Korean Buddhism Abroad: A Critical Examination of Overseas Propagation Strategies of Jogye Order’s Hanmaum Seon Center

Abstract

In the decades following the Korean War (1950–1953), support from Korea’s Jogye Order, the largest of Korea’s Buddhist sects, was instrumental for establishing Korean Buddhism overseas. However, in recent decades, Korean Buddhism has been facing a growing domestic crisis and the number of the Jogye Order’s annual monastic recruits has been declining steadily. This domestic membership crisis has affected Korean Buddhism abroad, as the order has lost over half its foreign temples over the last decade. Nevertheless, despite these downward trends, the nine international branches of the Hanmaum Seon Center, founded by the Jogye Order’s Seon Master Daehaeng, have remained strong. Given the successful example of the Hanmaum Seon Center’s international branches, the Jogye Order’s future efforts abroad might find success by focusing on lay-oriented modes of practice, while balancing their involvement both with local Korean émigré communities and with outreach to local non-Koreans.

1. Introduction

As with Jesus’s “Great Commission” in the Bible, in early Buddhist texts, the Buddha likewise instructs his disciples to spread his teachings, the Dharma, throughout the land. In this “declaration of propagation” within Pali Vinaya’s Mahāvagga, the Buddha declares “Walk, monks, on tour for the blessing of the manyfolk, for the happiness of the manyfolk out of compassion for the world, for the welfare, the blessing, the happiness of devas and men” (Horner 1982, p. 28). Over the millennia following the Buddha’s Parinirvana, Buddhism would proliferate throughout Central and East Asia, becoming rooted in lands as distant as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mongolia and Japan. Through this process, Buddhism adapted to an array of linguistic, political and cultural contexts, leading to a wide diversity of praxis among traditional Buddhist communities, thus demonstrating the religion’s high degree of portability between cultures.

In the modern era, Buddhism’s portability has aided the religion’s growth in Western and traditionally Christian nations with the successful implementation of practices from a variety of traditionally Buddhist cultures through both immigration and conversion. This has led to a “very broad sectarian, ethnic, and cultural diversity” within Western Buddhism. Yet, numerous scholars have noted a general, and occasionally contentious, divide between “heritage Buddhists” of Asian ethnicity and converts of non-Asian ancestry (Comments 2001). Practiced both by expatriate Koreans and non-Asian converts, Korean Buddhism is well-represented within this diverse milieu of Western Buddhism. Over the last century and half, waves of the Korean diaspora (K. jaeoegukmin) have led to the establishment of sizable ethnically Korean communities in a variety of nations. According to the South Korean government, as of 2019, there were 7.4 million ethnic Koreans residing in over 30 separate countries as distant as Germany, Uzbekistan, and Argentina. However, the vast majority of these “overseas Koreans” (K. hangukgye gyomin), are concentrated in the United States, China and Japan. Through this diaspora, Korean Buddhists successfully transplanted their religion to nations lacking native Buddhist traditions. As of 2009, the Jogye Order’s Handbook of Korean Temples Abroad listed over 142 affiliated temples outside Korea, including 72 in the US, 10 in China, 9 in Canada, 7 in Japan, 7 in Europe, 6 in South America, and 4 each in Australia and New Zealand.

In the decades following the Korean War (1950–1953), institutional support from Korea’s Jogye Order (K. Daehanbulgyo Jogyejong, hereafter “JO” or “the order”) was instrumental to establishing Korean Buddhism overseas. As the largest of Korea’s Buddhist orders, the JO maintains over 3000 temples staffed by 12,000 ordained monastics who are organized in a hierarchy by the order’s central administration in Seoul. Formed as a “monastic monk-oriented order” (Yoon 2012, p. 36), the JO claims to represent the historical mainstream of the Korean Buddhist tradition and, while the literature on the order emphasizes the monastic practice of Ganhwa Seon meditation, in reality, the order functions as an umbrella organization encompassing a diversity of monastic lineages and traditional practices. While the order relies on its approximately seven million lay members within South Korea for financial support, it continues to define laity as subservient to the needs and concerns of the order’s monastic community, even though they insist officially that there is equality between laity and monastics (see Kim et al. 2019 for further discussion).

As discussed in a previous paper (Kim et al. 2019), however, Korean Buddhism has been facing a growing domestic crisis since the turn of the millennium. The number of the Jogye Order’s annual monastic recruits has been declining steadily, from 510 postulants in 1993 to 151 in 2017 and only 131 in 2020. Furthermore, according to South Korea’s 2015 census, only 15.5% of the nation described themselves as Buddhist, compared with 22.8% a decade earlier (Kim et al. 2019). This trend is further reflected in the order’s overseas temples, only 84 of which were listed in the 2020 edition of the Handbook of Korean Temples Abroad, a reduction of 57% in temples over the previous decade (Hyunbulnews 2021; Jogye Order 2020). This suggests that this crisis impacted the practice of Korean Buddhism abroad.

Despite these downward trends, however, the nine international branches of the JO’s Hanmaum Seonwon, or Hanmaum Seon Center (hereafter “HSC”), founded by Korean Seon Master Daehaeng, have remained strong. As a continuation of the authors’ previous research on Master Daehaeng’s legacy (Kim and Park 2021), this article will examine the establishment of the HSC’s various international branches in light of the current membership crisis facing the JO. It will then analyze the factors behind the center’s continued success abroad and the implications for the Jogye Order’s current international propagation efforts. First, however, we will briefly review the modern history of Korean Buddhism’s international spread.

