Be the Best Form of Yourself
Jozen Jonathon Fielder
Jozen Jonathon Fielder offers his teachings and his wisdom tirelessly through several sanghas. Having been ordained as a Hollow Bones Zen priest, he continues to lead a regular practice as part of the Virtual Zendo. As a martial arts teacher and dharma teacher, he is an associate clergy member of Shining Bright Lotus. Recently, he has begun to develop his own dharma center, Iron Mountain Zendo. I caught up with Jozen before he completed his winter Qi Gong class.
Ekai: Welcome, Jozen. Thank you. Nice to see you again. You're back in London. How long has it been you returned to London?
Jozen: I moved back just over two years ago. Before that, I've spent the last 32 years working and living in the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
Ekai: You are originally from the UK?
Jozen: I am from Britain, South London. I was born in Brixton.
Ekai: You are now a Zen priest, ordained by Taiso Roshi, yet you got into Zen long before Hollow Bones. Tell me a little bit about how you found Zen and Buddhism.
Jozen: As a small child before YouTube, the internet and Netflix, I always had a love of the stereotypical martial arts master, the person that could fight. He is also very, very wise. He could punch, kick and at the same time, quote Zen teachings and Confucius. So as a child, I got into karate hoping to find this sort of side of things. I didn't find it in karate, or in taekwondo.
When I was 18, I damaged my back in a deadlifting incident. My doctor suggested physiotherapy and yoga, which I thought was quite strange, because in my mind, yoga was something that old people did. Anyway, I reluctantly found a yoga teacher and absolutely loved it. My yoga teacher taught in the style of T. Krishnamacharya, who taught Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. She taught asanas, meditation, pranayama and philosophy. I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads and the Vedas. That led me to the Buddhist Society of London, which was set up by Christmas Humphries. There I studied at the Zen wing starting when I was 19 through my early 20s.
Ekai: I didn't know that you got here through yoga. Now you're a Zen priest and a martial arts teacher. But that’s wasn’t your initial interest in Buddhism.
Jozen: Yeah, at the Buddhist Society I studied Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Vajrayana Tantra. I started studying Theravada Buddhism with some of the Thai Forest monks down in Epsom, and I joined the Lamrim (Tibetan) folks. I had one foot with the Theravadans, one foot with the Tibetans, and one foot with the Zen folks. It was too much, and it was conflicting. So the other two dropped away, and I stuck with Zen.
Ekai: So you did actually end up sticking with Zen at that particular point in time. Then you were moved to the Middle East. Did you continue studying with the center in London.
Jozen: Well, I did originally. Obviously, I couldn't attend weekly classes. There was no Zoom, there was no internet. I would generally travel back twice a year to the UK to attend sesshins. But of course, life happens. I got married, I had children and then commitments shift. It became less appropriate to go back and spend a week's vacation on sesshin.
Ekai: Did you have a way of practicing when you were living in the Middle East?
Jozen: Not Buddhism or Zen specifically. It was literally unheard of there. So my practice was pretty solitary. I would still sit. Every day.
Ekai: Did you still study?
Jozen: Yes, I used to buy many books on my trips back home through oriental bookshops in London. When Amazon was launched, it opened up a whole new realm for me.
Ekai: Now in the 21st century, all the wisdom traditions are open and available to us. Fast forward, when did you bump into Jun Po Roshi’s teaching?
Jozen: The funny thing was I always wanted to attend courses and training programs. Being in the Middle East, it was very difficult to travel to the United States. When the lockdown happened with COVID, all of a sudden, many of these courses suddenly became available online. I was doing a few of those, and one day I had this epiphany that there could be Zen programs online. In my search, I found Hollow Bones Zen and some YouTube videos of Jun Po Roshi. I thought this was fantastic. So I joined the Virtual Zendo with Engo and absolutely love it.
Ekai: Yeah, I launched those programs at Hollow Bones in 2020, and you were in the first cohort. You then went on to do the clergy training, ordained by Taiso Roshi. I remember you got COVID and couldn't make it to your ordination. So you were ordained online! Now you’re a leader of the morning Virtual Zendo for Hollow Bones. And you still have a foot in Soto practice. Tell us about that.
Jozen: My study of Soto is purely from a beginner’s mind. I work online quite a lot with the Treeleaf Zendo. He’s an American Roshi based out of Japan. It’s a wonderful organization and a wonderful practice. But my heart's very much in Rinzai.
Ekai: I understand, but there's something that you get from Soto that I'm just curious about. Would you describe that?
Jozen: In the West, I've noticed that we like to put things into compartments. There is Rinzai or Soto Zen. People like to ask what style are you? Do you do the koans, or are you a Soto guy with Shikantaza? If you look at the Japanese though, you find that it's a lot more blended. You find Rinzai guys will also have quite a strong Soto practice, and the Soto guys will play a lot with the koans. It’s a lot more blended. Jundo Roshi from Treeleaf tends to be have this mentality as well.
Ekai: Thank you for saying that because that's a very important value of Cosmopolitan Zen. At Shining Bright Lotus, we can make distinctions, but we don't see styles and practices as opposites. We are not exclusive. I keep thinking of Maesumi Roshi, who founded LA Zen Center. He received Inca in three traditions. Still, Rinzai resonates the most for you. What's so appealing about Rinzai?
