In 1934, under the influence of The Light of Asia, Sir Edwin Arnold's romantic representation of the Buddha, the young English adventurer, John Blofeld, boarded a Japanese trading ship bound for China. Having just graduated the week before from Cambridge University where he had eagerly studied the available literature on “the Orient,” Blofeld was as much prepared for this adventure as he could have been. “Of course,” Blofeld wrote years later, “everything in China differed enormously from what I had imagined.” This difference, however, would never disrupt Blofeld's lifelong commitment to the idea that present within the Buddhist tradition were insights making possible “the Ultimate Transformation” of the human mind. Blofeld had converted to Buddhism during his years at Cambridge, and would, by the end of his life, become one of the most influential twentieth-century transmitters of Buddhism to the west. His first transmission would be The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind (Huang Po Ch'uan Hsin Fa Yao). Taking the name P'u Lotao, Blofeld immersed himself in Chinese culture in order to make himself a fit vehicle for the transmission of Huang Po to the west.

Why Huang Po? This text came highly recommended by the Buddhist monks whom Blofeld had encountered while in China. Huang Po was well known throughout East Asia as one of the most powerful figures of the “golden age of Zen.” Placed at the center of the sacred genealogy of Zen Buddhism, Huang Po was the student of the great Pai-chang Huai-hai, the reputed organizer of the Zen monastic system, and the teacher of the renowned Lin-chi I-hsuan, the founder of Rinzai Zen.