2. Background: The International Growth of Korean Buddhism

2.1. The International Growth of Korean Buddhism in the 20th Century

During the latter decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th, the first waves of the Korean diaspora emigrated to territories controlled by China and Japan. While little is recorded about Buddhist practices among these émigrés, both China and Japan maintained well-established Buddhist communities, whose temples would have served Korean Buddhist expatriates. After the Koran War, with the United States’ passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the abolishment of immigration quotas, the United States became a third major destination for South Korean émigrés. According to South Korean government statistics, over two and a half million ethnic Koreans currently reside in the United States.1 While the Jogye Order’s 47 currently active foreign temples were established by communities of these immigrants, there have also been numerous efforts by JO-affiliated monastics to win over non-Korean converts in America and elsewhere.

The first Korean monastic to propagate Buddhism among non-Koreans in the West was Venerable Kyungbo Seo (1914–1996). When attending the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Thailand in 1958, Seo became interested in the international promotion of Korean Buddhism. In 1966, Seo enrolled on a three-year-long doctoral program at Philadelphia’s Temple University and began teaching simplified Korean seon practices to American disciples, many of whom had previous experience with Japanese styles of Zen. Seo and his students established the World Zen Center in Virginia in 1970 and, although Seo repatriated to South Korea the same year, he would regularly return to America to visit his students in the summers. By 1975, the World Zen Center, now renamed the World Society for Zen Academy, had opened five branches around the country. However, by the end of the decade Seo’s involvement with his American disciples began to wane and the Zen Academy’s activities were consolidated under the Zen Meditation Center of Washington, administered by Seo’s Korean disciple, Venerable Shin Gosun. In the 1980s, Seo’s focus shifted to writing and, in 1988, Seo established his own Buddhist order in Korea, formally splitting with the Jogye Order (Kim 2001, pp. 235–41).

Seo’s pioneering efforts in propagating Korean Buddhism abroad in the 1960s and 1970s succeeded in recruiting a number of serious American students. However, critics have questioned the degree to which Seo was able to adequately mentor his American disciples given his imperfect English and his limited time spent in the country. Furthermore, the withdrawal of Seo’s direct involvement in the World Society for Zen Academy at the end of 1970s clearly contributed to the organization’s decline. Nevertheless, Seo did produce four American Dharma heirs, who continue to lead Korean-influenced Zen centers around the U.S, including the American Zen College in Pennsylvania and the Huntsville Zen Center in Alabama (Maseong 2017).

As a more traditional-style Korean Zen master, the international propagation efforts of Master Kusan (1909–1983) differed to those of Dr. Seo, yet were equally pioneering. Appointed as seon master of Korea’s famed Songgwangsa Temple in 1970, Master Kusan first traveled to the U.S. in 1972 to commemorate the opening of a Korean-style temple in California and returned home with his first American disciple. In 1974, Kusan established the International Meditation Zen Center at Songgwangsa, the first of its kind in Korea, to accommodate the increasing number of foreigners wishing to study Korean seon. With the assistance of his foreign disciples, in 1976, Kusan published the English-language book Nine Mountains: Dharma Lectures of the Korean Meditation Master Kusan, which would be reprinted four times before his death in 1983. In 1979, Kusan traveled abroad for a second time to commemorate the opening of Songgwangsa’s first foreign branch in Los Angeles, and a third time in 1982 to teach and open additional branch temples in California and Europe (Kim 2001, pp. 241–46).

Despite Kusan’s efforts to open international branch temples, all but one closed following his demise. However, Kusan’s notable innovation was establishing a training center for foreign disciples within a traditional Korean monastery, an act which Korean Buddhist scholar and teacher Ven. Samu (Sam-Woo Kim) describes as “revolutionary and unprecedented” given the conservativism and xenophobia then prevalent within the Korean monastic community (Kim 2001, p. 246). During Kusan’s eleven-year leadership of the center, he ordained and directly trained 46 Western monastics. Although almost all left Songgwangsa following Kusan’s passing, and few remained as practicing monastics, Kusan’s former disciples include Robert E. Buswell Jr., Stephen Batchelor, Henrik H. Sorensen, and Martine Batchelor, scholars and teachers who have written extensively about their experiences as Korean monastics. Such former students of Kusan have thus been instrumental in introducing Korean Buddhism to the Western world. (Kwon 2004; Batchelor 2014, pp. 37–50).

Arguably, the most impactful individual to promote Korean Buddhism abroad was Zen Master Seungsahn Haengwon (1927–2004), the Jogye Order’s first official international missionary and founder of Kwan Um School of Zen (K. Gwaneumseon Jonghoe). Appointed the abbot of Seoul’s Hwagyesa temple in 1957, Master Seungsahn began working abroad in the 1960s with the support of the Jogye Order, successfully establishing a Korean Buddhist hongbeopwon, or “Dharma propagation center”, in Hong Kong in 1966 and in Japan in 1969. In 1972, Seungsahn emigrated to the United States, opening the Providence Zen Center for his American students by the end of the year. This was followed by his opening of the Cambridge Zen Center in 1974, and the New Haven Zen Center in 1975, near Yale University. By 1977, Seungsahn had established eight Zen centers in the US, published his first English-language book, “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha”, and had successfully led several extended seon meditation retreats. Ven. Samu describes Seungsahn’s success as a “dharma blitzkrieg” as Seungsahn “stormed into New Age America” (Kim 2001, p. 248). In 1978, Seungsahn made his first trip to Europe. His visit to Poland, in particular, was a “great success” laying the foundation for the eventual establishment of four Zen centers and ten affiliate branches throughout the country.

Seungsahn’s teachings and praxis remained authentic to traditional Korean seon with several key exceptions. Seungsahn intuited that his Western disciples had little interest in lifelong vows of monastic celibacy, and thus created the position of “Bodhisattva monks” who focused on public ministry, could marry, and wore traditional Korean monastic robes but without shaving their heads. He also regarded both his male and female students equally and promoted many women to positions of authority. Seungsahn eventually established a five-tier system of hierarchy whose structure significantly differed from that found within traditional Korean temples. As such changes could be viewed as an affront to the Jogye Order’s monastic, male-dominated hierarchy, in 1983, Seungsahn chose to formally separate his international Zen centers from the JO, and established the Kwan Um School of Zen (hereafter KUZC) as an umbrella organization for his students’ activities. While the KUZC maintained a cooperative relationship with the Jogye Order, it remains an administratively and financially separate organization. This independence allowed the KUZC the flexibility to adapt to Western cultural contexts, while still being able to draw on educational and cultural resources within Korea’s traditional monastic establishment.

