About
Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Theravada Buddhist monk ordained in Sri Lanka in 1972 and 1973 under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School. From 1984 to 2002 he served as editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, Sri Lanka. He is known for translations of major Pali Canon texts including the Majjhima Nikaya, Samyutta Nikaya, and Anguttara Nikaya. In 2008 he founded Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit addressing hunger relief and education in impoverished regions. He currently teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York.
Teaching focus
Ven. Bhikkhu 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. Ven. Bhikkhu'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 Ven. Bhikkhu, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Ven. Bhikkhu'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, Ven. Bhikkhu's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi 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 Ven. Bhikkhu has chosen to share there. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk, born in 1944 in Brooklyn, New York. He obtained a BA in philosophy from Brooklyn College and a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School before traveling to Sri Lanka to pursue his interest in Buddhism. He received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973, both under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya (1896-1998), the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk of the time. From 1984 to 2002 he was the editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, Sri Lanka. He returned to the U.S. in 2002, and currently lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as author, translator, or editor, including The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha ( Majjhima Nikāya, 1995), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha ( Saṃyutta Nikaya, 2000), and The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha ( Aṅguttara Nikāya, 2012). In 2008, together with several of his students, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi founded Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit supporting hunger relief, sustainable agriculture, and education in countries suffering from chronic poverty and malnutrition. That body of work places Ven. Bhikkhu 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. Ven. Bhikkhu'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. Ven. Bhikkhu contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Ven. Bhikkhu'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
Ven. Bhikkhu'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. Ven. Bhikkhu is recognized at Upaya as a senior teacher in the Soto Zen lineage. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Ven. Bhikkhu's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Ven. Bhikkhu at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Ven. Bhikkhu'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 Ven. Bhikkhu is teaching.
