Meet the Founder

Martijn Schirp has an academic background in interdisciplinary science and philosophy, and is a longtime Buddhist practitioner and dedicated student in the Vajrayāna tradition. He draws from fifteen years of contemplative practice spanning different schools and lineages of Buddhism, including (Burmese) Theravada, Zen, and Dzogchen.

His role in this program is that of a spiritual companion—a fellow traveler offering contemplative insights, a passion for practice, and facilitating a space for deep inquiry. This is his first time guiding a program of this kind, and he does so with humility and curiosity. He remains in regular consultation with qualified teachers, and his facilitation is grounded in supervised practice development and lived experience on the path.

As the co-founder of Synthesis, he helped shape one of the first legal psychedelic wellness centers in the world and co-developed the Synthesis Psychedelic Practitioner Training. Before Synthesis, Martijn co-founded HighExistence and Apotheosis, curating transformational experiences at the intersection of ecology, spirituality, and culture.

Now with Upāyosis, he aims to create bridges between traditional Buddhist wisdom and contemporary psychedelic practice—a space where meditation training, ethical inquiry, and visionary experiences meet in service of healing and awakening. Through this initiative, Martijn is cultivating a framework for responsible engagement with sacraments as upāya—not as shortcuts, but as compassionate, adaptive relating that can accelerate insight when rooted in ethical clarity, spiritual discernment, and sincere commitment to the path.

Martijn’s principal and beloved teachers on the Buddhist path are listed below who have profoundly shaped his understanding of the nature of mind, perception, ethics, wisdom, and the path of liberation. Their inclusion here is purely biographical and should not be taken as an endorsement of psychedelic use.

Interested in learning more? Please feel free to book a call.

Martijn Schirp
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Primary Teachers

  • An elderly man with white hair, wearing a white shirt, holds his hands in prayer position with eyes closed in a moment of devotion or reflection.

    Lama Alan B. Wallace

    Root Teacher

    Alan B. Wallace, PhD, is a renowned scholar-practitioner who has spent nearly five decades weaving Tibetan Buddhist contemplative training together with cutting-edge cognitive science. Ordained by H.H. the Dalai Lama in 1975, he later earned degrees in physics and religious studies (Amherst; Stanford) and went on to found both the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and the Center for Contemplative Research, hubs for rigorous dialogue between first-person meditation and third-person science. A prolific author of forty-plus books—including The Attention Revolution and Contemplative Science—Wallace has guided thousands in samatha-vipashyanā and Dzogchen retreats worldwide and currently leads the long-term retreat community at Miyo Samten Ling in Colorado.

  • A man with receding hairline and a slight smile holding his hands together in a prayer-like gesture.

    Rob Burbea


    Rob Burbea (1965 – 2020) was a British meditation teacher celebrated for the depth and originality with which he explored emptiness, dependent arising, and the imaginal in what he came to call “Soulmaking Dharma.” A classically trained jazz guitarist who studied at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, he later became resident teacher at Gaia House (2005-2015), where he guided long retreats and co-founded engaged-dharma initiatives such as SanghaSeva and the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement. His seminal book Seeing That Frees (2014) continues to shape contemporary insight practice and forms a cornerstone of the Upāyosis path.

  • A man with glasses and a beard, wearing a light-colored shirt, standing outdoors with trees in the background.

    Lama Justin von Bujdoss

    Lama Justin von Bujdoss (Repa Dorje Ödzer) is an American Karma Kagyu Vajrayana teacher and chaplain ordained as a repa—a lay tantric yogin—by H.E. Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche. He is the author of Modern Tantric Buddhism, co-founded the experimental sangha Bhumisparsha with Lama Rod Owens, directed chaplaincy and staff wellness for the NYC Department of Correction, and now guides dark-retreat practice at the Yangti Yoga Retreat Center he founded in Massachusetts.