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).

All Episodes

Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin

Who am I?

June 07, 2025

Recorded June 7, 2025.

There are no monks, nuns, Zen teachers, students, Buddhas, or Bodhisattvas in the case, no sign of Buddhism at all. Instead, a father insists that his daughter marry the man he chooses and, naturally enough, she rebels in order to follow the promptings of her own heart. But this all-too-sadly familiar mess, which tears the young woman in two, quickly opens into something even more fundamental.

Zen master Wu-tsu, using a popular ghost tale of his time, (like a popular movie or novel today), guides us to something truly intimate, getting us to really ask, “Which is the true me?” He is turning us toward the fundamental question of Identity: who or what am I? And how is it even possible that we don’t know?!

Here Roshi Martin looks again at Case 35 of the "Gateless Barrier" “Which is the True Ch’ien?” deepening and enriching his own earlier teisho on the case. Fairy tales, poetry, and the quest for Identity re-align!

Photo -- The Priest Baozhi (J., Hoshi), Saio-ji Temple, Kyoto