About
Walter Whitewater is from the Diné (Navajo) Nation in Pinon, Arizona. He is a chef and culinary advisor, not a meditation teacher. Whitewater began cooking professionally in 1992 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, training under multiple executive chefs including David Tannis, Mu Jing Lau, and Zachary and Alfonso Ramirez. He served as culinary advisor on the cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations and won a James Beard Award in the Americana Category with chef Lois Ellen Frank. He has appeared on Food TV programs and co-owns Red Mesa Cuisine, a Native American catering company. He cooks for private events, weddings, corporate meetings, and Native organization events.
Teaching focus
Whitewater 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. Whitewater'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 Whitewater, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Whitewater'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, Whitewater's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Walter Whitewater 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 Whitewater has chosen to share there. Walter Whitewater was born in Pinon, Arizona and is from the Diné (Navajo) Nation. He grew up in a traditional family and began cooking as a young boy after seeing people cooking at some of the traditional ceremonies his family attended. He began cooking professionally in 1992 in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Cafe Escalera under executive chef, David Tannis. Chef Tannis was taught to cook by the legendary Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. Walter learned about a variety of cooking traditions and techniques under executive chef Mu Jing Lau of Mu Du Noodles, and executive chefs Zachary and later Alfonso Ramirez of Bishops Lodge, in Santa Fe, NM. As Culinary Advisor on the cookbook, Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, Whitewater along with Lois Ellen Frank, Ph.D. won the James Beard Award in the Americana Category. He has appeared on several Food TV shows including, “Southwest Cooking with Bobby Flay” Food TV Network, “Native Foods and Farming: Market to Market” Iowa Public Television IPTV and “The Secret Life of Southwest Foods” Greystone TV, Food TV Network. Chef Lois Frank started a Native American Catering and Food Company named Red Mesa Cuisine. Today Chefs Frank and Whitewater cook for private events, weddings, parties, corporate meetings and gallery openings as well as Native events for Native organizations all over the United States and internationally. Walter continues to be active in all aspects of his career and traditions. That body of work places Whitewater 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. Whitewater'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. Whitewater contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Whitewater'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
Whitewater'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. Whitewater 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 Whitewater's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Whitewater at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Whitewater'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 Whitewater is teaching.