During his lifetime of Zen practice, Kyōzan Jōshū Sasaki Rōshi focused on teaching rather than writing books. About Tathagata Zen, a distillation of his teaching, is the only book that was published before he passed away in 2014 at the age of 107. It was presented to him on the 52nd anniversary of his arrival in the United States.

The original text was translated by Michel Mohr, a professor of Religion at the University of Hawaii, and edited by Kendō Hal Roth, a Rinzai Zen monk and a professor in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at Brown University. This bilingual edition presents the Japanese text alongside the English translation, accompanied by detailed notes.