Upon Master Seungsahn’s death in 2004, he left behind eight Dharma heirs whom he had granted “transmission” (K. inga), and had approved well over one hundred Dharma teachers. With roughly 50,000 members, the KUZC remains one of the largest international Zen Buddhist organizations and currently operates 99 centers in 21 countries. The KUZC’s temples in Korea include the International Zen Center at Musangsa Temple, which provides 90-day-long gyolche meditation retreats each summer and winter, and the International Zen Center at Seoul’s Hwagyesa Temples, which provides weekly meditation sessions and short-term retreats. These two centers maintain a link between the KUZC and the Korean Buddhist establishment and further enable foreign KUZC practitioners to undergo full monastic ordination and training within a traditional Korean monastic setting (Fields 1992, pp. 348–89; Kim 2001, p. 248; Lee 2014).

2.2. International Propagation in the 21st Century

During the latter half of the 20th century, the propagation of Korean Buddhism abroad was driven by both Korean Buddhist émigrés, who established temples servicing local Korean immigrant communities, and by “celebrity monks”, who actively sought non-Korean converts. The success of these immigrant communities and celebrity monks, in particular that of Master Seung Sahn’s KUZC, largely permitted the Jogye Order to outsource its international propagation efforts. However, since the turn of the millennium, the Jogye Order has taken a more direct interest in international propagation and expanded its institutional efforts to internationally promote Korean Buddhism, largely targeting Korean expatriate communities abroad.

In 2007, the order created its Overseas Special Parish (K. Haewei Teukbyeol Gyogu, here after the “OSP” or “the parish”) and, in 2009, formally established the “globalization of Korean Buddhism” as a central goal of the order. In 2010, the JO ratified the “Overseas Special Parish Act” (K. Haewei Teukbyeol Gyogu Beop) (Bulkwang 2010). Through this revision, the Jogye Order attempted to promote overseas propagation and to oversee the finances and administration of international temples. The act further simplified the registration process of overseas temples with the JO administration (SegyeIlhwa 2017). Implemented in 2011, the Overseas Special Parish Act intended to revitalize and systematize overseas propagation as well as provide an institutional foundation for establishing, supporting and managing overseas temples. In practice, however, the OSP functioned simply as a bureaucratic umbrella for registering overseas temples to whom the parish administration provided little meaningful support, financially or otherwise. The Overseas Special Parish Act was eventually deemed unsuccessful due to insufficient communication with Korean Buddhists abroad and the failure of many Korean temples to formally register with the parish. Thus, in 2017 the act was amended in hopes of better support for overseas temples and Dharma propagation efforts, as well as simplifying the foreign temple registration and oversight process (Amendment 2017).

All matters pertaining to Jogye Order temples and personnel are to be conducted in accordance with the Overseas Parish Special Act. Furthermore, according to the Enforcement Decree of the Overseas Parish Special Act (Enforcement Decree 2018), the OSP is tasked with supporting and managing overseas propagation activities (Article 2, Paragraph 1), establishing overseas temples, along with dispatching and managing overseas monastics (Article 2, Paragraph 4). Such monastics must be fully ordained in the Jogye Order and undergo a selection process to determine whether they are suitable for overseas propagation work (Article 11). Furthermore, such monastics have the obligation and right to receive additional training and education from the order and are obligated to comply with Jogye Order regulations (Article 12).

The Overseas Parish Special Act and its subsequent amendments implemented a vertical management system previously established within the JO’s domestic parishes reflecting the hierarchical organization valued within the order’s monastic culture. Through this system, all overseas Korean temples registered with the Jogye Order are ultimately accountable to the order’s offices of the OSP in Korea and are monitored by the Jogye Order, to whom they must report all details related to their activities and finances. Furthermore, major decisions concerning personnel and finances within the parish’s overseas temples must be approved by the order’s central administration. By centralizing the management of its overseas temples, the JO hopes to establish stronger accountability and supervision of JO personnel along with practical consistency and education among affiliated temples (Woo 2019, pp. 61–63).

In June 2021, the JO further established an OSP Secretariat (K. Haewei Teukbyeol Gyogu Samuguk) charged with managing overseas temples and monastics living abroad, as well as receiving and processing complaints arising from the parish’s overseas temples (Song 2021a). Appointed in August 2021, the current Head of the Overseas Special Parish (K. Haewei Teukbyeol Gyogu Jang), Ven. Jeongwoo, has since toured parish temples in the eastern United States in an effort to revitalize the connection between the order and its monastics working abroad. Through this, the JO plans to more actively carry out overseas propagation efforts as one of the order’s major projects over the coming years. Nevertheless, such efforts faced budgetary constraints and limited manpower (Song 2021b). As of writing, the OSP has an annual budget of approximately USD 100,000 and only one full-time employee. Thus, despite recent changes in the OSP, affiliated temples continue to operate with little practical support or direct involvement from parish administration, a situation which Venerable Jeongbeom, Assistant Head of the OSP, acknowledged as a problem in an interview with the authors. Ven. Jeongbeom further commented that the propagation and outreach activities conducted by the parish’s temples remain neither coordinated nor standardized, but vary according to the interests and abilities of the leadership of each individual temple.2

3. The Overseas Outreach of Seon Master Daeheang’s Hanmaum Seon Center

Buddhist studies scholar and former monk Robert Buswell has described Seon Master Daehaeng (1927–2012, hereafter “Daehaeng”) as “one of the most renowned and respected figures” in modern Korean Buddhism and “one of the most influential nuns” in the whole of Korean history (Buswell, p. IX). Growing up in extreme hardship, Daehaeng wandered South Korea’s mountains as a solitary ascetic for a decade before beginning her half-century-long public ministry, first as a healer, then as a teacher, and finally as a leader of one of the country’s largest Buddhist institutions. Founded in 1972 as South Korea’s first post-war Pogyodang or urban Buddhist center for the laity, Daehaeng’s Hanmaum Seonwon (HSC) would grow over the next 4 decades to over 150,000 members with 15 branches around Korea and 9 abroad. Along with the aforementioned efforts led by Masters Seo, Kusan, and Seung Sahn, the HSC’s successful international growth offered lessons for the JO’s future efforts toward international propagation.