Jozen: I love the idea of koans. I think when most people think of Zen, they generally associate it with koan practice. We all know the caricatures of the Zen master asking the student, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” It's that kind of enigmatic approach with the koans that has always appealed to me. One of the things I love about Hollow Bones is the Mondo Zen process, which has brought the practice of koans in a way that the Western mind can understand.
Ekai: Yeah, I would say that Jun Po Roshi’s intention was to make it more accessible, and I think that his teachings do that. Now we're working on broadening the emotional koan framework as part of the development of Shining Bright Lotus. Meanwhile, you've moved back to the UK, and that allows you to have more access to your other side; you're a martial arts practitioner and teacher. So tell us a little bit about that.
Jozen: I began practicing the martial arts when I think I was 12 with karate again. We weren't living in London. We were living in a small rosary, small town, in the English countryside just outside of Winchester. So there was very little available. The nearest martial arts school was a judo club, which i didn't really fancy, and a karate school. I had no idea of the different styles of karate. I just assumed karate was a one size fits all. So I began studying WADO RYU, which is the way of peace, which I really enjoyed. I then moved into KYOKUSHINKAI, where I got my first-degree black belt. Moving to the Southern Praying Mantis, I got a second-degree black belt. At the same time, I was practicing something called PENCAK SILAT, which is an Indonesian/Malay martial art. So that's really where my heart lies. So I now practice and teach a couple of different styles of PENCAK SILAT, Muay Thai from Thailand and Kali, what's also known as a Escrima, or Arnis, from the Philippines, which is a weapons-based system.
Ekai: I imagine that one of the reasons that that style appeals is because you resonate with the teacher.
Jozen: Lucky that I've studied with some of the most world renowned teachers in Silat, and certainly in Thai boxing. My Muy Thai boxing teacher, Master Sken, or Grandmaster Sken, was the person who, or one of the people who actually bought Thai boxing, or Muay Thai, into the UK. And again, my one of the three teachers who I studied with in Silat, Guru Richard de Bordes, was the person that really bought Silat to the UK. The majority of my Silat work now is of a chap called Guru Tua Chris Parker. Guru Tua just means “old teacher.” And he teaches a style called Silat Fitrah, which is called a martial art and a life art for everybody. So it's a style that, regardless if you're young or old, if your objective is combat or self-defense, or your objective is more philosophical, it covers everybody. We can adapt the art to fit anyone. So Chris is an incredibly wise person, and I'm honored to be able to study under him.
Ekai: How does just being a good person of the martial art, the Silat, align with Zen principles? Are they coherent or are they different?
Jozen: I would say so, yes. Now, of course, not every person that studies under Guru Chris would be a Buddhist. Some would be agnostic; some would be atheist; some would be Christian, Muslim, Jew. The point is, though, that you can take the principles of Silat, and you can apply it to anything. For me personally, it marries to Zen practice beautifully.
Ekai: Is there an underlying principle or an underlying theme that you could describe or share with us?
Jozen: To put it in its most simplistic way, “be the best form of yourself you can be, and understand yourself.” The word fitrah is an Islamic term. There's no concept of original sin in Islam or in Sufism. Muslims and Sufis believe that a person is born pure. We are perfect, as God wants us to be. Then society, our place in the world, defiles that. The concept of fitrah is to bring yourself back to the version of God who you were created to be. That doesn't automatically transpose to Zen, if you like, certainly with the concept of God, but in terms of understanding yourself, understanding your Buddha nature, this would be the best way of putting it in a Zen perspective.
Ekai: Thank you first for sharing this image. Yeah, Buddhism doesn't have a God, but we are both promoting living a healthy, well-lived life. Buddhism doesn't have the concept of sin, rather, we see bad habits and delusions.
Jozen: Exactly. That's not sin. Ignorance is just sort of the way you emerge. People don't like delusion and ignorance because it sounds very judgmental, but that's not the way the Buddha is really talking about it. We are suffering because our stories are not accurate.
Ekai: Jun Po would say to fire your script writer…. So you're back in the UK and you're beginning to look forward to your own dharma teachings and your own Dharma center. What do you see coming down the pike?
Jozen: I'm looking to minimize my travel that's to the Middle East, so I can be based in the UK. This will allow me to set up and to deepen my own practice and teachings over here. I've been working online at the moment with my own little personal project of the Iron Mountain Zendo.
Ekai: Primarily because you're traveling, you're doing online development at this stage, which gives you flexibility.
Jozen; Yes, I’d like to have something more concrete to work with live people and offer martial arts classes.
Ekai: So you see yourself as being both a Dharma teacher and a martial arts teacher.
Jozen: Exactly. The two are inherently linked. While they can be taught separately, my preference is to combine the two.
Ekai: Makes sense. Now I can really see it really clearly. You're part of the morning Virtual Zendo at Hollow Bones Zen. You're teaching Qigong at Shining Bright Lotus, a martial art that fits with Zen. You're part of the leadership at Shining Bright Lotus. You're running Iron Mountain Zendo, which allows you to offer weekly practice periods from anywhere in the world. All of this while still having periods of travel. So it's hard to get the physical things set up.
Jozen: Exactly, and I teach Martial Arts online as an individual practice.
Ekai: I can see that as you continue this transition with your family and your life, you'll have more space and time to be able to create something that you'll feel really good about. Meanwhile, you’re mentoring and leading the sangha at Shining Bright Lotus, so if folks want to continue to learn from you, there are plenty of opportunities! I thank you for taking the time to share with me.
Jozen: You are welcome!