Sŭngsan Hăngwŏn Daejongsa-nim
78th Patriarch, Chogye Order
(1927 - 2004)

Zen Master Sŭngsan (Daejongsa-nim) was in the first wave of Korean Zen Masters to teach in the West. Contrary to popular belief, (that of the the Kwan Um School of Zen), he was not the first Korean Master to live and teach in the west. The first Korean Zen teacher to live and teach in the West was Samu Sonsa who established his first western Zen Center in 1969, which was three years before Zen Master Sungsan arrived in America. It is important to be consistent with actual truth in Zen, we post this in an effort to be mindful for the truth eventhough Sungsan was our original Grand Teacher. We also appologize to the students of Samu Sonsa-nim for this misunderstanding which is continually perpertrated by our dharma brothers and sisters in the Kwan Um School of Zen.

Zen Master Sŭngsan was born in Korea in 1927 during the Japanese occupation, which he resisted during his youth. After World War II, disillusioned with politics and academic studies as a way to attain truth, he went to the mountains with the goal of finding his true self. At that time he did an arduous 100-day chanting retreat, during which he attained enlightenment. Afterwards his attainment was recognized by several Korean Masters, and he received Dharma transmission from Zen Master Kobong, the most famous Zen Master of his time. Kobong Sunim told him, "Your Dharma mission is the whole world." In subsequent years Daejongsa-nim worked to reorganize Korean Buddhism,then he left Korea for Japan, where he spent several years, founding temples and teaching Zen.

     Daejongsa-nim came to the United States in 1972 with the idea of seeing whether it was possible to teach Zen to Westerners. He had little money and no English. After spending a short time with the Korean community in Los Angeles, he went to Providence, Rhode Island where he took a job in a laundromat, carrying laundry and repairing the machines. He met a professor of Buddhism from Brown University who introduced Daejongsa-nim to some of his students. They would come by Daejongsa-nim's small, slum apartment, Daejongsa-nim would cook for them, teach them meditation, and answer their questions about Zen practice and life. With his new students' help, Daejongsa-nim subsequently founded the Providence Zen Center, a large, residential Zen Center which has become the head temple to The Kwan Um School of Zen and more than three dozen Zen Centers around the world, including Dharma Zen Center in Los Angeles.

     Daejongsa-nim had given Dharma Transmission to several of his Western students and inka to some fourteen others. Daejongsa-nim authored a number of books, notably the Zen classic, "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha" (Grove Press) and, recently, a collection of Zen, Christian and Taoist kong-ans, "The Whole World Is a Single Flower "(Tuttle) and "The Compass of Zen" (Shambhala). Daejongsa-nim had alwasys encouraged people of all faiths to realize their true nature together. For many years he has lead Zen retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani and taught at several Ecumenical gatherings.