3.1. HSC’s Propagation Strategies

As discussed in detail in a previous article (Kim and Park 2021), the HSC owes its unprecedented success in Korea not only to Daehaeng’s charismatic personality, but also to her innovations in teaching, organizing and leading a growing number of primarily lay disciples. By redefining the traditional role of Korea’s lay Buddhists and working to address their concerns and needs, Daehaeng implemented numerous innovations in Dharma propagation, successfully reaching a diverse spectrum of Korean society and launching wide-reaching trends within the Korean Buddhist community. Through her use of Korean vernacular and her emphasis on learning from one’s own direct experiences in daily life, Daehaeng became the first post-war Korean Buddhist master to popularize traditional seon teachings and practices among the laity with a teaching style Robert Buswell describes as “disarmingly simple yet remarkably profound” (Buswell 2007, p. X). In the 1970s, the HSC also began translating key Mahayana texts, such as the Heart Sutra (K. Banya Simgyeong), from Classical Chinese (K. hanja) into Korean vernacular for use in the center’s Dharma services (Yi 2019, p. 233), introducing such important texts to lay audiences. Beginning in the late 1970s, the HSC became one of the first Korean temples to conduct chanting in Korean vernacular (see Chong Go 2016 for further discussion). Echoing the success met by turn-of-the-century Protestant missionaries in translating the Christian Bible into hangeul, Daehaeng joined other pioneering translators in recognizing the desire among modern lay Buddhists to be able to read for themselves the texts central to the Korean Buddhist tradition (Kim and Park 2021).

As one of the country’s oldest and largest urban “mega temples” the HSC also differed from Korea’s traditionally monastic-oriented Buddhist temples in its core mission of providing Buddhist education and services to the laity (Cho 2006, pp. 241–73). Daehaeng additionally expanded HSC’s outreach to focus on groups largely excluded from lay activities at traditional temples, establishing Dharma associations for fathers, students, children, academics and professional women. Under Daehaeng’s leadership the HSC further pioneered the use of various forms of mass media for a greater outreach, including books, TV broadcasts, YouTube videos and other online media. Described by Hyangsoon Yi as “a fresh, new direction for the reclusive ‘mountain’ monasticism that has long dominated Korean Buddhism” (Yi 2019, p. 231), Daehaeng provided her lay disciples with clear and accessible teachings, simple meditation practices, and supportive social organizations.

Furthermore, Daehaeng insisted that the opening of a new branch temples be initiated and supported by local disciples, much like the so-called “Nevius Plan” successfully deployed by Presbyterian missionaries in Korea a century earlier.3 The HSC began opening domestic branches in other cities, such as Busan and Gwangju, in the late 1980s and, as of 2017, maintains 15 branches in South Korea with a membership of approximately 150,000. This growth has yet to be paralleled by any other modern Buddhist organization in Korea, and Korean Buddhist studies scholar Pori Park describes the HSC as a “pioneer in urban (Buddhist) propagation” which sets “an example in creating a new urban Buddhist practice” (Park 2017, pp. 427–28). Daehaeng’s innovations with the HSC inspired the opening of other urban Pogyodang, which differed from traditional Buddhist temples, not only in their appearance, but also in their mission of providing Buddhist education, services, and cultural events to the laity (Cho 2006, pp. 241–73).4

The HSC initiated its international propagation efforts in the late 1980s and has since established the largest overseas network of any JO-affiliated temples. The lay-centered teachings, practices, and organizational structures pioneered by Daehaeng domestically prove to be more portable and adaptable to new cultural contexts than the monastic-oriented practices found in traditional Korean temples and monasteries. The center’s overseas growth began through a close cooperation between the HSC headquarters in Korea and its overseas members. The HSC supports its international propagation efforts primarily through three institutions. The HSC’s Hanmaum International Cultural Institute primarily publishes and distributes translations of Daehaeng’s teachings into foreign languages abroad, while the HSC’s Hanmaum Science Institute works to engage the international academic community and has sponsored forums, conferences and exchanges. In addition to funding the activities of these aforementioned organizations, the HSC’s Hanmaum Seonwon Foundation is primarily responsible for disseminating Daehaeng’s teachings abroad and works in close connection with the HSC’s foreign branches, particularly in regard to guidelines and administration (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 198–200). This cooperation has continued even after Daehaeng’s passing and, unlike many other overseas temples affiliated with the Jogye Order’s OSP, the HSC’s foreign branches continue to receive support from its central headquarters in Anyang (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 6–7).

