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).

All Episodes

Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin

Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind

October 05, 2024

Recorded 10/05/2024.

Roshi Martin comments on case 41 in The Gateless Barrier — “Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind,” the core of which is as follows:

Bodhidharma sat facing the wall. Huike, the Second Ancestor . . . said, “Your disciple’s mind has no peace as yet. I beg you, master, to please put it to rest.”
Bodhidharma said, “Bring me your mind, and I will put it to rest.”
The Second Ancestor said, “I have searched for my mind, but I cannot find it.”
Bodhidharma said, “Then I have completely put it to rest for you.”

Buddhist practice is not simply a matter of study, of amassing learning, of finding psychological nuance, or of gaining “merit.” At its core where Zen resides is the practice of realization, actually awakening to Mind itself. Bodhidharma’s Zen was and is radical – in the primary sense of aiming for the root.

The Zen brought to life by Bodhidharma, shifted the Buddha’s teaching from the cosmological/philosophical to the practical. It’s aim remains to help us come to the end of suffering and realize Peace. At some point we all recognize the difficulties and challenges of this life, and are anguished by them. This is where we begin. To find Peace all we need do then, as Bodhidharma insisted, is bring forth our troubled mind so it can be pacified. That shouldn’t be too hard should it? What do you think?