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 (foreword) is a Dharma teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, leads the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago, and teaches online at the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union. He's the author of Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression and Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry and is the editor and cotranslator of Dogen's Extensive Record.