Upayadhi began her journey in the Buddhadharma in 2004 at the London Buddhist Center in Bethnal Green. Over the years she has trained in a range of Buddhist contexts and traditions, but remains firmly rooted in the Triratna Buddhist Order, to which she was ordained in 2018.
Professionally, her background is in leadership development, executive education and coaching. Following the wake-up call of the 2016 elections, Upayadhi entered Union Theological Seminary in New York, where, as a seminarian, she studied Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement. Now a doctoral student in Religious Studies at the University of Chicago, her scholarship has focused on the 20th-century Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and his radical Buddhist imagination, which she places in conversation with Womanist and Black liberation theologies.
Upayadhi co-founded Awareness is Revolutionary, a collective of Buddhists committing to cultivating Beloved Community and accelerating racial literacy within a Dharmic framework. With Jon Aaron, she co-founded Space2Meditate, which offers online meditation sessions six days a week; initially launched in response to the pandemic, it is still going strong.
Upayadhi also teaches in secular contexts as a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher, and has practiced as an interfaith chaplain in healthcare settings.
