Realization, Gratitude, Thanksgiving and Healing Artwork

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).

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Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin

Realization, Gratitude, Thanksgiving and Healing

November 23, 2024

Recorded November 23, 2024

In this teisho, using Dharma Transmission case 30 in the “Transmission of Light,” Bodhidharma’s heir, Huike, to Seng t’san, (the author of “Affirming Faith in Mind”) as a case in point, Roshi Martin explores gratitude and thanksgiving — from a Zen perspective.

Seng t’san, suffering from a serious illness, realized the empty ground of his disease, the foundation of what the koan calls his “sins,” and awoke to wholeness and gratitude.

The Buddha upon his great Awakening, didn’t exclaim that one day all beings will be Buddha. Instead, legend insists what he said was that all beings are Buddha, right now! How can that be? And what did he mean? The work of finding out is called, “practice.” To come to see and know for ourselves, to even a slight degree, who or what we already Truly are, is to uncover a life of endless gratitude, endless Thanks.

Photo: Standing Buddha at Endless Path Zendo by Rafe Martin

Referenced:
"Transmission of the Light" ("Denkoroku") - Keizan Jokin
"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" - William Blake
"Shobogenzo" ("Eye of the Treasury of the True Dharma" - Eihei Dogen