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

Which is the True You?

March 08, 2025

Recorded March 8, 2025

This teisho is on Case 35, The Gateless Barrier -- "Wu-tsu: Which is the True Ch'ien?"

"Wu-tsu asked a monk, 'The woman Ch’ien and her spirit separated. Which is the true Ch’ien?' ”

Zen master Wu-tsu uses a popular ghost tale of his time to explore something truly intimate. He is facing directly into the question of Identity: Who am I? Isn’t this at the root of all that drives and bugs and puzzles and torments us? Beneath all such questions as “Why did I do that?” or “Why must I suffer this?” lies the most direct and challenging query of all: “Who am I?”

Peace, genuine peace — or at least a greater degree of it — Zen teaching says -- lies in digging down into this fundamental question and finding out just who it is we’re referring to and talking about when we say — or think — “I”.

Wu-men’s commentary on the case as follows:
"If you realize the true one, then you’ll know that emerging from one husk and entering another is like a traveler putting up at an inn. If this is not clear, don’t rush about wildly. When you suddenly separate into earth, water, fire and air, you’ll be like a crab dropped into boiling water, struggling with your seven arms and eight legs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!"

Image: Crab on its back, Vincent Van Gogh