In the 1980s, the publication of Daehaeng’s books in Korean drew interest among Korean expatriate Buddhists, many of whom formed discussion groups with like-minded émigrés who become the HSC’s first overseas disciples. As with the HSC’s domestic branches, over the following years, networks of Daehaeng’s expatriate Korean disciples formally established branches in their host communities in coordination with the HSC’s central administration in Korea. As detailed by Venerable Hyeyou, a scholar and disciple of Daehaeng, the activities of the HSC’s foreign branches are modeled after those of the center’s domestic branches. While the exact times may vary, all of the HSC’s foreign branches conduct morning, midday and evening chanting ceremonies daily, as traditionally conducted in Korean temples. Furthermore, all foreign branches celebrate the same eight key Korean Buddhist holidays as the HSC’s domestic branches, though flexibility of dates is granted depending on the local workweek and calendar (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 194–95). Dharma services are typically held on Sundays and include the rebroadcast of Dharma talks given by Daehaeng followed by a discussion led by one of Daehaeng’s monastic disciples and a period of group meditation. As with its domestic branches, the center’s foreign branches also sponsor associations with various demographic groups, including adults, students and children. Each of the HSC’s foreign branches are led by a direct monastic disciple of Daehaeng who typically lives on site (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 201–35).

The HSC’s foreign branches have the added responsibility of promoting Korean culture abroad, typically by celebrating traditional Korean holidays or providing Korean language education to second- or third-generation Korean émigrés. Furthermore, the center’s foreign branches are also tasked with promoting Buddhism among their local communities through various forms of outreach and are granted flexibility in adapting their activities to their local contexts. The forms of outreach have also varied depending on the language abilities of the leadership at each branch, but they typically involve translating Daehaeng’s books and talks into local languages, providing bilingual services, sponsoring Buddhist cultural events, engaging in academic and inter-religious dialogues, providing Buddhist education and volunteering in local communities. Such outreach has proven successful as the HSC’s total overseas membership is comprised almost equally of ethnic Koreans and non-Koreans (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 16–18).

3.2. HSC’s International Branches

3.2.1. HSC’s North American Branches

According to South Korean government figures, as of 2019, almost three million ethnic Koreans now reside in North America.5 Despite the widespread proliferation of Korean churches in the United States and Canada, Korean émigrés to these nations have limited access to Buddhist temples, Korean or otherwise. Thus, the publications of Daehaeng’s teachings in the 1980s generated considerable interest among the Korean Buddhist émigrés in North America, many of whom formed home-based study groups around HSC materials. One such group in California’s Bay Area worked with the HSC to open the HSC’s first official international branch center in 1987 in a home outside San Jose. According to Ven. Hyeyou, Korean Buddhists came from all over America to attend Master Daehaeng’s lectures during her visit to the newly opened center, inspiring the formation of additional study groups and branch centers. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, HSC branches were opened in Alaska, Ohio, Colorado, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C., and Toronto. By the mid 1990s, however, the HSC’s San Jose, Alaska, Ohio and Colorado centers had closed due to various reasons, including financial or legal difficulties, the lack of trained monastic staff, and inadequate cooperation with the HSC headquarters in Korea. The five remaining North American branches, however, overcame initial difficulties to become firmly established within their local communities (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 213–16).6

In 1989, at the invitation of New York City’s Korean Buddhist community, Daehaeng gave her first “Great Dharma Teaching” abroad at the Korean American Association of Greater New York. With over 500 attendees, Daehaeng’s visit was an overwhelming success, and she returned to teach five more times over the subsequent decade. Daehaeng’s initial visit also served as the catalyst for the founding of the HSC’s New York branch. The HSC’s New York center formally opened in 1989 in a private home purchased through donations whose first floor had been converted into a Dharma Hall. Intended by Master Daehaeng to be a “pillar of fire” for her teachings in America (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 213–16), the center’s grounds were expanded in 1993 and again in 1996 and 1999, through the purchase of two adjacent properties. In 2004, construction began on a traditionally Korean-style Dharma Hall, which was officially consecrated in 2015, and is decorated with traditional-style paintings of scenes from the life of the Buddha, the lives of eminent Korean monks, and the life of Master Daehaeng.

Lead by Venerable Hyebong, five of Daehaeng’s monastic disciples reside full-time onsite; the largest number of monastic staff at any of the HSC’s international branches. In addition to the center’s Sunday Dharma services and holiday celebrations, the center hosts a variety of monthly gatherings for men, women, children, students. In 1996, the center additionally opened Korean language school on Sundays for second- and third-generation Korean Americans, which continues to teach about 20 regular students. The New York Center, itself, has established additional branch centers in private homes in Connecticut and Long Island, where the center’s monastics deliver weekly Dharma talks. In 1995, the center also established a Buddhist women’s choir, which has performed locally and in Korea. While the New York center’s activities primarily focused on the area’s Korean Buddhist community, Ven. Hyebong provides weekly Dharma talks and meditation lessons for non-Koreans in a local Taekwondo gym. The center also donated over 70 English-language copies of Daehaeng’s books to university libraries in New York State (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 8–9, 20–21; 2019, pp. 218–20; Jogye Order 2020, p. 55; https://nyk.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022).

The HSC’s Chicago branch opened in 1991 in a rented apartment, again at the bequest of Daehaeng’s local disciples, with Daehaeng personally attending the center’s opening on 1 March to deliver the center’s first Dharma talk. In 1993, the center moved to an office building purchased by lay donations in the suburb of Skokie north of Chicago, which it outfitted as a Dharma Hall. In 2011, the center purchased an additional property in the suburb of Metawa further north for the construction of a Dharma center in a more rural setting for hosting extensive meditation retreats (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 213–16). While the Chicago center originally hosted Dharma talks several times a week, over time, attendance dwindled and the midweek meetings were discontinued. Currently, the center operates Dharma services every Sunday, which alternate between the center’s Skokie and Metawa locations and are regularly attended by between 20 to 30 participants. The center provides additionally meetings for children and students, while Ven. Hyeji also works to provide cultural programs for the second-generation Koreans in the community as well as programs introducing Buddhism to non-Koreans in the area. Notably, in 2015, the center’s Metawa location began operating temple-stay programs and has regularly hosted 100-day meditation retreats (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 19–20; 2019, pp. 213–16; Jogye Order 2020, p. 43; https://chi.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022).

