Chodo Campbell, is a co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and is part of the core faculty for the Buddhist Track in the Master in Pastoral Care and Counseling at Zen Center’s education partner, New York Theological Seminary. His passion lies in bereavement counseling and advocating for change in the way our healthcare institutions work with the dying.

Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen priest. He also teaches mindfulness in secular contexts including police training and addiction recovery groups, and works with multifaith groups focused on intersectional liberation and climate justice. Ben serves the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and travels to teach across the United States. He is also the author for Wisdom Publications of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, and the forthcoming Vasubandhu's "Three Natures." He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer > is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest. For many years he has taught at the San Francisco Zen Center, the oldest and largest of the new Buddhist organizations in the West, where he served as Co-abbot from 1995-2000. He is presently a Senior Dharma Teacher there as well as the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, an organization dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture.

Dai En Friedman's teachers include Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen, Joseph Goldstein, Matt Flickstein, and Maureen Stuart Roshi. Dai-en received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Peter Muryo Mattheissen as a Soto Zen Teacher. She is now a Sensei at Ocean Zendo, located on Eastern Long Island.

Issho Fujita is currently based at the Chizanso Retreat in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan where he conducts research and offers instruction in zazen. He is the second head director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco. He wrote “Modern Lectures on Zazen: The Path to Shikantaza” and is the co-author of “Buddhism 3.0: An Update.” He has also translated numerous works into Japanese including Stephen Batchelor’s “Buddhism Without Beliefs,” David Brazier’s “The Feeling Buddha,” and Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Zen Keys.”

Setsuan Konjin Gaelyn Godwin is the Abbot of the Houston Zen Center and serves as the Director of the International Division of Soto Zen, North America (a department of Soto Zen Headquarters based in Japan). She received ordination as a Zen Priest in 1991, from Tenshin Reb Anderson, Senior Dharma Teacher at San Francisco Zen Center. She received Dharma Transmission, also from Tenshin Reb Anderson, in 2003, and was appointed Kaikyoshi (formal recognition from Japan) in 2005. Her Zen lineage is Soto Zen, through Dōgen Zenji, and through Suzuki Shunryu Daiosho, founder of San Francisco Zen Center.

Ryushin Paul Haller has lived and practiced at San Francisco Zen Center since the 1970s and held many positions at Tassajara and City Center. He received Dharma Transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman and has been teaching for over 30 years. He served as Abiding Abbot at City Center from 2003 to 2012, and is currently the Urban Temple Dharma Teacher at City Center. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he teaches throughout the US and Europe and has led mindfulness programs to assist with depression and recovery.

Diane Musho Hamilton is a Zen teacher, author, professional mediator, and facilitator. Diane began her studies at Naropa University in 1983 with Choygam Trungpa Rinpoche, and became a Zen student of Genpo Dennis Merzel Roshi in 1997. In 2003, she received ordination as a Zen monk and received dharma transmission in 2006. Diane facilitates Big Mind Big Heart, a process developed by Genpo Roshi to help elicit the insights of Zen in Western audiences. She has worked with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute since 2004. She is the first Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary and the Executive Director of Two Arrows Zen, a center for Zen study and practice, established in 2008 with her husband Michael Mugaku Zimmerman. Her most recent book, coauthored with Gabriel Wilson and Kimberly Loh, is Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart, (Shambhala Publications, 2020.)

Genyu Kojima Born in 1984, in Chokokuji Temple in Gifu, Japan. Genyu Kojima is now the 20th Abbot of Chokokuji Temple, where he offers memorial ceremonies and Zen practice and dharma talks. He graduated from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, with a BA in International Relations. After graduation, he worked as a steel trader at Metal One Corporation in Tokyo and Singapore for 6 years. At the age of 30, he went to one of Soto Zen’s Head Temples, Daihonzan Eiheiji, in Fukui prefecture, practicing Zen for 18 months. After his training at Eiheiji, Genyu-san, relocated to Bukkokusan Zuioji Temple, in Ehime prefecture, for 18 months of training and practice. In February, 2016, he returned to his home temple where he is now currently serving as a Chief Priest/Abbot of the temple since March, 2020.

Koshin Paley Ellison co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Zen-based organization to offer fully accredited ACPE clinical chaplaincy training in America. Koshin is the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care (Wisdom Publications, 2016); author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up; and author of Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion (Balance/Hachette, 2022).

Jose Shinzan Palma was born in Veracruz, Mexico. He is a Zen priest and Dharma Successor of Roshi Joan Halifax. He has been practicing Zen since 1996. Shinzan co-teaches a teenagers retreat for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, and weekends retreats in several parts of the country. Currently, he lives in San Diego and teaches at the Carlsbad Zen Community and Sweetwater Zen Center.

Ilia Shinko Perez, Roshi, MA received transmission in the Zen White Plum lineage from Gerry Shishin Wick, Roshi in 2000 and in 2015 she received empowerment as a Roshi (Inka) from Roshi Egyoku Nakao, Abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. She is the co-spiritual leader of the Great Mountain Zen Center and Abbess of Maitreya Abbey in Berthoud, Colorado. She completed formal Zen studies while simultaneously raising two children and running her family import business. Roshi Shinko has an M.A. Degree in Archeology from Universidad Autonoma, Madrid and has taught in the Caribbean, the US and Spain. She is author of The Zen Priestess and the Snake and co-author of The Great Heart Way. Currently she is leading retreats on Zen of the Sacred Feminine as a means to help with the eco-crisis.

Diane Eshin Rizzetto is a Dharma heir to Charlotte Joko Beck and a founding member of the Ordinary Mind Zen School. She has taught widely in Europe and the US and is Abbess Emeritus of the Bay Zen Center in Oakland, CA. Her books include: Waking Up to What you Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion and Deep Hope: Zen Guidance for Staying Steadfast when the World Seems Hopeless.

Ryoki Sato is a Soto Zen Togenji 28th chief priest / founder of the Millennium Art Forest Project. Born in 1972, Sato Ryoki trained at Eiheiji and Hokyoji temples. He became a priest of a Zen temple founded 550 years ago in Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture, where he was born and raised. As a Buddhist priest, he works with hospice volunteers on mental health while developing communities and projects with his temple as hubs. In 2011, he encountered a tsunami during the Great East Japan Earthquake and nearly died on the roof of a truck. Since then, led by the question, "What is really to live?", he practices and studies Buddhism, while lecturing and engaging dialogue on his experience in Japan and abroad.

Gyokei Yokoyama completed his training at Eiheiji, one of the head temples of Sōtō Zen, in 2000 before graduating from Sophia University in Tokyo, where he majored in intercultural communication and was involved in the interfaith community. He was a vice bishop of Iwoji temple from 2006 to 2011 and a bishop from 2011 to 2013. Currently, he is assigned to work for the Long Beach Buddhist Church and Montebello Sozenji Buddhist Temple as a minister and the Sōtō Zen North America Office as the secretary.