Endless Path Zendo | Roshi Rafe Martin

Recorded October 13, 2025. This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the third day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center. _______ The Tigress jataka is also explored in Endless Path: Awakening Within the Buddhist Imagination: Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and DailyLife by Rafe Martin.  Additionally, it appears in The Hungry Tigress: Buddhist Myths, Legends and Jataka Tales...

Recorded October 12, 2025. This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the second day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center. __________________________ The jataka,  Give It All You've Got , is also explored in Endless Path: Awakening Within the Buddhist Imagination: Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and DailyLife  by Rafe Martin. Books by Roshi Rafe Martin Talks on YouTube M...

Recorded October 11, 2025 This teisho was given by Roshi Martin on the first day of the 15th annual Jataka Sesshin held at the Vermont Zen Center. _______ The Black Hound jataka is also explored in Endless Path: Awakening Within the Buddhist Imagination: Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and DailyLife by Rafe Martin Books by Roshi Rafe Martin Talks on YouTube More information at endlesspathzen.org

Recorded October 4, 2025. In honor of Bodhidharma, the founder of what we now call Zen Buddhism, Roshi Martin comments on the koan of the "Oak Tree in the Front Garden" and talks about a conversation with Robert Aitken Roshi and the relationship of Zen practice to actual happiness. More on this koan will be found in Roshi Martin's upcoming book " Finding your Buddha Smile: Comi...

Recorded September 27, 2025. In this 8th teisho on the life of Ming Dynasty Zen Teacher Hanshan, Roshi Martin opens with a brief talk on the essence of Zen practice and the mystery at the core of our own lives. He then takes up reading and commenting on Hanshan's autobiography as it unfolds into his 70th year. Referenced:  The Autobiography and Maxims of Master Han Shan, translated by Upasaka...

Recorded Saturday, September 6, 2025. Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (lively, funny and moving) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, ( Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–1623), the noted Ming Dynasty Zen teacher (not to be confused with Han-shan — Cold Mountain — noted Zen poet/eccentric of the T’ang era.)  Known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Mi...

Recorded Sunday July 26, 2025 Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (lively, funny and moving) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, ( Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–1623), the noted Ming Dynasty Zen teacher (not to be confused with Han-shan — Cold Mountain — noted Zen poet/eccentric of the T’ang era.)  Known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Ming Dynas...

Recorded June 28, 2025. Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (lively, funny and moving) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, ( Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–1623), the noted Ming Dynasty Zen teacher (not to be confused with Han-shan — Cold Mountain — noted Zen poet/eccentric of the T’ang era.)  Known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Ming Dynasty, Ha...

Recorded June 15, 2025.  Roshi Martin continues to read and comment on the extraordinary (and quite lively and funny and also truly moving!!) autobiography of Han-shan Te-Ching, a great Ming Dynasty teacher (not to be confused with Hanshan (Cold Mountain) poet of the T’ang era.  Hanshan, an important Ming Dynasty Zen teacher, writes in such a lively, straightforward manner that is moving, funny, p...

Recorded June 14, 2025. Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (and quite lively and funny and also truly moving!!) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, a great Ming Dynasty teacher (not to be confused with Hanshan (Cold Mountain) poet of the T’ang era. Some snippet’s from Wikipedia on Hanshan: Hanshan Deqing (Hanshan Te-Ch’ing, "Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–162...

Recorded June 13, 2025. Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (and quite lively and funny and also truly moving!!) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, a great Ming Dynasty teacher (not to be confused with Hanshan (Cold Mountain) poet of the T’ang era. Some snippet’s from Wikipedia on Hanshan: Hanshan Deqing (Hanshan Te-Ch’ing, "Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–162...

