About
Al Kaszniak is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona with a Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology. He directed the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation Laboratory and served as Chief Academic Officer for the Mind and Life Institute. Kaszniak has taught in the departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer's disease, consciousness, emotion, and the psychophysiology of meditation. He has published over 165 journal articles and co-authored or edited seven books, including volumes on consciousness studies. He is affiliated with Upaya Zen Center.
Teaching focus
Kaszniak's teaching at Upaya sits inside the center's Soto Zen container. The basic form is zazen, just sitting, with the posture and breath held lightly and the mind allowed to settle without force. Around that core, Upaya's programs build out a wider arc that includes the Bodhisattva precepts, oryoki meal practice, walking meditation (kinhin), dharma talks, and the GRACE framework Roshi Joan developed for clinicians working at the bedside. Kaszniak teaches inside that framework, which means the work isn't just on the cushion. Students are asked to bring practice into the spaces where it actually gets tested: at the bedside, in conversation, in moments of grief or political reactivity, in the long, slow work of climate and justice. Upaya's approach is recognizable for its refusal to keep zazen and the world in separate boxes. The cushion and the clinic, the cushion and the kitchen, the cushion and the protest line are all treated as the same field of practice, not different ones. Kaszniak's contribution stays in that key. Teaching sessions emphasize uprightness, attention, and the Bodhisattva vow as something lived in specific situations rather than recited as an idea. There's room for silence. There's also room for hard conversations about what practice asks of a person in a world under pressure.
Background
Al Kaszniak, PhD, Sensei appears in Upaya Zen Center's teacher and faculty roster as part of the wider contemplative community Roshi Joan Halifax has gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over the past four decades. The biographical material on file is drawn directly from Upaya's own teacher page and reflects what Kaszniak has chosen to share there. Al Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is presently Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Faculty Advisory Board Member of the Center for Compassion Studies, and Pedagogy Fellow at the University of Arizona (UA). He formerly served as Director of the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation Laboratory, Faculty and Advisory Board member of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, and a professor in the departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Psychiatry at The UA. He also formerly served as Head of the Psychology Department, as Director of the UA Center for Consciousness Studies, as Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Education Core, and as Chair of the Steering Committees for the biennial International Symposium for Contemplative Studies (April, 2012, Denver, CO; October, 2014, Boston, MA). He has also served as Chief Academic Officer and interim CEO for the Mind and Life Institute, an organization dedicated to facilitating contemplative science and studies. He is the co-author or editor of seven books, including the three-volume Toward a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press), and Emotions, Qualia, and Consciousness (World Scientific). His research, published in over 165 journal articles and scholarly book chapters, has been supported by grants from the U.S. National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Science Foundation, as well as several private foundations and institutes. His work has focused on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related neurological disorders, cognition and emotion in healthy aging, consciousness, memory self-monitoring, emotion, the psychophysiology of long-term and short-term meditation, and contemplative pedagogy. He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, has been an advisor to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs and other governmental agencies, and has served on the Boards of Directors of several voluntary health organizations, professional organizations, and institutes. He is a former President of the Section on Clinical Geropsychology, Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA), and was a fellow of the APA and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). In addition to his academic and research administrative roles, he received dharma transmission as a teacher (Sensei) of Zen Buddhism, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Upaya Zen Center and Institute, Santa Fe, NM. That body of work places Kaszniak inside a center known for blending Soto Zen practice with contemplative care for the dying, climate work, neuroscience dialogues, and a long-running program for clinicians and chaplains called GRACE. Upaya's roster mixes resident priests with visiting scholars, doctors, scientists, poets, and indigenous knowledge holders, and the programs reflect that blend. Kaszniak's appearances at Upaya situate this work inside that wider conversation between zazen and the world it sits inside. For practitioners who arrive at Upaya through a sesshin or a Being with Dying training, the common thread is a posture of upright, alert presence under whatever conditions show up. The forms are recognizably Soto Zen: zazen, kinhin, oryoki, the Bodhisattva precepts, dharma talks, and dokusan with senior teachers. The framing is wider than any single discipline, which is part of what has made Upaya a meeting ground for working clinicians, scientists, artists, and long-time Buddhist practitioners. Kaszniak contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Kaszniak's career outside Upaya can follow the linked website and external publications listed on the Upaya page itself, which is where any deeper biographical detail belongs.
Lineage
Kaszniak's teaching home for the work documented here is Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, founded by Roshi Joan Halifax in the 1980s and rooted in the Soto Zen lineage. Upaya's broader faculty includes resident priests, visiting senior teachers, scientists, clinicians, poets, and indigenous knowledge holders. Kaszniak teaches in the Soto Zen lineage as a priest within that container. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Kaszniak's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Kaszniak at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Kaszniak's own area of focus. Days follow Upaya's rhythm of sittings, walking meditation, meals, talks, and time for questions. Silence is taken seriously, but so are the conversations that come out of it. The framing is wide enough for people from outside Buddhist practice to take part fully. Long-time Zen students will recognize the forms; newcomers will be supported through them. Expect to leave with a clearer sense of how practice meets the specific subject Kaszniak is teaching.
