Guiding teacher of the Hungarian sangha
Zen master Hyon Ja (Jo-Alma Potter) was born in Arizona 1954 and grew up in a Mexican-American family. She studied clinical nutrition and graduated from Arizona State University. She began to practice meditation when she was seventeen years old and traveled to India in early 1980. She began to study Zen and Buddhism in India.
In 1986, she moved to Berlin Germany, living there for 25 years, learned the German language and worked for a financial office. She met Zen Master Seung Sahn and his teachings in the early 1990’s and intensified her meditation practice in the Kwan Um School of Zen with Zen Master Seung Sahn and his successors.
She worked as the Abbot of the Berlin Zen Center from 1995 until 2006 and helped to build and establish that the Zen Center.
In 2008, she received the title Ji Do Poep Sa and Inka (the official seal of approval to teach Kong-an) from Zen Master Wu Bong. She has traveled worldwide leading and teaching Zen retreats.
In 2012 she moved to Vienna and, together with Knud Rosenmayr JDPSN and Jan Sendzimir SDT, guides the Vienna Zen Center.
In 2020 she became a zen master, she received Dharma transmission from zen master Bon Shim. She teaches regularly in the USA, Russia, Europe and is the guiding teacher of the Kwan Um Zen groups in Palma de Mallorca and Hungary.
