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No Kings, Vows -- Zen and the U.S.A. -- and the conclusion to Hanshan's Autobiography
18 Oct 2025
00:44:46
Recorded October 18, 2025
Roshi Martin opens with comments on No Kings and its relationship to our vows. Then, in this 9th and final teisho on the life of Ming Dynasty Zen Teacher Hanshan, Roshi Martin resumes reading and commenting on Hanshan's autobiography which takes us to Hanshan's death in 1623.
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, profound and deeply human. Hearing from him about the details of his extraordinary life, we get a real sense of what Zen -- and Zen culture -- is truly about. Enjoy.
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), was a leading Buddhist monk and poet of the late Ming dynasty China. (Posthumously named Hongjue Chanshi.) He is known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Ming Dynasty. Hanshan has remained an influential figure in Chinese Chan Buddhism down to the twentieth century. His works are widely printed and published in various editions. His teachings were most recently promoted by modern figures like Hsu Yun (1840?-1959) and his disciple Charles Luk (1898–1978).
Hanshan saw the truth of Chan as not being different from the teachings on Mind found in the Mahayana scriptures. Hanshan saw the fundamental method of Chan as "only to understand and realize your own Mind." Hanshan describes the enlightenment experience as follows: "suddenly you will find that the Lotus-mind beams with a bright light, illuminating the ten directions of the universe.” Hanshan saw the Chan method as a way to awaken to the one pure Mind in this very life.
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), was a leading Buddhist monk and poet of the late Ming dynasty China. (Posthumously named Hongjue Chanshi.) He is known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Ming Dynasty. Hanshan has remained an influential figure in Chinese Chan Buddhism down to the twentieth century. His works are widely printed and published in various editions. His teachings were most recently promoted by modern figures like Hsu Yun (1840?-1959) and his disciple Charles Luk (1898–1978).
Hanshan saw the truth of Chan as not being different from the teachings on Mind found in the Mahayana scriptures. Hanshan saw the fundamental method of Chan as "only to understand and realize your own Mind." Hanshan describes the enlightenment experience as follows: "suddenly you will find that the Lotus-mind beams with a bright light, illuminating the ten directions of the universe.” Hanshan saw the Chan method as a way to awaken to the one pure Mind in this very life.
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), was a leading Buddhist monk and poet of the late Ming dynasty China. (Posthumously named Hongjue Chanshi.) He is known as one of the four great masters of the Wanli Era Ming Dynasty. Hanshan has remained an influential figure in Chinese Chan Buddhism down to the twentieth century. His works are widely printed and published in various editions. His teachings were most recently promoted by modern figures like Hsu Yun (1840?-1959) and his disciple Charles Luk (1898–1978).
Hanshan saw the truth of Chan as not being different from the teachings on Mind found in the Mahayana scriptures. Hanshan saw the fundamental method of Chan as "only to understand and realize your own Mind." Hanshan describes the enlightenment experience as follows: "suddenly you will find that the Lotus-mind beams with a bright light, illuminating the ten directions of the universe.” Hanshan saw the Chan method as a way to awaken to the one pure Mind in this very life.
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
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 of yourself to it — this is responsibility.”
Roshi Martin adds:
“We must speak up and act for what is good. I resolve to do good. I resolve to avoid evil. I resolve to save the many beings. These three so-called Three General Resolutions are the core of Zen Buddhist life. Our life is practice. Practice is not an escape from or evasion of all that’s on our plate as and in this very life. I practice as a human being, and as a citizen. Which means I cannot ignore what’s happening in my country, or my world, on my planet. Practice means responding not hiding out. We aim to be genuine human beings, fully human beings, whole human beings.”
Photo: Philip Kapleau and Rafe Martin, when Roshi Kapleau was living in semi-retirement in Hollywood, Florida, circa 1991.
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 is that a shibboleth? Yet if peace of mind is what we aim for, there’s a step beyond even that, more fundamental, less karmic.
Ironically, a quest for peace begins with the personally honest recognition of un-peace. In which case it might be time to explore the story of Bodhidharma's meeting with Hui k’o, a man with a deeply troubled mind to whom he eventually transmitted his Dharma. This is Case 41 of The Gateless Barrier — “Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind.”
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 the pioneering men and women who brought Zen to the West.
