Letters of Transmission: The Enlightenment Method of Zen Master Alfred Pulyan

You hold in your hand a unique treasure. There are thousands of spiritual teachers, but true Zen masters-those who can transmit, who can midwife a student to awakening-are rare. Some may write books or essays, but their real work is done individually with students in person. Alfred Pulyan (1896-1966) was one of those rare Zen masters who can transmit, but his method of transmission came not through personal contact, but rather through an exchange of letters with his students. He worked primarily by mail and had notable success triggering enlightenment in serious students through the power and rapport of his letters. A fortunate side-effect of his method is that it is written down, and thus potentially available to others-providing one can find any of his letters. Those collected here are from a correspondence with Richard Rose in 1960 and 1961 and provide an invaluable look under the covers as a Zen master goes about his thankless work. Rose was already awake when he heard about Pulya