Zen Master Samu Sunim

Sadly my book Zen Master Who? has numerous errors of fact. Most are pretty small potatoes. But I have recently learned of one significant enough that I am seeking various venues to publicly correct it. There will be an errata page for the book placed at my publisher’s website, and should there be a subsequent edition it will be corrected. I have corrected Samu Sunim’s biographical sketch at Wikipedia which was based in part upon my work. And I also want to post this here at my personal blog.

I have long been an admirer of Zen Master Samu Sunim’s work. But I read that he never received Dharma transmission. I should have dug deeper than I did before writing this as fact.

In fact Samu Sunim received Dharma transmission from Zen Master Weolha Sunim in 1983.

Perhaps of course this particular article in the book has more errors than I find in any other single place. Nowhere near as important, but still needs to be said is that I reported he had married without leaving the celibate Chogye Order, when in fact he had left that order and established a non-celibate order, the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Living prior to his marriage.

I deeply regret these errors of fact.

For more details I copy a note from the Secretary of the Society.

1) In 1943, Samu Sunim’s father left for Manchuria in order to join the Korean army for national independence. He did not return to his family in South Korea after liberation from Japan in 1945.

2) Samu Sunim was ordained by Dongsan Sunim (1890-1965) who served as the spiritual head (Supreme Ancestor) of the Chogye Order from 1954 through 1962. Sunim studied Zen under Dongsan Sunim and Seolbong Sunim (1890-1969), the Zen master of Beomeo-sa monastery in Busan. In September of 1983, Sunim received a Certificate of Dharma Transmission (Geondang, literally “establishing your house”) from Weolha Sunim (1915-2005), Zen Master of Tongdo-sa monastery (one of the Three Jewel Temples in Korea).

3) Samu Sunim arrived in New York City in August 1967. In February 1968, he moved to Montreal and four years later to Toronto. The Zen Lotus Society (Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom since 1990) which Sunim founded in New York City is a non-celibate (celibacy optional), North American Buddhist order.

4) At present, Haju Linda Jean Murray and Toan José Castelão Cámara are the only disciples who received Sunim’s sanction to teach Dharma.