Harada-Yasutani koan curriculum, along with authorization to begin teaching. In 2016 he received full Dharma Transmission as an independent Zen teacher.
An award-winning author and storyteller whose work has been cited in Time, Newsweek, The NY Times, and USA Today, Rafe has a master’s degree in English literature and literary criticism and is a recipient of both national and state awards, including the Empire State Award for the body of his work. His writing has appeared in Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Parabola, The Sun, and Inquiring Mind, among other journals of religion and myth. He has given talks at Zen and Dharma Centers around the US and Canada, as well as such venues as the American Museum of Natural History, Zuni Pueblo, and The Joseph Campbell Festival of Myth and Story.
His most recent books are A Zen Life of Buddha (Sumeru 2022), The Brave Little Parrot (Wisdom Publications, 2023) and A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas (Sumeru, 2023).
Episodes
108 episodes
Impossible Situations: A Buffalo Passes Through the Window
Recorded April 18, 2026.Today’s teisho is on "Gateless Barrier" Case 38 — “A Buffalo Passes Through the Window.”Wu-tsu said, “It is like a buffalo that passes through a window. Its head, horns, and four legs all pass t...
Finding Your Buddha Smile (Final Chapter) - Part 11: A Springtime Stroll
Recorded April 11, 2026Hooray! Spring has come. Ice cracks and melts and rivers once again run free. Green grass and buds on trees magically appear. Blue Cliff Record case 36 presents it like this:One day Ch’ang-sha went for a wa...
The Birth of The Buddha -- What's it all about?
Recorded April 4, 2026.What does the birth of a Buddha really mean? What bearing does it have on our own lives? Is it just ancient history? Is it simply literal — or what? Plus, what are we to make of the rather astonishing legend that, ...
Finding Your Buddha Smile- Part 10: Beautiful Snowflakes!
Recorded 3/28/2026.The greatest journeys find completion in ordinary things. The teacup, the comfortable old slippers, the wool jacket on the hook by the door. To quote Dorothy, there’s no place like home, where we’re so at ease, a glan...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 9: What is the True Me?
Recorded March 21, 2026.Zen master Wu-tsu used a popular ghost tale, like a popular movie or novel of his time, to explore the intimate question of Identity: “Who am I?” We move through our days like leaves blown about by an un-known win...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 8: How Do I Find Peace of Mind?
Recorded March 7, 2026.This teisho opens with a brief recounting of the legend of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion and issues of failure, despair, and compassion in our own times. Then Roshi Martin moves on to the essence of Zen — re...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 7: The Highest Teaching is the Oak Tree in my Front Garden?
Recorded February 28, 2026Wisdom, which helps us make reasonably good life choices, enabling us to live reasonably good lives, can’t be secret or esoteric. It must reside in what is common and ordinary; otherwise, what hope would any of...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 6: Te-shan Carries His Lunch Bowls: The Last Word
Recorded February 21, 2026 When you realize the first word You understand the last word; The first word or the last word— “It” is not a wo...
The Buddha’s Parinirvana: Teisho by Roshi Rafe Martin
Recorded February 14, 2026.William Blake once signed a guest book with a drawing of a human figure stretched reclining — or flying. Surrounding it were the words, “William Blake who is very much delighted in being in good company. Born 2...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 5: Te-shan Carries His Bundle
Recorded February 7, 2025.Te-shan, a noted scholar of the Diamond Sutra, set out to wipe out those nasty “Zen devils” in the South. But, falling into Master Lung-t’an’s Dragon Pond, he found his Face before his parents were born and out ...
Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 4: Te-shan Carries His Backpack
Recorded January 24, 2026.In this teisho, we move on from the Buddha himself, to see how Zen tradition views the ordinary person’s journey from ignorance to maturity. To show this, Roshi Martin arranges three koans, each drawn from the l...
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Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 3: The World Honored One Ascends the Teaching Seat
Recorded January 17, 2026.In this teisho Roshi Martin reads and comments on Chapter 2 of his latest book, “Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home (To What Zen is Really All About).”The legendary-mythic jataka tales, reveal...
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Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 2: The Buddha Shows the Path
Teisho by Roshi Rafe Jnan Martin Endless Path Zendo, 01/10/2026This teisho opens with a brief talk on the terrible dangers of our present time and the challenging, profoundly helpful path that Zen offers — not of philosophizing, but of ...
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Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 1: Introduction
Recorded January 3, 2026.Roshi Martin reads the Opening, Thanks, and Introduction of his new book -- "...
On the Precepts (in preparation for New Year's Eve Jukai)
Recorded 12/20/2025.Roshi Martin reads Chapter 10 of Aitken Roshi's "Taking the Path of Zen" -- "The Ten Grave Precepts" and comments in preparation for Jukai. Jukai is a way of taking our practice seriously, of saying — of vowing that “...
The Buddha's Great Enlightenment
Recorded December 6, 2025.December 8th is the traditional date on the Mahayana (Zen Buddhist) calendar of the Buddha's profound Enlightenment. Sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree after a long night of zazen that capped 6 years of ferocious ef...
Old Ghosts and Living a Life of Grace -- teisho on the Fox Koan
Recorded October 25, 2025.Thoughts, actions, understandings, perceptions, realizations that had once seemed good enough, may in time, no longer be sufficient. We outgrow them. Then ghostlike, they can return and haunt us. But maybe they ...
No Kings, Vows -- Zen and the U.S.A. -- and the conclusion to Hanshan's Autobiography
Recorded October 18, 2025Roshi Martin opens with comments on No Kings and its relationship to our vows. Then, in this 9th and final teisho on the life of Ming Dynasty Zen Teacher Hanshan, Roshi Martin resumes reading and commenting...
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2025 Jataka Sesshin: The Monkey King
Recorded October 14, 2025.This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the fourth day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center.______________________________The Monkey King jataka is also explored in
2025 Jataka Sesshin: The Tigress
Recorded October 13, 2025.This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the third day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center._______The Tigress jataka is also explored in
2025 Jataka Sesshin: Give It All You've Got
Recorded October 12, 2025.This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the second day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center.__________________________The jataka, Give It All You've Got, ...
2025 Jataka Sesshin: The Black Hound Jataka
Recorded October 11, 2025This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the first day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center._______The Black Hound jataka is also explored in
Bodhidharma Day and The Oak Tree in the Front Garden
Recorded October 4, 2025.In honor of Bodhidharma, the founder of what we now call Zen Buddhism, Roshi Martin comments on the koan of the "Oak Tree in the Front Garden" and talks about a conversation with Robert Aitken Roshi and ...
Part 8 - The Autobiography of Zen Master Hanshan - Starting with his 70th Year!
Recorded September 27, 2025.In this 8th teisho on the life of Ming Dynasty Zen Teacher Hanshan, Roshi Martin opens with a brief talk on the essence of Zen practice and the mystery at the core of our own lives. He then takes up reading an...
