About
James Fushin Bristol is a Zen priest and teacher at Upaya Zen Center. He began zazen practice in 1993 and was ordained by Roshi Joan Halifax in 2018. He received Dharma Transmission in January 2025. Bristol holds a Masters in Social Work, a Masters of Divinity from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and practices as a family lawyer, representing children in custody cases and adults in divorce proceedings. He serves on the board of directors of the Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order.
Teaching focus
Bristol'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. Bristol 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. Bristol'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
James Fushin Bristol, 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 Bristol has chosen to share there. Sensei James Fushin Bristol began sitting zazen in 1993, and met Roshi Joan at Upaya in 1998. He later traveled to Nepal with Roshi, and was ordained a priest by her in the winter of 2018. In 2022 he received Hoshi, followed by Dharma Transmission during the Winter Practice Period in January of 2025. Fushin has a Masters in Social Work and a Masters of Divinity degree from The University of Chicago and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order. When he is not sitting at Upaya, he practices in the zendo of the world as a family lawyer. He uses his Zen Buddhist practice, along with being a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, to represent the interests of children in custody cases and people going through divorce. That body of work places Bristol 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. Bristol'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. Bristol contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Bristol'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
Bristol'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. Bristol 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 Bristol's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Bristol at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms paired with teaching in Bristol'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 Bristol is teaching.