Here is his “take” on Roshi Philip Kapleau, former Chief Court Reporter of both the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. Roshi Kapleau remains an important, controversial, pioneering figure in the transmission of Zen to the West. I appear in this piece as well, talking about my close personal relationship with Kapleau Roshi, and some of the complexities of the 70s — and later. Details abound! Is it gossip — or history? Give a listen!
Photo: Philip Kapleau's ordination as a Zen priest by Yasutani Roshi
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 something does persist. He writes: ‘Earth with its forests, noble mountains and seas may perish a hundred times by fire, water, and wind, as each eon comes to an end, but the great compassion of a Bodhisattva, never.’ (From the “Great Ape Jataka” in, Once The Buddha Was a Monkey; trans. Peter Khoroche.)
“According to Buddhist tradition, the aspiration to awaken and live so as to benefit all beings is woven into the nature of reality, is the nature of Original, un-self-centered Mind. Given this, the effort we put into trying to satisfy a small, self-centered, fundamentally illusory habitual narrative of isolated selfness with which we identify as “myself,” must meet with defeat. With this little jataka, the Buddha reveals that he himself had trod that selfish trail to its necessary end. And, having gone the route, at trail’s end he's put up a marker for all to see: ‘Warning! You can never satisfy desire.’” Or, as the Rolling Stones classically complained about satisfaction, “I can’t get no.”
“Once we really get this, we are freed to begin looking for genuine happiness. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” (William Blake, “Proverbs of Hell,” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.)
_________
Roshi Martin adds this correction to a Zen verse that he quotes near the start of the teisho. Recalling it on the spur of the moment he regrets he didn't quote it correctly. It should go like this:
Last year’s poverty was not true poverty.
This year’s poverty is absolute.
In last year’s poverty there was room for the point of a gimlet.
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
The Birth of the Buddha -- Or -- How Does A Buddha Get Born?
12 Apr 2025
00:38:44
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 mystery that affects us all, whether we consciously know it or not. Myth gives imaginative space to the uncanny ordinary reality we are actually living.
How does a Buddha get born? Zen practice says by attending to this breath and counting from one to ten, by becoming fully aware of the breath, by sitting completely absorbed in the koan, or in the inquiry, or in “thinking not-thinking.” In short, it is by practicing that the self-centered is forgotten. And as that habitual obsessive focus fades, the world of 10,000 unique, individual, and specific things steps in and realizes itself. It is as if we are born anew. We find that we are home. This is how a Buddha is born.
Yet the Buddha’s historic/legendary birth is a mystery, and presenting it as miraculous offers its own legitimate truth. Where does a person who is the first to do what’s never been done, someone whose efforts ultimately influence millions of lives for the good, come from?"
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 this at the root of all that drives and bugs and puzzles and torments us? Beneath all such questions as “Why did I do that?” or “Why must I suffer this?” lies the most direct and challenging query of all: “Who am I?”
Peace, genuine peace — or at least a greater degree of it — Zen teaching says -- lies in digging down into this fundamental question and finding out just who it is we’re referring to and talking about when we say — or think — “I”.
Wu-men’s commentary on the case as follows: "If you realize the true one, then you’ll know that emerging from one husk and entering another is like a traveler putting up at an inn. If this is not clear, don’t rush about wildly. When you suddenly separate into earth, water, fire and air, you’ll be like a crab dropped into boiling water, struggling with your seven arms and eight legs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!"
Interview with Rafe Martin, courtesy of Simplicity Zen
04 Mar 2025
01:24:55
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. If you’re interested in getting a sense of what Rafe is about, this interview ill give you a good sense of his approach to teaching, practice, and realization, as well as his dual inheritance in both Kapleau and Diamond Sangha (Robert Aitken Roshi) lineages. (Note: This interview is also available as a video on the Home Page [“About Us”] of the Endless Path Zendo Website.)
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 fundamental insights keep having to pop up? Why don’t we just “get it”? The great, Chao-chou (J. Joshu; 778–897), perhaps the most mature of all Chinese Zen masters, was once asked, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” Or what is the highest teaching of the Buddhadharma. He answered, “The oak tree in the front yard.” What did he mean?
Aitken Roshi once told me that the whole point of Zen was happiness. Actually what he said was “Many people in this world are happy. Absorbed in their work, or family, or hobbies, no longer caught up in themselves, they’re happy. But if impermanence has bitten too deeply, and a yearning for something more, a way to be at peace in the face of impermanence has taken root, then Zen can show you the way to happiness.”
