Misan W.D. Kim, received a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. He is the founding director of the Center for Contemplative Science at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He developed Heart-Smile Training (HST), which he teaches in the United States, Korea, and globally. Misan leads the HST program for the collaborative research project of KAIST-Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as the guiding teacher of the Sangdo Meditation Center in Seoul, an engaged Buddhist community he founded in 2006. 

The central part of the present book examines the origin and development of the Theravāda version of the doctrine of momentariness. Unlike other scholars who consider this doctrine an interpolation into Theravāda textual sources, possibly by Buddhaghosa (5th c. CE), the present study hypothesises and verifies on the basis of textual evidence that the Theravāda doctrine of momentariness was most probably already present in the early Sinhalese commentaries. In attempting to trace the textual history of this doctrine, the parallel textual sources of the early Southern and Northern traditions (1st c. BCE–2nd c CE) are examined before their formalisation in the 5th c. CE.