Masaki Matsubara, Ph.D. Masaki Matsubara is a scholar of Japanese religions at the East Asia Program at Cornell University and is also a Japanese Rinzai Zen priest. Following his Zen monastic training, he received his M.A. in Asian Studies and Ph.D. in Asian Religions from Cornell University. His doctoral dissertation focused on Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), a seminal figure occupying a prominent place in the history of Japanese religion. 

Matsubara’s research examines issues regarding identity, memory, and authenticity, specifically how these are culturally, socially, and historically developed in the tradition mechanisms of building, reinvention, and maintenance within contemporary Japanese Zen Buddhism (1868– present). His research focuses primarily on a study of the invention of Buddhist traditions and its effects on the identity creation of Buddhist religious figures, with particular emphasis on various historical, social, and institutional forces and factors in a particular historical context that have determined our received images of the past. 

Matsubara taught Buddhist studies, East Asian languages and cultures, and religious studies at University of California, Berkeley (2009-2013) and was a fellow at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University (2013-14). His courses ranged from modern to contemporary topics, including the particular narrative genres of biography, autography, hagiography, and translation. He also currently serves as an adjunct affiliated chaplain with Cornell United Religious Work at Cornell University. He is the head abbot of Butsumoji Zen Temple in Chiba, Japan, supervising a nearby affiliated International Zen Center in Japan and traveling between the United States and Japan to lead seminars and retreats. Matsubara is the author of “Hakuin Ekaku” in Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2014). He currently resides in New York City.

Minowa was born in Chiba Prefecture (Japan) in 1960. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1983. He has been a professor at the graduate school of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Tokyo since April 2010. His specialty is Japanese Buddhism and history of Buddhist thought. In particular, he is interested in the acceptance of precepts and the development of meditation. He studies how monks actually practiced and researches the development of meditation from India to China and to Japan, while trying not to forget the connection of his research and the present age. He is author of The Religion of Japan (translated by Chun-shu company, 2007); Buddhism Meditation Theories (Chun-shu company, 2008); History of Japanese Buddhism (Shunsha Co., 2015), among others.

Fujita is professor emeritus of Kyoto University and former professor at the Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability and former chair of the Department of the History of Japanese Philosophy at Kyoto University. He received doctoral degrees from Bochum University and Kyoto University, and is author of Philosophie und Religion beim jungen Hegel; Gendai shisō toshite no Nishida Kitarō [Nishida Kitarō as a Modern Thinker]; Nishida Kitarō: Ikiru koto to tetsugaku [Nishida Kitarō: Being Alive and Philosophy]; Nishida Kitarō no shisaku sekai [Nishida Kitarō’s World of Thought]; and Tetsugaku no hinto [Hints of Philosophy]. Fujita edited Tanabe Hajime tetsugaku sen [Selected Works of Tanabe Hajime’s Philosophy] and, with Kosaka Kunitsugu, the new edition of Nishida Kitarō zenshū [Complete Works of Nishida Kitarō]. His other edited volumes include Nihon kindai shisō wo manabu hito no tame ni [For Students of Modern Japanese Thought]; Kyōto gakuha no tetsugaku [The Philosophy of the Kyoto School]; Higashiajia to tetsugaku [East Asia and Philosophy]; Shisō-kan no taiwa: Higashi ajia ni okeru tetsugaku no juyō to tenkai [Dialogue between Ways of Thinking: The Reception and Development of Philosophy in East Asia].

 Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, is a contemplative clinical scientist, mindfulness teacher, author, non-profit and health care leader, and registered nurse. Susan served as President of the Mind & Life Institute from December 2015 to December 2023. She was an NIH-funded researcher and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar who received one of the first NIH R01 grants to study meditation in 2005. An early teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), Susan completed MBSR teacher clinical practicum training in 1999. She has held leadership positions and/or taught at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Emory University, and the University of Virginia (UVA). Prior to joining Mind & Life, Susan was the Kluge Professor in Contemplative End-of-Life Care and director of the Compassionate Care Initiative at UVA, with dual faculty appointments in Nursing and Religious Studies. She was also a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow and served as president of the Society for Integrative Oncology. Susan completed a PhD in psychoneuroimmunology at Rush University in Chicago and post-doctoral training in psycho-oncology and behavioral medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. In 2021, Mindful recognized her as one of “the most powerful women in the mindfulness movement.” She is the author of two books: A Future We Can Love: How to Reverse the Climate Crisis through the Power of Our Hearts and Minds (Shambhala, 2023) and Leaves Falling Gently: Living Fully with Serious Illness through Mindfulness, Compassion, and Connectedness (Shambhala, 2025). Susan is a Mind & Life Fellow and currently serves and consults with values-aligned organizations and guides individuals and groups in purpose-full living and dying (coming-to-life.com).

Jeremy Hunter, PhD, is the great-grandson of a sumo wrestler as well as Associate Professor of Practice at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management. Over a decade ago, he created and still teaches The Executive Mind, a series of challenging and transformative executive education courses dedicated to Drucker’s assertion that “You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first.” Hunter challenges leaders to transform themselves to more effectively face the demands of a complex and turbulent world. He has designed and led leadership development programs for a wide variety of organizations, including Fortune 200 aerospace, Fortune 50 banking and finance, accounting, the arts and civic non-profits. Program impacts have lead to both positive professional, personal and financial outcomes. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. His work is informed by the experience of living day-to-day for 17 years with a potentially terminal illness, and when faced with the need for life-saving surgery, having more than a dozen former students come forward as organ donors. He received his PhD from University of Chicago, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a BA in East Asian Studies from Wittenberg University.