Is it happiness, then, that resides at the core of Zen? Did gruff old Bodhidharma have a soft heart and make that risky journey because he wanted us to be happy? But, then, what about that oak tree? Let’s find out?!
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 to live as long as possible, continue working on their practice, and become as mature as possible. Let’s see how Te-shan does.
As commentary on the koan itself is rather brief ( 20 mins), for the teisho’s first 15 minutes Roshi Martin offers a respite from our troubled times by reading and commenting on short (including haiku) Chinese and Japanese Zen-related poems, to help us touch base with our essential humanity of wisdom and compassion, “in such hard times.”
“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 history ... Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” (As You Like It), can be terribly hard. It is beyond everything and anything we can imagine. A lifetime of practicing, of learning to be fully present with what IS, seeing through habitual, unconscious identifications with the isolated, interior, small-minded sense of ourselves crouched down and terrified, is our best preparation.
“Roshi Kapleau liked Woody Allen’s joke: “I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” He used to say, “You know, he almost had it there.” What was missing? I think of the old saying – “To gain a certain thing, you must become a certain person, but once you become that person, you may no longer need to gain that thing.” In short, Woody could joke about it but what about “living” it?
“Death is at the core of Zen because it is at the core of life. Hakuin wrote about the terrific virtue of what he called, “The great death,” his version of Dogen’s “Dropping body and mind; mind and body dropped.” It is liberation itself he is referencing. . . The Buddha’s teaching is traditionally known as a poison drum. Anyone who hears it is killed dead. Isn’t that great news?!
“It’s not just an Eastern thing. In 1826 in London, William Blake signed a guest book with a beautiful drawing of a human figure stretched out as if reclining or flying. Surrounding this elegant form were the words – “William Blake who is very much delighted in being in good company. Born November 28, 1757 in London and has died several times since.” I wonder what the other guests at that gathering made of that. ”
-Excerpt from “A Zen Life of Buddha” by Rafe Martin, Sumeru Press 2022
Te-shan Carries His Bundle. Is he right -- or wrong?
08 Feb 2025
00:22:39
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 so, he was still the same old hot head. Now, sure that all his learning was wrong and only realization "right," he sets off to check himself against against “the best minds of his generation,” (Allen Ginsberg, Howl). In this second koan on Te-shan ( case 4, "Blue Cliff Record") we find out that when he arrives at Master Keui-shan’s monastery he breaks with monastic convention, just storms in, peers around, announces, “Nothing, Nothing,” and then leaves, all while still carrying his unopened monk’s bundle. Is he now right or is he still wrong? If right, how right? If wrong, how wrong? What’s he now got, and what’s still missing before he’ll actually be mature? Let's see!
Before Te-shan left home, his mind was indignant and his tongue sharp. Full of arrogance, he went south to exterminate the doctrine of the special transmission outside the sutras. When he reached the road to Li-cho he sought to buy refreshments from an old woman at a roadside tea stand. The old woman said, “Venerable monk, what are all those books you are carrying on your back?” Te-shan said, “They are my notes and commentaries on the Diamond Sutra.” The old woman said, “I hear the Diamond Sutra says, ‘Past mind cannot be grasped, present mind cannot be grasped, future mind cannot be grasped.’ Which mind does Your Reverence intend to refresh?” Te-shan was dumbfounded . . . Unable to die the Great Death under the old woman’s words, he asked, “Is there a Zen master nearby?”
Now, here’s Gary Snyder (and I hope you know who he is!) speaking about koans in an Interview with Poetry Foundation, 2008:
‘The intention of a koan is to make people who are bright in an ordinary way, or ordinary people who are bright in an odd way, work harder and go further into themselves. . . So in a way we’re not talking about “language,” we’re talking about the theater of life.
For this to actually work, it needs the relation of student and mentor . . . Going into the teacher’s room and trying out your view of the koan on him or her is the only way to move through it. Without the mentor, you only dig yourself deeper into the hole, or you make up your own answer, which is invariably wrong.
This remarkable practice, developed and handed down for 1,000 years and more, is very refined and does not fit any exact paradigm of philosophy, rational analysis, or aesthetic strategy. Yet it throws light on them all.
