Te-shan Sets Down His Backpack - Case 28, Gateless Barrier. 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

Te-shan Sets Down His Backpack - Case 28, Gateless Barrier.

February 01, 2025

Recorded February 1, 2025.

The traditional commentary on Case 28 in the Gateless Barrier says:

Before Te-shan left home, his mind was indignant and his tongue sharp. Full of arrogance, he went south to exterminate the doctrine of the special transmission outside the sutras. When he reached the road to Li-cho he sought to buy refreshments from an old woman at a roadside tea stand.
The old woman said, “Venerable monk, what are all those books you are carrying on your back?”
Te-shan said, “They are my notes and commentaries on the Diamond Sutra.”
The old woman said, “I hear the Diamond Sutra says, ‘Past mind cannot be grasped, present mind cannot be grasped, future mind cannot be grasped.’ Which mind does Your Reverence intend to refresh?”
Te-shan was dumbfounded . . . Unable to die the Great Death under the old woman’s words, he asked, “Is there a Zen master nearby?”

Now, here’s Gary Snyder (and I hope you know who he is!) speaking about koans in an Interview with Poetry Foundation, 2008:

‘The intention of a koan is to make people who are bright in an ordinary way, or ordinary people who are bright in an odd way, work harder and go further into themselves. . . So in a way we’re not talking about “language,” we’re talking about the theater of life.

For this to actually work, it needs the relation of student and mentor . . . Going into the teacher’s room and trying out your view of the koan on him or her is the only way to move through it. Without the mentor, you only dig yourself deeper into the hole, or you make up your own answer, which is invariably wrong.

This remarkable practice, developed and handed down for 1,000 years and more, is very refined and does not fit any exact paradigm of philosophy, rational analysis, or aesthetic strategy. Yet it throws light on them all.

I have no doubt that the Buddhist teachings are grounded in the remarkable, almost unique, exquisitely relevant insights of Gautama Shakyamuni, who is well-named “the Buddha,” the realized one. The koans—also known as the kungan, public cases, or teaching phrases—of Chan/Zen Buddhist practice go back to his mind and his insight.’