In the late 1980s, Daehaeng visited Los Angeles at the bequest of local disciples, resulting in the formal opening of the HSC’s LA branch in 1990. Originally hosted in a private residence, the center moved to a large and more permanent location in 2001, which was again renovated and expanded in 2013. Currently lead by three of Daehaeng’s monastic disciples who live onsite, the LA branch offers regular Dharma services every Sunday and religious activities for various age groups (Jogye Order 2020, p. 22; https://la.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022). Opened in 1993, in 1996, the HSC’s Canadian branch moved to its current location in Toronto’s Korea Town. The center is led by Ven. Cheonggak, who leads daily Buddhist yebul ceremonies and the center’s Dharma services every Sunday. The center also hosts a youth group offering meditation and Korean language lessons. (Choi 2014, p. 55; Jogye Order 2020, p. 10; https://tor.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022). The HSC’s Washington DC center opened in 1994 and hosted Master Daehaeng when she delivered a Dharma talk four years later. Operating from a private residence, the center provides regular Dharma services on Sundays along with special meditation sessions on Thursday evenings. As with other HSC branches in the US, the center provides meetings for children and students along with Korean language education for second-generation Korean Americans. Prior to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the center also operated a temple-stay program (Jogye Order 2020, p. 61; https://wah.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022).

3.2.2. HSC’s Thai Branch

Historically a Buddhist-majority nation, 94% of Thais practice Theravada Buddhism, the nation’s official state religion. While informal exchanges between Korean and Thai Buddhists took place in the 1960s, no Mahayana Buddhist temples existed in Thailand prior to the 1990s, by which time approximately 20,000 Korean were living in the country. Since 1986, Bangkok resident Nam Hyejung has been a practicing lay disciple of Master Daehaeng’s and introduced Daehaeng’s teachings to other Korean émigrés who together formed a home discussion group. During a visit by Daehaeng’s monastic disciple, Ven. Hyewon, the group petitioned the HSC to open a center in Bangkok. The request was granted, and in 1994, the HSC opened the first Korean Buddhist temple in Thailand (Hyeyou 2019, p. 232).

As with all of the HSC’s branches, the Bangkok center conducts three daily chanting services and celebrates the same traditional Korean Buddhist holidays, with two differences. The Bangkok center celebrates Buddha’s Birthday on the Thai Vesak holiday, and celebrates the Thai New Year festival of Songkran. The center holds Dharma services every Sunday at 10 am concurrently with meetings for children, while weekly women’s group meetings are held on Wednesday mornings and men’s group meetings on Wednesday evenings. Given the lack of Korean temples in Southeast Asia, Korean Buddhists living in the neighboring country of Laos regularly attend the center’s Sunday services while the center’s head monastic, Ven. Hyedan, travels to Cambodia every two months to meet with Korean Buddhists there. While the center does not generally translate its weekly services into Thai, in 2009, the center began hosting an English-language Dharma group lead by an American disciple of Daehaeng’s named Marcus Powells. Attended by Europeans and English-speaking Thais, the group disbanded in 2012 when Powells left Thailand for work reasons (Hyeyou 2019, p. 233).

Similar to the HSC’s North American branch centers, the activities of the HSC’s focus largely on Korean Buddhist émigrés. While the Bangkok branch remains engaged in disseminating Daehaeng’s teachings in Thailand, primarily through translating Daehaeng’s writings into Thai, the center largely works to promote Korean Buddhism and traditional Korean culture. Since 2002, the center has publicly hosted a Korean-style celebration of the Buddha’s Birthday, which featured on Thai television and provided courses on Korean culture for Thai university students and workers at the South Korean embassy. Furthermore, since 2003, the center has offered Korean language classes for Thai students and, in 2004, it opened the Thai–Korea Training School to assist Thais seeking employment in South Korea. Under the leadership of Ven. Hyedan, the center has remained heavily engaged in charity and volunteer work, providing financial support for two orphanages, a women’s shelter and an AIDS hospice charity. The center has also worked with Korean Buddhists in Cambodia to construct schools and wells for clean water, as well as distributing donated bicycles and school supplies. Since 2008, the center has sponsored scholarships for Thai university students majoring in Korean studies. For her leadership of the center’s charity work, the center’s abbottess, Ven. Hyedan, was honored in 2009 by the Thai Princess Chulabhorn Walailak for her “Peace-building and Meritorious Deeds Performed unto Humanity.” As of 2019, the Thai center averaged about 50 participants in its Sunday services (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 14–15, 21–22; 2019, pp. 234–38; Jogye Order 2020, p. 73; https://thi.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 27 January 2022).

3.2.3. HSC’s German Branch

Since the 1960s, South Koreans have emigrated to Germany as students or for employment, primarily as nurses and miners. The South Korean government currently counts over 44,000 ethnic Koreans residing in Germany, making the country home to the largest population of Korean émigrés in Western Europe.7 Unlike the HSC’s other international branches, however, the German branch was established in cooperation between the HSC’s local Korean and German disciples, in particular through the support of Helmut Glubrecht, a Professor at Leibniz University Hannover and disciple of Master Daehaeng since the 1970s. With funding provided by the HSC’s headquarters, along with donations from local students, a property was purchased in 1995 for the Hanmaum-Seon-Zentrum in Kaarst, outside Dusseldorf. Officially opened in 1996, the center is staffed by Daehaeng’s monastic disciples Ven Haejin and Ven Haebaek. As with the HSC’s other international branches, the German center caters to the local Korean Buddhist expatriate community by providing Korean-language Dharma services and social organizations. In addition to celebrating major Korean Buddhist holidays, the German center has also regularly sponsored cultural events showcasing elements of Korean traditional culture, including traditional musical performances, Buddhist paintings and tea ceremonies (for further discussion see Hyeyou 2019, p. 209).

