About
Bhante Sanathavihari (Ricardo Ortega) is a Theravada Buddhist monk ordained in the Amarapura Nikaya lineage. He received novice ordination at age 30, following nine years in the US Army and three deployments to Afghanistan. He completed higher ordination in 2015 at the Maharagama Bhikkhu Training Center in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He founded and leads Casa de Bhavana, a Theravada organization focused on meditation practice and Dharma instruction. He currently resides at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Teaching focus
Bhante Sanathavihari 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. Bhante Sanathavihari'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 Bhante Sanathavihari, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Bhante Sanathavihari'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, Bhante Sanathavihari's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Bhante Sanathavihari 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 Bhante Sanathavihari has chosen to share there. Bhante Sanathavihari Bhikkhu, whose birth name is Ricardo Ortega, is 38 years old. He was born in Los Angeles and received a Catholic education. He has a BA in religion from the American Military University and spent nine years in the US Army. After three deployments to Afghanistan, he was ordained as a novice in the Theravada tradition, at the age of 30, in the lineage of the Amarapura Nikaya monastic fraternity. In 2015, he received higher ordination at the Sarathchandra Buddhist Center of the Maharagama Bhikkhu Training Center (Maharagama Dharmayathanaya) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Today, Bhante Sanathavihari is the leader of Casa de Bhavana, a Theravada organization devoted to spreading the Dharma and promoting the practice of meditation. He is now living as a resident at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That body of work places Bhante Sanathavihari 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. Bhante Sanathavihari'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. Bhante Sanathavihari contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Bhante Sanathavihari'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
Bhante Sanathavihari'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. Bhante Sanathavihari 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 Bhante Sanathavihari's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Bhante Sanathavihari at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Bhante Sanathavihari'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 Bhante Sanathavihari is teaching.
