About
Korin Charlie Pokorny is a Zen priest ordained by Reb Anderson in 1999 and received dharma transmission in 2018. He practiced as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm for 12 years beginning in 1994 and studied koans with Daniel Terragno from 2008 to 2018. Pokorny served as head priest at Stone Creek Zen Center from 2014 to 2022 alongside his partner Sarah Dojin Emerson. He currently teaches at Brooklyn Zen Center, the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, and Union Theological Seminary.
Teaching focus
Pokorny'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. Pokorny 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. Pokorny'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
Korin Charlie Pokorny, 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 Pokorny has chosen to share there. Korin Charlie Pokorny Sensei was ordained as a priest by Reb Anderson in 1999 and received dharma transmission in 2018. He practiced as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm for 12 years (1994 - 2006) and studied koans with Daniel Terragno from 2008 - 2018. Charlie and his partner, Sarah Dojin Emerson, after serving as head priests at Stone Creek Zen Center from 2014 to 2022, moved to Brooklyn and are now teaching at the Brooklyn Zen Center. He also teaches at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley and Union Theological Seminary. That body of work places Pokorny 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. Pokorny'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. Pokorny contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Pokorny'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
Pokorny'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. Pokorny 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 Pokorny's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Pokorny at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Pokorny'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 Pokorny is teaching.
