Recorded March 30, 2024.

Roshi Rafe Jnan Martin shares Case 36 from The Blue Cliff Record "Ch'ang Sha Wandering in the Mountains."

With Ch’ang Sha’s spring time stroll in the hills we discover (and clarify) that ongoing Zen practice means a full life, not isolation. The Buddha got up from under the Bodhi Tree. The point of Zen — if we can speak in such terms — is not to stay forever seated in zazen facing a wall, but to live fully, maturing with family, careers, relationships, interests, ups and downs, sickness and health, activism, citizenship, music and art all as the Way. Ch’ang Sha shows how it goes. Hsueh t’ou, compiler of The Blue Cliff Record, says, “I’m grateful for that answer.” As are we! 

Additional works cited — 

• The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan), Translated and with a Commentary by Robert Aitken - Case 25 Yang-shan's Sermon from the Third Seat
• Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
• William Blake - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell  
• Keizan Jokin, Denkoroku
• The Odyssey, Robert Fitzgerald, trans.
• Basho — in Haiku “Spring” R.H. Blyth

Photo credit: Highland Falls, by Rafe Martin

• Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
• Talks on YouTube
• More information at endlesspathzen.org