About
Jiryu Rutschman-Byler is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest and teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, with dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman. He has trained residentially in Zen temples since 1996 and currently serves as Abiding Abbot of Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, a co-abbey of San Francisco Zen Center. Rutschman-Byler is the author of Two Shores of Zen, documenting his monastic practice in Japanese temples from 2002 to 2004, and co-editor of an upcoming collection of Suzuki Roshi's talks. He holds a master's degree in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley with a focus on Soto Zen development during Japan's Meiji Period. He has served as head teacher for the Buddhadharma Sangha at San Quentin State Prison and as mentor to the Montaña de Silencio Sangha in Colombia.
Teaching focus
Rutschman-Byler'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. Rutschman-Byler 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. Rutschman-Byler'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
Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, Sensei 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 Rutschman-Byler has chosen to share there. Jiryu Rutschman-Byler is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest and teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, with dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman. Jiryu has trained residentially in Zen temples since 1996, and currently serves as a co-Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center through his role as Abiding Abbot of Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. Jiryu is the co-editor of a new collection of talks by Suzuki Roshi, Becoming Yourself, forthcoming in July 2025. He is also the author of the book Two Shores of Zen, about his experiences in 2002 to 2004 as an American-trained monk practicing in Japanese Zen monasteries, and his writing has appeared in Buddhist periodicals in print and online. Jiryu is a mentor and preceptor to the Montaña de Silencio Sangha in Medellín, Colombia, and for many years served as the head teacher of the Buddhadharma Sangha of San Quentin State Prison. He holds a master’s degree in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley (2014), where he worked under the mentorship of the Group in Buddhist Studies on Buddhist texts in classical Chinese and modern Japanese, and completed thesis research on the development of Soto Zen in Japan during the Meiji Period (1868-1912). That body of work places Rutschman-Byler 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. Rutschman-Byler'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. Rutschman-Byler contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Rutschman-Byler'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
Rutschman-Byler'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. Rutschman-Byler teaches in the Soto Zen lineage as a priest within that container. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Rutschman-Byler's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Rutschman-Byler at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Rutschman-Byler'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 Rutschman-Byler is teaching.
