Shunryu Suzuki

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and one of the principal seeds of Sōtō Zen in the West. His Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, established in 1967, was the first Zen training monastery established outside of Asia. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970), compiled from his talks, has become one of the most widely-read Buddhist books of the twentieth century. He died of cancer in December 1971, fourteen months after the book's publication.