About
Hanne De Jaegher is a philosopher of cognitive science and Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country. She holds a DPhil from the University of Sussex (2007) and was a Wall Scholar at the University of British Columbia (2021-22). De Jaegher develops participatory sense-making theory, drawing on enactive cognitive science, dynamical systems theory, and phenomenology. Her work examines how people think and interact together, with applications across neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, education, therapy, and the arts. She co-authored Linguistic Bodies: The Continuity Between Life and Language (MIT Press, 2018) with Ezequiel Di Paolo and Elena Cuffari. Recent work focuses on engaged epistemology and understanding across differences.
Teaching focus
Jaegher 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. Jaegher'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 Jaegher, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Jaegher'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, Jaegher's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Hanne De Jaegher, PhD 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 Jaegher has chosen to share there. Hanne De Jaegher (DPhil, 2007, University of Sussex) is a philosopher of cognitive science, working to better understand how we think, work, play-basically, live and love-together. She has been developing the theory of intersubjectivity called participatory sense-making. Grounded in enactive cognitive science, dynamical systems theory, and phenomenology, this theory is being applied across academic and practical disciplines, such as neuroscience, psychiatry, architecture, psychology, the social sciences, music, education, various forms of therapy, the arts, and understanding autism. Hanne’s interest is not only in scientifically understanding how we participate in social interactions and how this changes us, but also in helping us become better at understanding each other, especially across differences. Her latest project brings this together in the idea of an engaged-even engag ing -epistemology, which understands knowing as based in the ongoing existential tensions of loving. In 2018, Linguistic Bodies: The Continuity Between Life and Language came out, co-authored with Ezequiel Di Paolo and Elena Cuffari (MIT Press). De Jaegher is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society, and 2021-22 Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, University of British Columbia. That body of work places Jaegher 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. Jaegher'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. Jaegher contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Jaegher'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
Jaegher'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. Jaegher 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 Jaegher's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Jaegher at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Jaegher'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 Jaegher is teaching.