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
The Buddha's Parinirvana -- and Us!
Recorded February 15, 2025.
“Let’s be honest: Death is our greatest difficulty. Accepting it and, for lack of a better word, doing it, are our most severe challenges, fraught with deepest anxiety and trauma. All challenges and difficulties in life seem to stem from or circle around this primal one of awesome finality. To face head-on what, as Shakespeare wrote, “... ends this strange eventful history ... Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” (As You Like It), can be terribly hard. It is beyond everything and anything we can imagine. A lifetime of practicing, of learning to be fully present with what IS, seeing through habitual, unconscious identifications with the isolated, interior, small-minded sense of ourselves crouched down and terrified, is our best preparation.
“Roshi Kapleau liked Woody Allen’s joke: “I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” He used to say, “You know, he almost had it there.” What was missing? I think of the old saying – “To gain a certain thing, you must become a certain person, but once you become that person, you may no longer need to gain that thing.” In short, Woody could joke about it but what about “living” it?
“Death is at the core of Zen because it is at the core of life. Hakuin wrote about the terrific virtue of what he called, “The great death,” his version of Dogen’s “Dropping body and mind; mind and body dropped.” It is liberation itself he is referencing. . . The Buddha’s teaching is traditionally known as a poison drum. Anyone who hears it is killed dead. Isn’t that great news?!
“It’s not just an Eastern thing. In 1826 in London, William Blake signed a guest book with a beautiful drawing of a human figure stretched out as if reclining or flying. Surrounding this elegant form were the words – “William Blake who is very much delighted in being in good company. Born November 28, 1757 in London and has died several times since.” I wonder what the other guests at that gathering made of that. ”
-Excerpt from “A Zen Life of Buddha” by Rafe Martin, Sumeru Press 2022
Books cited —
- “The Hungry Tigress: Buddhist Myths, Legends, and Jataka Tales: Completely Revised and Expanded Edition,” Rafe Martin, Yellow Moon Press, 1999
- “A Zen Life of Buddha,” Rafe Martin, Sumeru Press, 2022
- “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo,” ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi, Shambhala, 2010
Photo: Buddha’s Parinirvana Altar at Endless Path Zendo
- Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
- Talks on YouTube
- More information at endlesspathzen.org