About
Beth Howard is a yoga teacher, writer, and community activist based in Wyoming. She has practiced in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh since 2002 and was ordained as a lay member of the Order of Interbeing in 2009. She helped establish the Mindful Monday Meditation sangha in Cheyenne. Howard is also a haiku poet; her first collection, Wabi Sabi, was published in 2023. Her haiku have appeared in publications including The Mindfulness Bell and the Haiku Society of America Members Anthology.
Teaching focus
Howard 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. Howard'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 Howard, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Howard'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, Howard's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Beth Howard 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 Howard has chosen to share there. Beth Howard is a writer, artist, yoga teacher and community activist. Since 2017, she has volunteered with Wyoming Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and is currently serving as the State Legislative Lead. She began writing haiku in 2006 and in 2008, she wrote a haiku a day for the year. Her first book of haiku and senryu, Wabi Sabi, was independently published as a limited edition in 2023. In 2002, Beth began practice in the Plum Village tradition of Vietnamese teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh and in 2009 was ordained as a lay member of the Order of Interbeing. She helped to establish the Mindful Monday Meditation sangha in Cheyenne, Wyoming. One of Beth’s haiku poems was recently selected to be published in the 2023 Members Anthology for the Haiku Society of America. Her haiku have also appeared in: Natalie Goldberg’s books, The True Secret of Writing and Three Simple Lines; The Mindfulness Bell; Three Line Poetry; and Haiku Journal. That body of work places Howard 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. Howard'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. Howard contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Howard'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
Howard'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. Howard is recognized at Upaya as a senior teacher in the Soto Zen lineage. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Howard's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Howard at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Howard'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 Howard is teaching.
