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).
Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin
A Teisho for Spring: Ch'ang Sha's Stroll
Recorded March 30, 2024.
Roshi Rafe Jnan Martin shares Case 36 from The Blue Cliff Record "Ch'ang Sha Wandering in the Mountains."
With Ch’ang Sha’s spring time stroll in the hills we discover (and clarify) that ongoing Zen practice means a full life, not isolation. The Buddha got up from under the Bodhi Tree. The point of Zen — if we can speak in such terms — is not to stay forever seated in zazen facing a wall, but to live fully, maturing with family, careers, relationships, interests, ups and downs, sickness and health, activism, citizenship, music and art all as the Way. Ch’ang Sha shows how it goes. Hsueh t’ou, compiler of The Blue Cliff Record, says, “I’m grateful for that answer.” As are we!
Additional works cited —
- The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan), Translated and with a Commentary by Robert Aitken - Case 25 Yang-shan's Sermon from the Third Seat
- Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
- William Blake - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
- Keizan Jokin, Denkoroku
- The Odyssey, Robert Fitzgerald, trans.
- Basho — in Haiku “Spring” R.H. Blyth
Photo credit: Highland Falls, by Rafe Martin
- Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
- Talks on YouTube
- More information at endlesspathzen.org