Dharma Teachers
Dharma Teachers
Do Tzong
Yonym Bang was born in 1975 in Daejon, South Korea.
After graduating from university and emigrating to Germany, she started practicing with the Kwan Um School of Zen / Munich Zen group in 2007, and with the guidance of Hyon Gak Sunim since 2009.
In 2016 she received the Dharma name Do Tzong from Zen Master Dae Bong at Musangsa Temple. She took the Ten Precepts and became a Dharma Teacher under Zen Master Dae Bong and Hyon Gak Sunim at Zen Center Regensburg in 2019.
Do Tzong is a cybersecurity expert and serves as the Head Dharma Teacher of the Zen Center Regensburg.
For several years, Do Tzong has returned to Korea to train in the 90-day silent retreats at Musangsa Temple, and has vowed to continue that for the rest of her life.
Yo Rae
Pablo was born in Santiago, Chile, and pursued a demanding career in multimedia communications and worked as a VFX artist on major ad campaigns and music videos throughout Latin America. He co-founded the highly successful heavy metal band Rey Chocolate (slang for “King of Blood”), a band that became a reference point in Chile’s metal scene, releasing three albums, touring across Latin America, and leading Chile’s famed “Aggro Metal” (nu-metal) movement, selling out clubs and stadiums across Latin America. In 2005, Yo Rae’s band was the opening act of Slipknot when that band was at their peak.
Yo Rae co-founded Aggrofest in 2001 — one of the largest music festivals for alternative and metal fans in Latin America (sometimes called “Latin America’s Glastonbury of Heavy Metal”).
At the height of this success, Yo Rae made the radical choice to drop it all — to walk away from the noise, acclaim, and fame in search of his True Self. He did intensive practice with Tibetan masters in India, receiving several sacred initiations, and later entered a retreat center on the Chilean coast, where he encountered Zen practice and community life through silence, service, and cooking.
His first teacher was Claude Anshin Thomas, a Vietnam veteran and disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh, later ordained in the Japanese Sōtō tradition by Bernie Glassman. He then trained under Jikusan, a Chilean who spent over 30 years at Bukkokuji Temple in Japan training under the legendary Harada Tangen Roshi (1924-2018). With Jikusan, he studied the tenzo’s role and in 2013 was formally ordained with the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts as a Sōtō Zen monk.
In 2016, he moved to Graz, Austria, working as a top chef. In 2019, he met his present teacher, Zen Master Hyon Gak Sunim, and immediately entered a one-year retreat at Zen Center Regensburg. He received the Ten Precepts of a Dharma Teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Seung Sahn in 2021 under Zen Master Dae Bong of Musangsa Temple (Korea) and Zen Master Hyon Gak.
Discover Yo Rae transmitting Dharma for the head-bangers here:
https://youtu.be/v_yfE2hUvuo?si=nPHv-x1Q2RUZwS0r
Kåei
Born in Stavanger, Norway, Trond Jostein Pettersen carried from childhood a quiet uneasiness, a restless sense that something essential was missing. As a teenager he first touched Zen through martial arts, where silence and discipline hinted at a deeper way. But the hunger remained.
As a young man, he turned fervently to Christianity, building a family and serving faithfully. Yet beneath prayer and belief, the dissatisfaction grew. Even as he explored wordless forms of meditation, he realized the church could not answer the depth of his seeking. At some point, he laid it down — openly leaving blind faith behind.
He entered Zen training with Såzen Osho in the Japanese Sōtō lineage, receiving the precepts and the name Kåei, and establishing an active Zen community in Haugesund, Norway. His practice deepened, yet over time he found the Soto emphasis on form and tradition left something untouched.
In 2017, he saw a video of Hyon Gak Sunim and felt an immediate recognition. Meeting him soon after at a retreat in Oslo, he knew he had found the Teacher he had been waiting for.
In 2023, after years of practice, he formally entered the lineage of Zen Master Seung Sahn through Hyon Gak Sunim, receiving the Ten Precepts of a Dharma Teacher and the name Hong Ye (the Korean version of his Japanese Dharma name.
He founded a new Zen community in Stavanger, grounded in the living tradition that had brought him home to his True Self.
Boep Hwa
Boep Hwa (Silke Merck), born in Mainz, is the mother of five adult children. She is trained in flute, trombone, and trumpet. In 2019, a life-threatening illness brought her to the gates of death, and this led to a profound inner turning point in her life. Returning from the hospital, she immediately Googled „What is the meaning of life?“ The answer that appeared on her screen changed her life forever: „Find a meditation teacher.“ She tried several Internet teachers, until one day the YouTube algorithm served up for her the Zen Center Regensburg daily livestream. Joining the daily practice, she immediately found „there’s something there“.The powerful presence and teaching, which could be felt even through the screen, touched her deeply and led her step by step into the world of Zen.
Several visits to the Zen Center deepened her connection to herself. By Autumn 2021, she had moved into the Zen Center as a full-time resident.
Since then, Boep Hwa has devoted herself intensively to Zen practice. This has not only enabled her to heal personally, developing clear change in her physical condition, but also opened the door to a new direction in life. She was deeply impacted by the forceful insights of Hyon Gak Sunim and the loving embrace of the entire Sangha.
Boep Hwa has completed many intensive multi-day retreats at the Zen Center Regensburg, and in January 2023, she Took Refuge with the Five Precepts. In January 2025, she took the Ten Precepts and became a Dharma Teacher-in-Training.
Since May 2022, Boep Hwa has been the Assistant to Hyon Gak Sunim. She has accompanied him on teaching trips to the UK, Norway, and to centers throughout Germany. She likes to draw, paint, play her flute, and one day wishes to have her own garden. (And a doggie.)