About
Cyndi Lee began teaching yoga in 1978 and was among the first Western female teachers to combine yoga with Tibetan Buddhism. She started teaching meditation in 1992 at the direction of her root guru, Gelek Rimpoche. Lee holds a BFA and MFA in Dance from UC Irvine and was ordained as a Buddhist Chaplain in 2018 under Roshi Joan Halifax at Upaya Zen Center. Her work has been integrated into various New York City institutions including the Police Department, Fire Department, and Department of Education, as well as hospitals, colleges, and corporate settings. She leads an international online meditation sangha and maintains a Substack newsletter with over 13,000 followers.
Teaching focus
Lee 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. Lee'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 Lee, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Lee'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, Lee's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Cyndi Lee 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 Lee has chosen to share there. Cyndi Lee began teaching yoga in 1978 as the first Western female teacher to combine yoga and Tibetan Buddhism. At the behest of her root guru, the great Tibetan master Gelek Rimpoche, she began teaching meditation in 1992. Since then she has taught both practices all over the world. Through her students, her work has been integrated into the New York Police Department, New York Fire Department, and the New York Department of Education, as well as in hospitals, parole offices, college counseling centers and accounting firms throughout the country. Most recently she was invited to be one of 20 presenters to give a dharma talk and meditation as part of the Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit. She currently leads an international online meditation sangha and writes a Substack called Drip, Drip, Drip which has more than 13,000 followers. Cyndi was ordained as a Buddhist Chaplain in 2018, under the guidance of Roshi Joan Halifax. She holds a BFA and MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine. That body of work places Lee 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. Lee'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. Lee contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Lee'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
Lee'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. Lee 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 Lee's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Lee at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Lee'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 Lee is teaching.
