Philip Kapleau was, until his death in 2004, one of the West’s most authoritative teachers of Zen. He underwent thirteen years of training in Japan before establishing the Rochester Zen Centre in upstate New York. He wrote many influential books on Zen practice, including The Three Pillars of Zen and Zen: Dawn in the West. His article "The Private Encounter with the Master" appears in Light From The East: Modern Western Encounters with Eastern Traditions .