Actualizing Our Gestural Imagination: Telling Stories that Live!

Recorded May 16, 2026. Roshi Rafe Martin reads and comments on Chapter 3 of "A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas."  “Manjushri’s Threes by Threes” — Case # 35 of the Blue Cliff Record —  Manjusri asked Wu Cho, “Where have you just come from?”Wu Cho replied, “The south.”Manjusri said, “ How is sout…

Recorded on July 11, 2026. Asked to write something about the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, Hakuin penned: “Even if the rivers and seas all receded and became dry land,/ Her vow to save all sentient beings still would never cease.” In other words even if the world turns upside down and seas beco…

Recorded 5/30/2026. Wu-men’s commentary to Case 42 of The Gateless Barrier, “Manjusri and the Young Woman in Samadhi” says“The comedy Old Shakya puts on the stage here is a great hodgepodge. Just tell me now; Manjusri is the teacher of the Seven Buddhas – why couldn’t he get the young woman out of …

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 …