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
Roshi Philip Kapleau Memorial
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Recorded May 2, 2026.
Twenty-two years ago on March 6th , (it has gone by in the blink of an eye) 2004 my old Zen teacher, Roshi Philip Kapleau ,passed from this life to the next. I had just flown back home to Rochester from where I'd been speaking at a literary conference in Reno, Nevada and was picked up at the airport by an old Dharma friend who told me that Roshi had just died. We drove to where he was still seated in his wheelchair beneath a tree in the backyard of the Zen Center, surrounded by old Zen friends, where we all said our goodbyes. We had so much to be grateful to him for.
At Endless Path Zendo we hold a memorial half-day zazenkai each year in Roshi Kapleau's honor. This teisho includes remembrances of Roshi Kapleau by both Rose and myself, plus a reading of the memorial piece on his life that “Buddhadharma” asked me to write shortly after his passing. Additionally, I shared an unusual anecdote from one of the times that when Rose and I were his guests in Florida once he’d retired from active teaching. If you want to know his story give a listen. It’s an interesting tale — Roshi Philip Kapleau had been the chief court reporter for both the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes trials — which eventually led him directly to Zen and to a central -- and essential — role in the transmission of actual Zen practice to the West.
- Roshi Rafe Martin
Photo of Roshi Kapleau by Casey Frank
- Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
- Talks on YouTube
- More information at endlesspathzen.org