About
Andreas Roepstorff is a professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, with positions in the Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and the Department of Social Anthropology. He is an anthropologist who studies consciousness, cognition, and communication through neuroscience. His research examines how brain imaging functions as a field of knowledge production and investigates the interaction between technology, practice, and cognition. He leads the Technologies of the Mind project, which draws on anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and cognitive science to study rituals, reading, writing, and physical objects as technologies that shape human thought and behavior.
Teaching focus
Roepstorff appears at Upaya as part of the wider faculty Roshi Joan Halifax has gathered to teach alongside the Soto Zen core. Upaya's programs regularly bring in scholars, clinicians, scientists, poets, and knowledge holders from beyond the Zen sangha to teach in dialogue with the practice. Roepstorff's sessions live inside that container. The work tends to ask how a particular field of expertise meets contemplative practice and what each can learn from the other. Sessions are usually held alongside zazen and the Soto Zen forms that structure the days at Upaya, so students can expect a rhythm of formal sittings, talks or seminars from Roepstorff, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Roepstorff's own field rather than from technical Zen instruction. For students with a steady practice, the value is in seeing how practice meets a specific discipline, and how that discipline reads when held inside the container Upaya provides. For people newer to Zen, Roepstorff's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Andreas Roepstorff, Ph.D. 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 Roepstorff has chosen to share there. Andreas Roepstorff, Ph.D. is Professor, Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and Department of Social Anthropology, Aarhus University / Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. As an anthropologist in neuroscience, Andreas tries to maintain a dual perspective. He studies the workings of the brain, particularly at the levels of consciousness, cognition and communication. He is equally interested in how brain imaging, as a field of knowledge production, relates to other scientific and public fields. He is project manager of Technologies of the Mind. People have a unique capability to change actions, behavior and their ways of organizing. The technologies that surround us influence our perception of the world, but at the same time our ways of organizing ourselves is part of a technology that influences the world we are living in. How are we going to understand the interaction between technology, practice, and cognition? This project is focusing on how human thought activity exploits technology and culture and how it is influenced in return. Usually the brain is seen as a biological and “natural” part of the body, that can be separated from “artificial” inventions like culture and technology. As opposed to this, this project tries to understand technology as a way of using the brain and body, incorporated into practices that people develop naturally to reach different objectives. This project includes resources from the fields of anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and cognitive sciences to investigate e.g. rituals, reading and writing, masquerades, and physical objects. That body of work places Roepstorff 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. Roepstorff'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. Roepstorff contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Roepstorff'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
Roepstorff'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. Roepstorff contributes as part of Upaya's wider faculty rather than as a Zen priest. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Roepstorff's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Roepstorff at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Roepstorff'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 Roepstorff is teaching.