Finding Your Buddha Smile - Part 3: The World Honored One Ascends the Teaching Seat

Recorded January 17, 2026.In this teisho Roshi Martin reads and comments on Chapter 2 of his latest book, “Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home (To What Zen is Really All About).”The legendary-mythic jataka tales, reveal the Buddha’s past life efforts, challenges, triumphs, and mistakes. Let’s look at him now as the fully “Awakened One,” the finished product of that many lifetime effort, and see how he taught others to realize the Ancient Way of fulfillment he himself had fully found.To do this we'll take a look at koan case 92 of the "Blue Cliff Record" in which the Buddha’s cosmic Realization, born of the rarified air of India, is transformed by the Zen Eye of China into ­something direct and down-to-earth. In this koan, the Buddha is the consummate storyteller, who with the aid of Manjusri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, opens the Way with the storyteller's most trusted device -- "show, don't tell!"Photo of Smiling Buddha, Lung-men Caves, China, by Rafe Martin 2006Read Roshi Rafe Martin's latest book:  Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home To What Zen is Really All About.  Available from Amazon , Sumeru Books, and Barnes & Noble Online.Books by Roshi Rafe MartinTalks on YouTubeMore information at endlesspathzen.org