About
John Dunne holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and serves as Chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. He earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1999. His work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice in dialogue with cognitive science and psychology. He has published books including Foundations of Dharmakīrti's Philosophy (2004) and Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics: The Mind (2020). Dunne teaches in academic and public contexts and occasionally for Buddhist communities, including Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. He is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute and serves in an advisory role at the Ranjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu.
Teaching focus
Dunne'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. Dunne 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. Dunne'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
John Dunne, 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 Dunne has chosen to share there. John Dunne (PhD 1999, Harvard University) holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds a co-appointment in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, where he currently serves as department Chair. John Dunne’s work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice, especially in dialog with Cognitive Science and Psychology. His publications, including Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy (2004) and Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics: The Mind (2020), appear in venues ranging across the Humanities and the Sciences; they include works on Buddhist philosophy, contemplative practice, and their interpretation within scientific, philosophical, and cultural contexts. John Dunne speaks in both academic and public contexts, and he occasionally teaches for Buddhist communities, most notably Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. His broader engagements include the Mind and Life Institute, where he is a Fellow and former member of the Board of Directors, Mind and Life Europe, where he is an Association Member, and the Ranjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where he serves in an advisory role. That body of work places Dunne 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. Dunne'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. Dunne contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Dunne'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
Dunne'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. Dunne 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 Dunne's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Dunne at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Dunne'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 Dunne is teaching.