I have no doubt that the Buddhist teachings are grounded in the remarkable, almost unique, exquisitely relevant insights of Gautama Shakyamuni, who is well-named “the Buddha,” the realized one. The koans—also known as the kungan, public cases, or teaching phrases—of Chan/Zen Buddhist practice go back to his mind and his insight.’
This teisho is the first of a series from a new book by Roshi Rafe Martin, titled, "A Zen Life As Pilgrimage: Coming Home (To What Zen Is Really All About)."
What is the relevance of Zen to the difficulties of our time, right now? What is Zen really all about?
A personal anecdote from Roshi Martin —
I was having lunch with Aitken Roshi in an Italian restaurant in Honolulu when I asked,“Roshi. What is this Zen thing, anyway? Why do we do it?” He answered quickly, saying “Happiness.” And then he stopped, put down his fork, and sat quietly, as if he’d caught himself mouthing a cliche. Then he looked at me and said,“No. Many people are happy. Absorbed in work, family, or hobbies they’re happy. But if impermanence has bitten too deeply, and a yearning for something more, a way to be at peace in the face of impermanence has taken root, then Zen can show you the way to happiness.”
A personal anecdote told to Roshi Martin by Danan Henry Roshi —
“Have you ever seen anything so wonderful?!!” Roshi Philip Kapleau exclaimed, with a radiant smile on his face, upon seeing a rooster strutting down the dirt lane, just outside Tepotzlan, Morelos Province, Mexico. Now, remember, he’d been the Chief Court Reporter at both the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. The anguish caused by the horrors of the testimony he took down at those trials had moved him to begin Zen practice. That radiant smile was a result of what Zen practice had opened to him.
Fundamentally, Zen is not about becoming some better you. You are it, just as you are. Even a baby knows it. Maybe only a baby knows it. Perhaps the clearest take on this, koan-wise, is Blue Cliff Record 80 — “Chao Chou’s(Joshu’s) A Newborn Baby.”
“A monk asked Chao Chou (Joshu), ‘Does a newborn baby possess the 6th sense or not?’ Chao Chou (Joshu) said, 'It is like a ball bouncing on swift-flowing water.’
The monk later asked T’ou Tzu (Tosu), ‘What is the meaning of a ball bouncing on swift-flowing water?’
Tosu said, ‘Moment by moment it flows on without stopping.’”
In his teisho on this, master Yuan-wu says that of the 16 forms of meditation practice, the baby’s practice is best. Voidness is not biblical in the sense of all was Void on the waters of Creation. Moment by moment, it flows on without stopping — as T’ou Tzu says. No sticking. This is it; right now is IT. “Form is emptiness, emptiness form” — the fundamental realization of non-dual prajna wisdom. We don’t have to go out and get to it, as if it were elsewhere in either space or time. An analogy might be living on planet Earth; we are just as far out in space as any planet in the universe. We don’t have to go anywhere to be out in space. Emptiness, too, is not something we have to get to.
The fresh eyes of baby practice restores us, and all things. Jesus said you must become as a child again, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Yuan wu says this, too — right in the Blue Cliff Record: “A person who studies the Path must become again like an infant.” Why? Do you see the point?
For the first teisho of 2025 — and its challenges — Roshi Rafe Martin offers a vision of Buddhist insight/outlook and behavior, by looking at the Buddhist jataka tales (past life stories of the Buddha) and their deep import for us today. In these stories equal attention is given to the needs and aspirations of all living things, not just human beings. The tales, taken as a whole, offer a doorway into a primary realm of the imagination, which connects all life.
The source of this teisho is an article Roshi Martin originally wrote as the final chapter for the 1999, Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of his book, The Hungry Tigress: Buddhist Myths, Legends, and Jataka Tales (Yellowmoon Press) and includes his interviews with noted Buddhist teachers and writers, (including both Aitken Roshi and Kapleau Roshi) on their favorite jataka tale, and why they were drawn to that particular story. An inspiring teisho for the New Year!
To end the year - a teisho on the Buddha’s teaching — and a flower!
It should come as no surprise that Zen tradition sees the Buddha as the original Zen Master, someone who teaches by demonstrating and presenting, rather than simply by lecturing, or talking “about.” The Buddha offers living truth, not philosophy. Like the monk in the final Zen Oxherding picture, he enters the marketplace of human life with helping hands. Which sounds pretty good. Who doesn't need help? But what does such help look like? What kind of help does the enlightened Buddha offer?
