Korean Zen Center
7807 Trammel Road
Annandale, Va. 22003

Head of the Zen Center: Venerable Hye-Yang Sunim

HanMaUm Zen Center was founded in 1972 in Korea by Zen master Dae Haeng Sunim. It now has fourteen branches in Korea and nine branches abroad including one in Annandale, Virginia.

TEACHINGS & PRACTICE

Dae Haeng Sunim's Dharma Talks are always spontaneous and natural. Depending upon worries, problems, and level of practice of the audience, her approach may be different, but she always emphasizes that everyone has inherent ability to practice and overcome all the things that confront them. Sometimes this has been called Buddha-nature, true self, inherent Buddha, the true doer, etc.; but Dae Haeng Sunim uses the term "Ju-in-gon." "Ju-in" means the true owner, the true doer and "gong" mean empty. So, "Ju-in-gong" means the owner, the doer that is empty, that doesn't have any fixed shape and always changes and manifests. We were born with the ability to live as perfectly free beings, but because we don't use our minds wisely, we are usually unable to tap into the tremendous resources within us.

Master Dae Haeng Sunum certainly doesn't discourage anyone from practicing sitting meditation; she says yet it is, by itself, not Zen. If you can do something only at certain times a day but not at other times, then it cannot be Zen. "Do you think that the Earth is only rotating while you sit and stops rotating when you stand up?" True Zen, true cultivation, and true spiritual practice is something that you do 24 hours a day, in your everyday life. Thus, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down are all Zen. It is always entrusting everything to Ju-in-gong, your inherent nature. You entrust every problem, circumstance, reason, and method. And then watch how it works. Your experiences regardless of how small or great, all of this is true Zen.