However, as the HSC’s sole European branch, Master Daehaeng explicitly tasked the German center with working to disseminate Daehaeng’s teachings throughout Europe. The center’s Sunday services and other events are translated into German and, on Wednesday evenings, the center provides guided group meditation and Dharma discussion sessions for German speakers from the local community (Hyeyou 2019, p. 209). In 1998, the center joined the German Buddhist Union (G. Deutsche Buddhistische Union), and since 1999, it has self-published numerous German translations of Daehaeng’s writings. With the assistance of the Hanmaum International Cultural Institute, in 2005, the center began participating in the annual Frankfurt Bookfair, which has become a successful platform for promoting Daehaeng’s teachings. In both 2009 and 2010, the German-branch-sponsored international book discussion forums on Daehaeng’s writings at the festival and organized additional readings of Daehaeng’s books in major German cities (Hyeyou 2019, 5.3.1). The religious studies professor Manfred Hutter attributes the diversification of Buddhism in Germany over recent decades directly to the translation and publication of the efforts of the HSC’s German branch (Hutter 2021).

Master Daehaeng personally visited the center twice for “Great Dharma teachings.” Her first lecture, in 1999, had approximately 3000 attendees, while her second, in 2001, was attended by 5000 people, both Korean and German, who had come from around the country (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 209–12). Since opening, the center had additionally promoted academic and interreligious dialogue by hosting lectures by scholars such as Helmut Glubrecht and Roland Pietsch. Since 2015, the center has held its annual Kaarster Glaubensgespräche, or “Talks about Faith”, a forum wherein religious scholars and leaders of various faiths participate in interreligious discussions in hopes of promoting mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence. As of 2019, the center’s Sunday services average about 40 attendees, approximately half of whom are Korean. The German center has additional members who live further distances away, preventing their regular attendance (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 10–19; 2019, pp. 209–12, 236–38; Jogye Order 2020, p. 81; https://ger.hanmaum.org/, accessed on 29 January 2022).

3.2.4. HSC’s Argentine Branches

With the signing of an intergovernmental agreement between South Korea and Argentina in 1962, the latter became home to a burgeoning Korean community, which peaked in the mid-1990s (about 50,000 people) but has since reduced to about 22,000.8 As a predominantly Catholic nation, few religious facilities existed for Korean Buddhists in Argentina. However, in 1989, several Koreans launched as small home congregation of lay Buddhists in Buenos Aires organized around materials ordered from the HSC’s Korean headquarters. Over the next two years, the group grew large enough to petition for the HSC to formally establish a branch in the city. Meanwhile, in the smaller city of San Miguel de Tucumán, capital of Argentina’s Tucuman province, a Korean couple, Lee Yonggu and Seo Ari, likewise petitioned for the HSC to open a branch in their city. In 1991, Daehaeng consented and dispatched monastic disciples to lead each center, newly opened on properties donated by local disciples. In 1992, Daehaeng commemorated the opening of both branches in-person by hosting “Great Dharma Teachings” at each branch, which garnered attention from the local Korean and Argentine communities (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 224–25). Both centers follow the same daily schedule and ecclesiastical calendar as the HSC’s other centers, though holidays that fall on a weekday are celebrated the following Sunday. They also give particular focus to their lantern parades celebrating Buddha’s Birthday, which typically garner significant local attention (Hyeyou 2019, p. 226), and host Dharma services for Argentines on Saturday evenings, which consist of videos of Daehaeng’s Dharma talks translated into Spanish, followed by discussion and meditation sessions (Hyeyou 2019, p. 226).

With Daehaeng’s visit in 1992, interest in Daehaeng’s teachings among Argentines increased significantly, and Ven. Hyedong, head of the Buenos Aires branch, realized the need for Spanish-language materials. With the assistance of Yurim Goh and other translators, the first Spanish-language book of Daehaeng’s, El Camino Interior, was published in 2005, followed by three more books over the next decade (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 227–30). As with the German centers, the Argentine centers also engage in academic and inter-religious dialogues. Beginning in 2004, Ven Hyedong has given lectures on Daehaeng’s teachings at schools, universities and professional organizations. Since 2012, Ven Hyedong has also delivered lectures on Daehaeng and Korean Buddhism as part of the Fundación UNITAS’s annual symposium on interreligious exchange (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 227–30). The center has additionally benefited from outside media attention. In 1996, a broadcast on Uruguayan television reporting on the center’s Buddha’s Birthday lantern procession brought several Uruguayan disciples to the center. In 2005, Ven. Hyedong was also featured in an episode on Buddhism in the documentary series Creencias, or “Faith,” produced by the Argentine TV channel Canal Infinito, and interviews with Hyedong were included in a book published in conjunction with the series the following year. As of 2019, the Buenos Aires branch had approximately 60 members (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 236–38).

While the membership of the HSC’s Buenos Aires branch is equally comprised of Koreans and Argentines, the majority of the Tucuman center’s membership is Argentine, owing to the small number of Koreans residing in the city. As such, the activities of the Tucuman center are organized by various demographic groups. Services on the first Sunday of the month are conducted in Korean, those on the third are conducted in Korean with a Spanish translation, while those on the fourth Sunday service are aimed primarily at younger Argentine attendees and conducted in Spanish. While the Tucuman center collaborates with the Buenos Aires center on translation projects, the two centers operate independently owing to the geographical distance between them. As with the Germany and Buenos Aires centers, the Tucuman center has also worked to engage the local academic community by sponsoring occasional lectures at the National University at Tucuman. Furthermore, in 1993, Daehaeng granted the Tucuman center’s request to erect a Korean-style stone pagoda, the first on the South American continent, which was consecrated the following year. In addition to traditional Buddhist holidays, the Tucuman branch holds Buddhist rituals every September 24th for the soldiers who died in the Battle of Tucuman in 1812 during the Argentine War of Independence; an important holiday in the city. As of 2019, the center’s Sunday services are regularly attended by approximately 40 Argentines and 4 Korean émigrés (Hyeyou 2018, pp. 12–14, 21; 2019, pp. 227–30, 236–38; Jogye Order 2020, pp. 86–87; http://hanmaumbsas.org/, accessed on 29 January 2022).