To clarify, let’s look at Gateless Barrier, case # 6: “The Buddha Holds Up a Flower.”
The Buddha's Enlightenment and Our Own Zen Practice
08 Dec 2024
00:59:04
Recorded December 8, 2024
In this teisho Roshi Rafe Martin tells the dramatic story of the Buddha’s great enlightenment then comments on it (using his recent book A Zen Life of Buddha as his source), from the ground of ongoing Zen practice:
“Zen Buddhism reveres the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment because it so dramatically reveals our own potential, even as it reveals the determined, dedicated work that “even as it reveals the determined, dedicated work that underlies all milestone experiences. ”
“Buddhist tradition says that we all have the nature of Buddha, have exactly the same, vast, empty nature of endlessly creative and compassionate potential as Shakyamuni and all previous and future Buddhas. From the first we are each fully and equally endowed with limitless wisdom and virtue. And because it is already who we are, if we practice, if we make sincere efforts then we, too, can to one degree or another, awake to this same Original Mind.
“. . . After a long night of focused zazen, the Buddha-About-To-Be glanced up and saw the morning star. And suddenly, AHA! “Gone, gone, entirely gone!” That’s IT! A morning star sat beneath the Bodhi tree: “Star! No “me”, just Star!”
It need not be so dramatic. A poem of Li Po’s from ancient China titled, “Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain,” goes like this:
The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.
– Trans. by Sam Hamill, from Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese
The Buddha Leaves Home, (and how this relates to our own Zen practice!)
07 Dec 2024
00:47:37
Record December 7, 2024
This teisho, the opening teisho of our two-day rohatsu sesshin, itself the culminating event of five previous days of heightened daily practice, is on the Buddha’s leaving home and its relation to our own maturing Zen practice.
According to legend, when at the age of twenty-nine, the long-sheltered prince, Siddhartha Gautama, left his comfortable palace to explore life in his home city, he suddenly saw an aged person, a sick person, a dead person, and a homeless truth-seeker and his life was irrevocably changed. Traumatized by this collision with reality, he didn’t turn and run, but became determined, instead, to get to the root of it.
With lay Zen practice we leave home without leaving home. What we learn to leave is our unconscious, self-centered habits regarding relationships, family, meaningful work. We abandon nothing but our own painfully dualistic habits of mind. Home leaving is actually the beginning of coming home. The Korean ex-Zen monk poet Ko Un, wrote – “But surely you can only come home/if you’ve really left home, can’t you?”
In this teisho, using Dharma Transmission case 30 in the “Transmission of Light,” Bodhidharma’s heir, Huike, to Seng t’san, (the author of “Affirming Faith in Mind”) as a case in point, Roshi Martin explores gratitude and thanksgiving — from a Zen perspective.
Seng t’san, suffering from a serious illness, realized the empty ground of his disease, the foundation of what the koan calls his “sins,” and awoke to wholeness and gratitude.
The Buddha upon his great Awakening, didn’t exclaim that one day all beings will be Buddha. Instead, legend insists what he said was that all beings are Buddha, right now! How can that be? And what did he mean? The work of finding out is called, “practice.” To come to see and know for ourselves, to even a slight degree, who or what we already Truly are, is to uncover a life of endless gratitude, endless Thanks.
Photo: Standing Buddha at Endless Path Zendo by Rafe Martin
Manjusri Fails to Awaken the Young Woman. Is failure "wonderful indeed"?
16 Nov 2024
00:44:57
Recorded November 16, 2024.
With this teisho Roshi Martin looks into the nature of painful failure: “Is it wonderful indeed” as the koan of “Manjusri and the Young Woman” (“Gateless Barrier” 35) proclaims? If so, how? Roshi Martin begins with the opening lines of "The Odyssey” pointing out how they reveal that it is Odysseus’s failure that sets the epic of a man overcoming difficulties and temptations to return to his true home, in motion. Then he reads and comments on Chapter 5 of his recent book “A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas,” which explores the koan of how the great Bodhisattva of Wisdom fails to awaken a young woman. The koan’s conclusion that “the failure is wonderful indeed” merits special exploration. What does it mean?!
In this first post-Nov. 5th election teisho, Roshi Martin opens with two poems of W.B. Yeats, speaking from the Irish “Troubles,” then moves on to read from and comment on Chapter Seven —“The Resource of Shame” — in Nelson Foster Roshi’s new book: Storehouse of Treasures: Recovering the riches of Chan and Zen.
