Zen Pioneer: The Life and Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki

Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who died in 1967, was a pivotal figure in the emergence and development of Zen Buddhism in the United States. She is the only Westerner — and woman — to be made a priest of a Daitoku-ji temple and was mentor to Burton Watson, Philip Yampolsky, and Gary Snyder, and mother-in-law of Alan Watts. This is the first biography of her remarkable life.

Few devoted their lives to Zen Buddhism as Ruth Fuller did. As a senior student of Sokei — an Sasaki in New York — Ruth helped h…