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
What is the Dharma King's Dharma?
Recorded 4/19/2025
Setting out on literal pilgrimage can help us establish faith in the Buddha Way, which began 2,500 years ago when the Awakened Buddha Shakyamuni stood up from his Great Awakening beneath the Bodhi Tree, and set off along the duty roads of his native land to teach. Pilgrimage to the sites of the historic Buddha’s life has been a traditional practice ever since. But while Zen teachers enthusiastically encourage it, they also remind us that our real pilgrimage is the journey to realization of our Original Mind. And while this Mind is never at all distant, waking to its reality will require effort. If we mean to realize Original Buddha Nature we’ll have to sit down, steady our jumpy minds, and search into the nature of this very self. The Buddha Shakyamuni’s own complete Awakening was the foundation of his teaching. That same realization, which to one degree or another is accessible to each of us because it already is who we are, remains the core of the Buddha Way for Zen practitioners today.
Photo of Buddha at Lung-Men Cave Grottos, China -- by Rafe Martin
Books -- "New and Selected Poems" Mary Oliver
- Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
- Talks on YouTube
- More information at endlesspathzen.org