Some bits to savor:
The great T’ang era Zen master Chao-chou (Joshu) was once asked — “What place to you accord an individual entirely without shame?” “Not among us,” the master answered. The questioner persisted, How about if one suddenly appeared? “Throw him out!” said Chao-chou.
And from Mencius, 372-289 BC, “Cunning opportunists have no use for shame. Unashamed of being inhuman, what humanity to they have?”
Or this — from Nelson — “Recognition that you’ve erred [i.e. shame] becomes an indicator of which way your ethical compass points, lending shame an ennobling aspect.”
In short, shame has nothing to do with “shaming,” or with guilt — or with beating ourselves up. But as a matter of scrupulous honesty and character, it helps us proceed along the ancient Way of the maturing Human Being — whatever comes. Not to own up to the uneasiness caused by one’s own errors and shortcomings, and not to resolve to correct our mistakes and do better would be rather . . . shameful.
Halloween 2024 -- The Fox Koan and Putting Old Ghosts to Rest
26 Oct 2024
00:36:17
Recorded October 26, 2024.
Roshi Rafe Martin examines the important koan of Pai-chang and the Fox (case 2 of the Gateless Barrier), in light of both Halloween and the ghostly anxieties of our pre-election week.
Referenced:
The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan), Translated and with a Commentary by Robert Aitken
Photo : Hungry Ghost Altar, Endless Path Zendo 10/2024, by Rose Martin
Teisho by Roshi Rafe Jnan Martin, 10/15/2024 Vermont Zen Center
Recorded October 15, 2024.
In this teisho, the final teisho of the October 2024 Jataka Sesshin at the Vermont Zen Center, Roshi Martin tells an ancient jataka (past life tale of the Buddha) that's very much like a sci-fi story! He then examines it from the perspective of Zen practice. In the story, which the Buddha told near the time of his approaching parinirvana (death), shows him attempting to satisfy desire. And how that necessary failure changed him.
The Banyan Deer -- a teisho on non-duality and justice
12 Oct 2024
00:50:19
Recorded on October 12, 2024
This teisho was presented by Roshi Martin on the first day of the recent, Oct. 11-16th 2024, 16th Annual Jataka sesshin at the Vermont Zen Center. In it, Roshi Martin first puts on his hat as an award-winning author and storyteller, giving a dramatic reading of his book, The Banyan Deer: A Parable of Wisdom and Courage (Wisdom Publications, 2010). Then, putting his Zen teacher hat back on, he comments on this ancient Buddhist jataka tale from the perspective of actual ongoing Zen practice-realization! Enjoy!
Image: Cover art for Rafe Martin's "The Banyan Deer" (Wisdom Publications), by Richard Wehrman
Roshi Martin comments on case 41 in The Gateless Barrier — “Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind,” the core of which is as follows:
Bodhidharma sat facing the wall. Huike, the Second Ancestor . . . said, “Your disciple’s mind has no peace as yet. I beg you, master, to please put it to rest.” Bodhidharma said, “Bring me your mind, and I will put it to rest.” The Second Ancestor said, “I have searched for my mind, but I cannot find it.” Bodhidharma said, “Then I have completely put it to rest for you.”
Buddhist practice is not simply a matter of study, of amassing learning, of finding psychological nuance, or of gaining “merit.” At its core where Zen resides is the practice of realization, actually awakening to Mind itself. Bodhidharma’s Zen was and is radical – in the primary sense of aiming for the root.
The Zen brought to life by Bodhidharma, shifted the Buddha’s teaching from the cosmological/philosophical to the practical. It’s aim remains to help us come to the end of suffering and realize Peace. At some point we all recognize the difficulties and challenges of this life, and are anguished by them. This is where we begin. To find Peace all we need do then, as Bodhidharma insisted, is bring forth our troubled mind so it can be pacified. That shouldn’t be too hard should it? What do you think?
Zen History -- D.T. Suzuki and the Transmission of Zen to the West
21 Sep 2024
00:53:13
Recorded September 21, 2024.