3.3. Discussion

The HSC’s success in establishing and maintaining branches overseas can be attributed to a variety of factors. As discussed in a previous article, Daehaeng had already made pioneering adaptations to Korea’s traditionally monastic-oriented practice by focusing the HSC’s activities on South Korea’s newly urbanized laity. These adaptations proved to be highly portable and were easily implemented by communities of Korean émigrés abroad who lacked access to Korean temples. Similar to Seungsahn’s KUZC, the HSC’s orientation toward lay practice was also well-received by non-Korean Buddhist practitioners who had little familiarity with or interest in adopting the more traditional, monastic-oriented modes of Korean Buddhism. Furthermore, as the HSC had already adapted traditional Buddhist praxis for its domestic practitioners, there was no institutional opposition within the HSC to make further adaptations to new cultural contexts.

Additionally, as with Seungsahn and the KUZC, the launching of the HSC’s overseas branches clearly benefited from Daehaeng’s charismatic personality, her celebrity status and the dissemination of her teachings through books, videos and other media. However, unlike with Master Seungsan, Daehaeng did not personally lead the HSC’s international propagation efforts herself. Instead, as with the HSC’s domestic branches, the responsibility for establishing foreign centers was left to her disciples, who were largely Korean émigrés. Therefore, many of the HSC’s international branches became community centers for Korean Buddhists living abroad, a role that, as Ven. Hyeyou notes, granted them stability early on but may have constrained their efforts to spread Daehaeng’s teachings among locals (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 244–47). Nevertheless, the international branches continued to work closely with HSC headquarters, which provided each branch with monastic leaders trained directly by Daehaeng. This not only granted disciples outside Korea a more personal link to Daehaeng, but also established within the centers the monastic leadership valued by the JO establishment. Furthermore, the standardization of the international centers’ daily ceremonies, annual ecclesiastical holidays, social programs and teachings presented by Daehaeng established a shared message, identity and purpose between all the HSC’s branches, both domestic and international.

Despite this standardization, variations in the activities of each international center have arisen in response to differences in local contexts, the needs of local supporters, and as well as the interests and language abilities of each center’s leadership. As Thailand is already a Buddhist-majority nation, the HSC’s Bangkok branch has dedicated less effort towards promoting Daehaeng’s teachings among Thais and more effort toward supporting Korean Buddhist émigrés, promoting Korean Buddhist culture and engaging in local charity work. The activities of HSC’s North American branches have likewise centered around local Korean communities in major urban centers. As Buddhist religious facilities are generally lacking in North America, these centers focused their activities on spreading Daehaeng’s teachings among Korean émigrés as well as providing religious and cultural education to second and third generation Korean Buddhists. These efforts to engage younger generations of Korean Americans and Canadians have prompted the North American centers to provide more English-language materials and develop an intercultural awareness among the centers’ leadership (Hyeyou 2019, pp. 244–47).9 The German center, in turn, was founded through cooperation between Korean émigrés and local German disciples. Thus, from its start, the center’s function as HSC’s flagship in Europe and its leadership, has prioritized translating and disseminating Daehaeng’s teachings among the local populations through a wide variety of avenues. These efforts were met with considerable success, as roughly half of the center’s active membership is non-Korean. The HSC’s Argentine centers were likewise instrumental in translating and disseminating Daehaeng’s teachings among local Spanish-speaking communities with a similar success rate. As such, the HSC’s German and Argentine branches in particular succeeded in bridging the divide between the “heritage Buddhists” of Asian ethnicity and non-Asian converts, which currently remains a rare accomplishment in Western Buddhism.

4. Conclusions

Despite the Jogye Order’s renewed interest in international propagation over recent decades, its efforts are still in their infancy (for more details on this topic, see Kim 2016, pp. 68–72). However, the lessons learned from the success of the HSC’s international centers are manifold and involve the nuanced balance of a diversity of contributing factors. Despite Master Daehaeng’s celebrity status, the HSC’s international branches were founded on the initiative of local actors, yet were funded and supported by the HSC’s headquarters in Korea. The HSC also dispatched well-trained monastic leadership and staff to its centers who nevertheless taught Buddhist practices that could be easily adopted by lay urbanites anywhere around the globe. The HSC similarly requires its centers to adopt standardized teaching methods, materials, rituals and organizational structures, yet still grants local leadership flexibility in adapting their activities to local concerns and differing cultural contexts. Furthermore, the HSC’s international branches often serve as valued community centers for local populations of Korean Buddhist émigrés, which granted the centers longevity and stability. Yet, the centers also actively engage in various forms of outreach with local communities, often providing Dharma services in local languages in addition to those in Korean.

Given the successful example of the HSC’s international branches, the JO’s future efforts abroad might find success by establishing a similar balance of such factors at other international temples. Venerable Hyewon, head of the order’s Gilsangsa Temple in Paris noted that foreign propagation “must be approached differently from that of Korea,” commenting that “(o)verseas propagation is not a one-sided introduction to Korean Buddhist culture” but rather “a long-term and systematic approach to understanding local circumstances and needs is the key to success” (Song 2021b). Venerable Hyejin, head of the HSC’s German center, similarly notes the importance of spreading the “core teachings of Buddhism” in local languages in international propagation work instead of focusing solely on “Korean culture and style”. She further comments that “diversity must be recognized. After that Buddhist teachings and Korean culture can be shared”10. Nevertheless, without adequate funding, training and institutional support, overseas propagation efforts are likely to fail. Thus far, aside from the HSC, few major Jogye Order temples see the value of supporting such efforts. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the order’s newly appointed Overseas Special Parish Secretariat is convincing Korea’s Buddhist establishment that overseas propagating is worth supporting at all.