Recorded June 12, 2025 Roshi Martin reads and comments on the extraordinary (and quite lively and funny and also truly moving!!) autobiography of Hanshan Te-Ching, a great Ming Dynasty teacher (not to be confused with Hanshan (Cold Mountain) poet of the T’ang era. Some snippet’s from Wikipedia on Hanshan: Hanshan Deqing (Hanshan Te-Ch’ing, "Crazy Mountain, Virtuous Clarity", c. 1546–1623...

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 eve...

Recorded May 31, 2025 Roshi Martin reads and comment on the chapter “Responsibility and Social Action” in the book Awakening to Zen by Roshi Philip Kapleau, a book he edited. The chapter opens with: “In Zen Buddhism, responsibility means responsiveness. To respond fully to every situation that comes your way, from a call for help of one kind or another to just talking with someone, and to give all...

May 17, 2025. Trouble in mind is a rather standard blues trope, but peace of mind — what is that? We know that the big bad wolf comes to every door — and blows the house down. Well, almost every house. What is the secret of that last little pig’s house, the one made of brick? What is about that house that offers security, solidity, true peace of mind? Does it lie in the literal heft of brick, or i...

Recorded on May 10, 2025. Rick McDaniel, who has written a fine series of books on the transmission of Zen Buddhism to the West, as well as books of interviews with contemporary Zen teachers (full disclosure: I wrote the Foreword for his "Further Conversations: On the scope, practice, and future of North American Zen," a book in which I also appear), and is now working on a book about th...

Recorded April 26, 2025 In this teisho, Roshi Martin looks at an oddly sci-fi (with UFO!) past life tale of the Buddha, our own life, a Grimm’s “fairy tale,” and the Way of the Bodhisattva.  “Everything – beings, worlds, galaxies, universes — Buddhist teachings tell us — come and go, with neither beginning nor end. Aryasura, author of the influential 5th century CE Jatakamala, however, states that...

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 teac...

Recorded 04/12/2025. "The legend of the Buddha’s birth, uses the language of myth to point beyond the literal. The birth of any child is totally ordinary and, at the same time, a total miracle. How do two cells become a living person? How do gastrula and blastula become a being with talents, interests, features and personality? Where does a child come from? The birth of any one child is a mys...

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 thi...

We’re happy to add this excellent interview with Roshi Rafe Martin to our podcast series. The interview was conducted by Berry Crawford of “Simplicity Zen” on January 27, 2023. While informal and enjoyable it is also informative, focusing on the essence of Roshi Martin’s teaching as well as his background as a lay Zen practitioner, and his emphasis, as a teacher, on the importance of lay practice....

Recorded March 1, 2025 If wisdom is real, it should be popping up all over — in life, in folklore, in songs and movies emerging from popular culture. Real wisdom should be common knowledge, not hidden, or secret, or esoteric. “You’ll find your happiness lies right under your eyes/Back in your own backyard” sounds such a chord. And to quote Dorothy, “There’s no place like home.” Still, why do such...

Recorded February 22, 2025 This third and final Te-shan koan completes our overview of Zen practice as the hero/heroine’s journey/pilgrimage from unconscious self-centeredness to selfless wisdom and compassion. Maturing means more than aging. Becoming not just “olders” but “elders,” takes conscious effort and perseverance. Yamada Roshi counseled his Zen students to take care of their health so as...

Recorded February 15, 2025. “Let’s be honest: Death is our greatest difficulty. Accepting it and, for lack of a better word, doing it, are our most severe challenges, fraught with deepest anxiety and trauma. All challenges and difficulties in life seem to stem from or circle around this primal one of awesome finality. To face head-on what, as Shakespeare wrote, “... ends this strange eventful hist...

Recorded Saturday, February 8, 2025. In our previous koan teisho, (case 28, "Gateless Barrier") , Te-shan, that noted scholar of the Diamond Sutra, had set off with the clear intention of wiping out the “Zen devils” in the South. Fortunately for him --  and for us --  he fell into Master Lung-t’an’s Dragon Pond where he found his Original Face from before his parents were even born. Even...