Te-shan Carries His Bundle. Is he right -- or wrong? 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 Carries His Bundle. Is he right -- or wrong?

February 08, 2025

Recorded Saturday, February 8, 2025.

In our previous koan teisho, (case 28, "Gateless Barrier"), Te-shan, that noted scholar of the Diamond Sutra, had set off with the clear intention of wiping out the “Zen devils” in the South. Fortunately for him -- and for us -- he fell into Master Lung-t’an’s Dragon Pond where he found his Original Face from before his parents were even born.

Even so, he was still the same old hot head. Now, sure that all his learning was wrong and only realization "right," he sets off to check himself against against “the best minds of his generation,” (Allen Ginsberg, Howl). In this second koan on Te-shan ( case 4, "Blue Cliff Record") we find out that when he arrives at Master Keui-shan’s monastery he breaks with monastic convention, just storms in, peers around, announces, “Nothing, Nothing,” and then leaves, all while still carrying his unopened monk’s bundle. Is he now right or is he still wrong? If right, how right? If wrong, how wrong? What’s he now got, and what’s still missing before he’ll actually be mature? Let's see!