About
Cynthia Jurs is a dharma teacher in the Order of Interbeing of Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh, having received ordination as a Dharmacharya in 1994. In 2018, she was made an honorary lama in the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism for her work with the Earth Treasure Vase practice. Based in Northern New Mexico at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Jurs teaches meditation, leads retreats and pilgrimages, and is affiliated with Upaya Zen Center. Her teaching focuses on ecology, indigenous wisdom, and engaged practice. She is the author of Summoned by the Earth: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing Our World.
Teaching focus
Jurs'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. Jurs 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. Jurs'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
Cynthia Jurs 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 Jurs has chosen to share there. Cynthia Jurs became a dharma teacher (Dharmacharya) in the Order of Interbeing of Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in 1994 and in 2018, was made an honorary lama in the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in recognition of her dedication in carrying out the Earth Treasure Vase practice. Inspired by thirty years of pilgrimage into diverse communities and ecosystems, today Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia, a path deeply rooted in the feminine, honoring indigenous cultures, and devoted to collective awakening. Cynthia leads meditations, retreats, courses, and pilgrimages to support the emergence of a global community of engaged and embodied sacred activists. She lives at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Northern New Mexico where she is often found walking in the wilderness with her dog or gardening with her husband. Cynthia has just released her new book SUMMONED BY THE EARTH: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing Our World. You can find her offerings and join the global healing community at: www.GaiaMandala.net. That body of work places Jurs 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. Jurs'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. Jurs contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Jurs'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
Jurs'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. Jurs 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 Jurs's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Jurs at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Jurs'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 Jurs is teaching.
