Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 5 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

Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 5

February 07, 2026

0:00 | 37:31

Recorded February 7, 2025.

Te-shan, a noted scholar of the Diamond Sutra, set out to wipe out those nasty “Zen devils” in the South. But, falling into Master Lung-t’an’s Dragon Pond, he found his Face before his parents were born and out at last beyond the pages of his beloved notes and commentaries on the diamonds Sutra, he awoke to the real diamond. Filled with joy, he burned his precious writings and set off, confident as ever, into a bright and shining new world. But is it really so simple?

This dramatic opening of Te-shan’s Zen, presents an archetype. Clearly, whatever we may fantasize about “enlightenment,” even a deep experience is not the endpoint. Rather, it’s a new beginning. Te-shan was on the road home, but not yet there. The road goes on, and on. As his story shows.

Let’s see how it actually goes.

Photo of Smiling Buddha, Lung-men Caves, China, by Rafe Martin 2006

Read Roshi Rafe Martin's latest book: Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home To What Zen is Really All About. Available from Amazon , Sumeru Books, and Barnes & Noble Online.