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
Zen Failure and Creativity
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Recorded 9/26/2026.
In this lively, enjoyable teisho, Roshi Martin edits on the fly from the final two short chapters of his book, A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas — “Zen Failure” and “Painting of a Rice Cake: Creative Imagination and the Way of the Bodhisattva.”
From “Zen Failure:” “Quantum theory suggests that each moment arises out of a field of endless possibility and has, in turn, endless lines of possibility extending from it. All such possible lines collapse into the one line we call “reality.” Ordinary reality then, is the perfect expression of Zen Master Wu-men’s (Mumon’s) statement —“The failure is wonderful indeed!” The red of the apple, the taste of this tea, the blue of the sky, the smile of a child — the failure IS wonderful indeed!”
From “Painting of a Rice Cake:” “We create our real lives out of the imagination, something that athletes may know better than scholars. If you want to swim better, visualize yourself in the pool, the water flowing smoothly past, the chiming, churning sound of that flow, the kick of your legs, the perfect effortless stroke. Get in the pool afterward and — you swim better! What happens in the imagination makes us who we are. . .”
Web article:
https://sweetcakeenso.blogspot.com/2010/09/rafe-martin-on-gabyo-zen-master-dogens.html
Teeny Tiny Tower: archival print by Ariya Martin (the artist Ariya Aladjem Wolf)
- Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
- Talks on YouTube
- More information at endlesspathzen.org