Biography: Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki-roshi was one of the most influential Zen teachers of his time. His teachings flow from the Soto lineage of Zen Buddhism, founded by Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) in thirteenth-century Japan. Dogen, one of Zen’s most important teachers and one of the world’s great philosophers, emphasized the absolute primacy of zazen (sitting meditation) and the inseparability of practice and enlightenment. Suzuki-roshi and his students founded the San Francisco Zen Center, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (the first Zen training monastery in the West) and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. Suzuki-roshi died in 1971. His students continue to teach at the Zen Center and in dharma groups around the country. Some of his edited talks have been collected in the books Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and Not Always So.