About
Keido Troy Fernandez is a Zen practitioner affiliated with Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he studies under Roshi Joan Halifax. He received Jukai in 2007 and was ordained as a novice priest in 2015. Fernandez has a background in psychotherapy, with training from the University of Chicago and clinical experience in mental health settings. He also holds a degree in Spanish Literature from the University of New Mexico and has worked in cultural heritage administration and historic preservation. He has served on Upaya's Board of Directors since 2007 and participated in the center's resident program.
Teaching focus
Fernandez'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. Fernandez 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. Fernandez'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
Keido Troy Fernandez 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 Fernandez has chosen to share there. Troy Fernandez is a 13th generation, native New Mexican whose deep appreciation of his cultural heritage led him to pursue a degree in Spanish Literature from the University of New Mexico. In the years following, he has served in a variety of institutions dedicated to the promotion and preservation of New Mexico’s cultural heritage. As Interim and Deputy Director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Troy worked with multi-national groups of Hispanics to promote art, music, dance, history and language from across the Spanish speaking word. As Deputy Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, Troy was instrumental in helping steward the State’s 8 museums, 8 monuments, Archeology, Art in Public Places, Historic Preservation divisions, and State Library system. Troy also served for many years on the Cornerstones Foundation Board of Directors whose mission is to promote and preserve historic buildings and sites using traditional building methods. In addition to Troy’s cultural interests, he is a University of Chicago trained psychotherapist who has worked in various clinical and administrative capacities to champion those challenged with mental health needs. Among these Troy has served as Deputy Director with the New Mexico Health Policy Commission, Senior Advisor to the New Mexico Department of Health, and in several clinical settings including private practice. Troy is also an avid student of Zen Buddhism with a 20-year affiliation with Upaya Zen Center and the teachings of Roshi Joan Halifax. He received Jukai in 2007 and ordained as a novice priest in 2015. Recently Troy participated in Upaya’s resident program and has served on its Board of Directors since 2007. That body of work places Fernandez 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. Fernandez'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. Fernandez contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Fernandez'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
Fernandez'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. Fernandez 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 Fernandez's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Fernandez at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Fernandez'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 Fernandez is teaching.