Roshi Martin reads from (and comments on) "A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki Remembered" focusing on the important, indeed, seminal role Dr. D.T. Suzuki (NOT Shunryu Suzuki) played in the transmission of Zen to the West. In his reading aloud from the book he focuses on the chapters written by his own teachers -- Philip Kapleau and Robert Aitken -- as well as the chapter by Gary Snyder, all of whom reveal that Suzuki was absolutely central to their own personal turn to the actual practice of Zen. It made for an inspiring morning, putting our own connection with Zen tradition within a larger context.
Roshi Rafe Martin speaks about the deep meaning of the 11-headed, many-armed Bodhisattva of Great Compassion and his/her relevance to our own lives and times right now.
Referenced: "The Record of Lin-chi" Ruth Fuller Sasaki (translation and commentary) "A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas" by Rafe Jnan Martin
Part 9 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
27 Jul 2024
00:48:23
Recorded July 27, 2024.
In this teisho, Roshi Martin concludes his reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and offers his comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 8 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
20 Jul 2024
00:49:00
Recorded July 20, 2024.
In this teisho, Roshi Martin continues reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 7 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
13 Jul 2024
00:48:08
Recorded July 13, 2024.
In this teisho, Roshi Martin continues reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 6 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
29 Jun 2024
01:00:43
Recorded June 29, 2024.
In this sixth teisho, Roshi Martin continues reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 5 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
22 Jun 2024
00:48:01
Recorded June 22, 2024.
In this fifth teisho, Roshi Martin continues reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 4 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
16 Jun 2024
00:46:44
Recorded June 16, 2024.
In this fourth teisho recorded at the June 4-day sesshin (June 12-16, 2024) at Endless Path Zendo, Roshi Martin reads from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Bodhidharma Day and The Oak Tree in the Front Garden
04 Oct 2025
00:38:14
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: Coming h\Home to What Zen is Really About."
Part 3 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
15 Jun 2024
00:54:14
Recorded June 15, 2024.
In this third teisho recorded at the June 4-day sesshin (June 12-16, 2024) at Endless Path Zendo, Roshi Martin reads from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi of Bukkoji.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Part 2 - Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
14 Jun 2024
00:45:16
Recorded June 14 2024.
In this second of the four teishos recorded at Endless Path Zendo's June 2024 four-day sesshin (June 12-16th), Roshi Martin continues to read from and comment on “Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" the stirring autobiography and profoundly inspiring teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi of Bukkoji.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to the Endless Path Zendo's Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
Tangen Roshi and "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha"
13 Jun 2024
00:50:18
Recorded June 13, 2024.
Tangen Harada Roshi, (the monk, Tangen-san, in "The Three Pillars of Zen") was an extraordinary human being and extraordinary Zen teacher, one with particularly close ties to our Kapleau-Roshi lineage. As the preface to the new book of his life and teachings "Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha" says: “He didn’t travel the world to spread the Dharma.; he just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of him spread around the world, bringing thousands of people from all continents to practice there.”
In four teishos recorded at the June 4-day sesshin (June 12-16, 2024) at Endless Path Zendo, Roshi Martin reads from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha" and comments on the stirring autobiography and inspiring teachings of Tangen Roshi.
This is the first of the four teishos offered. It opens up Tangen’s autobiography from his earliest childhood and his mother’s sacrifice of her own life in bringing him into this world, through the announcement of end of the war just as he was about to get into the cockpit and take off on his first — and last — kamikaze flight. And the subsequent dedication of his life to the welfare of all.
The Challenge of Lay Zen Practice and the Essence of Renunciation or "Letting Go."
08 Jun 2024
00:54:16
Recorded June 8, 2024.
The first 18 minutes of this recording are the “teisho proper,” focusing on the essential worth — and challenge — of ongoing lay Zen practice.
If you stop there you’ll have a short and direct teisho. But the rest of the recording adds resonance. Roshi Martin then reads Kipling’s, “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat,” a tale that presents the essence of renunciation, the ancient traditional path of maturing beyond self-centeredness. We modern lay Zen practitioners must do the same, too BUT — and here lies our challenge —we must leave home without literally leaving home. For us, family, work, national and planetary citizenship are central to our path of maturing as whole human beings. Yet the fundamental awareness of what lies at the core are the same. The tale gives us a sense of that core.
In response to this teisho a senior Zen student wrote: ‘. . it is nice to leave the world of sesshin-style exhortation and just settle back into a good story whose connections with the first part are not explicit. The first part of the teisho is so forceful. The second part is like falling under a subtle mesmerizing spell.’