A Zen Life of Buddha

By Rafe Martin

Zen Buddhism begins with the Buddha's enlightenment. While the word, "enlightenment" suggests there is something you get and that once have it you are "enlightened," "intimacy" comes closer to the truth. We gain nothing. Rather, through attention to counting the breath, experiencing the breath, or putting our attention into a koan, we

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Sumeru Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781998248018

Rafe Martin

Rafe Martin is the author of over twenty award-winning books for adults, children, and young adults. He is also a lay Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani koan line and founding teacher of Endless Path Zendo, Rochester, NY. A personal disciple of Roshi Philip Kapleau (Three Pillars of Zen) and the editor of Roshi Kapleau’s final two books, he later trained with Robert Aitken Roshi, completing the Diamond Sangha koan curriculum and receiving inka (authorization to teach) from Danan Henry Roshi, a Kapleau lineage teacher and a Diamond Sangha (Aitken line) Dharma Master. Rafe’s books have been cited in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and USA Today. He is the recipient of the Empire State Award for his body of work as well as multiple ALA Notable Book Awards and Storytelling World Awards. He has spoken at such events and places as the Joseph Campbell Foundation Festival of Myth and Story, The American Museum of Natural History, The Freer Gallery/Smithsonian, the National Storytelling Festival and International Storytelling Institute, the American Library Association Annual Conference, The American Booksellers Annual Conference, many Zen and Dharma Centers around the country, and numerous literary and storytelling festivals. His writings have appeared in Buddhadharma, Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, The Sun, Zen Bow, Inquiring Mind, Parabola, and other journals of note.

Book preview

Drawing on ancient myth, on Zen koans, and stories, as well as on over fifty years of formal Zen practice and more than ten years of Zen teaching, Roshi Rafe Martin reveals the historic/legendary life of the Buddha as our own actual, lived life. Using his skills as an award-winning author and storyteller, he organizes the life of the Buddha into five archetypal chapters: Birth, Leaving Home, Enlightenment, Teaching, and Death, revealing each to be an essential turning point on our own path to greater wisdom and compassion. The result is transformative, helping us to potentially live more consciously, skillfully, and gratefully – whatever comes.

Praise for A Zen Life of Buddha

Should be required reading for all Zen students. Rich in the insight and detail that can only emerge from years of dedicated Zen practice and teaching.

Sunyana Graef Roshi,

Dharma Heir of Roshi Philip Kapleau and Abbot of Vermont Zen Center

I love this book, so deeply important for beginners and experienced practitioners alike! Taigen Henderson Roshi, Abbot of the Toronto Zen Centre

It rescues the Buddha from the prison of unapproachable myth, revealing him to be utterly human, utterly you, utterly me. Short and eminently readable, it is the fruit of Martin Roshi’s half-century deep dive into Zen practice and teaching. Hoag Holmgren, author of No Better Place: A New Zen Primer

Rafe Jnan Martin, founding teacher of Endless Path Zendo, Rochester, New York is a lay Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani koan line. He has spoken at Zen and Dharma Centers throughout the US and in Canada. His writings have appeared in such noted journals as Buddhadharma, Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, The Sun, Parabola, Zen Bow, and Enquiring Mind. He is also an award-winning author and storyteller whose work has been cited in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and USA Today and is a recipient of the Empire State Award for the body of his work.

The Sumeru Press Inc.

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A Zen Life of Buddha

Rafe Martin

Published by

The Sumeru Press Inc.

PO Box 75, Manotick Main Post Office,

Manotick, ON, Canada K4M 1A2

Copyright © 2022 by Rafe Martin

Cover painting: Moon Among the Clouds by Rafe Martin

ISBN 978-1-896559-89-6

ISBN 978-1-998248-01-8 (e book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: A Zen life of Buddha / Rafe Martin.

Names: Martin, Rafe, 1946- author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana 20220415935 | ISBN 9781896559896 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Gautama Buddha. | LCSH: Zen Buddhism.

Classification: LCC BQ882 .M37 2022 | DDC 294.3/927092—dc23

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Contents

Introduction

Birth

Leaving Home

Enlightenment

Teaching

Death

About the Author

Bibliography

I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; O, there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in ’t.

– Shakespeare, First Gaoler, Cymbeline

Where man is not, nature is barren.

– William Blake

If you just know that flame is fire,

You’ll find your rice has long been cooked.

– Wu-men, Gateless Barrier, Case 7

Introduction

Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of the classic Three Pillars of Zen whose disciples my wife Rose and I became, used to say, Zen is rather simple. To practice it you need only one article of belief, i.e., that the Buddha was not a fool or a liar when upon his great enlightenment he spontaneously exclaimed, ‘Wonder of wonders! All beings are Buddha, fully endowed with wisdom and virtue.’

The essence of Zen Buddhism begins here, with the ex-prince Siddhartha Gautama’s historic realization or enlightenment. Enlightenment suggests there is something you get and that once you’ve gotten it, you are enlightened, but the word intimacy may come closer to the truth. We gain nothing. We don’t get enlightened. Rather, through attention to counting the breath, experiencing the breath, or putting our attention into a koan, we become of less interest to ourselves and, in this losing is finding. The world steps in — trees, mountains, bugs, rivers, people — and we rediscover our original, undiminished intimacy with all things. No longer strangers to this earth, to others, or to ourselves, such intimacy has healing power.

Around two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha revealed a path of fulfillment that unfolds where and as we are. This is the essence of the Buddha Way, of a Zen life of Buddha. To begin to walk this path, nothing more is needed than sincerity and a fundamental desire to see more clearly into who we ourselves are.

With this little book I’ve aimed at clarifying the central role of the Buddha’s life in Zen practice, a path of practice that is becoming more Western each day. It is this foundation that makes Zen a spiritual path. The Buddha’s life is where mythos, ethics, and practice unite.

This seems simple enough. However, Zen tradition itself adds an interesting complexity.

Contemporary lay Zen teacher, Yamada Koun Roshi of Sanbo Zen, (heir to Yasutani Roshi who, with his teacher, Harada Sogaku Roshi, established the Harada-Yasutani koan line, so central to contemporary Western koan practice), wrote, in an