Shohaku Okumura is a Soto Zen priest and Dharma successor of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. He is a graduate of Komazawa University and has practiced in Japan at Antaiji, Zuioji, and the Kyoto Soto Zen Center, and in Massachusetts at the Pioneer Valley Zendo. He is the former director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco. His previously published books of translation include Shobogenzo Zuimonki , Dogen Zen , Zen Teachings of Homeless Kodo , and Opening the Hand of Thought . Okumura is also editor of Dogen Zen and Its Relevance for Our Time and SotoZen . He is the founding teacher of the Sanshin Zen Community, based in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives with his family. Taigen Dan Leighton, Soto Zen priest and successor in the Suzuki Roshi lineage, received Dharma Transmission in 2000 from Reb Anderson Roshi and is Dharma Teacher at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago. After residing for years at San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara monastery, Taigen also practiced for two years in Kyoto, Japan.

Taigen is author of Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry , Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression , and Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra . He has edited and co-translated several Zen texts including: Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of Eihei Koroku , Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi , Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community , and The Wholehearted Way , and has contributed to many other books and journals. Taigen teaches online at Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, from where he has a PhD. He has taught at other universities including Saint Mary's College, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and in Chicago at Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary and Loyola University Chicago. Taigen has long been active in social justice programs, including Peace and Environmental Activism. ".