Lincoln Park Zen

Our Teachers

Zen Master Seung Sahn is a Korean master who came to the United States in 1972. Since that time, he taught through the world until his death in 2004. Centers inspired by his teaching and methods have sprung up in the US, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, and in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea to form one of the largest zen communities in the world today. His Kwan Um School of Zen combines high energy with grounded stillness. Like the teaching of the Buddha himself, his teaching points to the discovery of your own mind. “Just do it,” he said, years before Nike picked up the slogan. Just doing it opens our minds and hearts, teaches us that this practice–and this life–is not for ourselves, but rather to teach us how to begin to see clearly. And that changes everything! Zen practice teaches us the way; it is itself the way.

Zen Master Soeng Hyang (Barbara Rhodes) is the School Zen Master and Guiding Dharma Teacher of the Kwan Um School of Zen. She received dharma transmission from Zen Master Seung Sahn on October 10, 1992. She was one of Zen Master Seung Sahn’s first American students and studied with him since 1972.

Ron Kidd is a Senior Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen and resident teacher of Lincoln Park Zen. In 1986 he founded the Bultasa Zen Group, the predecessor of the Ten Directions Zen Community and today serves also as a senior teacher in the Ten Directions community. Retired from the Religious Studies Department at DePaul, he continues teaching as adjunct professor of Asian Studies at Shimer College. In the late 1980s he served as the first organizer of the centennial of the Parliament of the World's Religions (Chicago, 1993).

Anna Horvath is a Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen. She has been practicing with the school since 1998 and became a teacher in 2008 after completing a three months long group retreat at Providence Zen Center. She is a counselor and art therapist who builds wooden constructions in her free time.