Ven. Pomnyun Sunim seeks to spread the message of happiness and freedom. He firmly believes everyone can and has the right to be happy and free. This is made possible by becoming free of suffering and worldly attachment.

To that end, he relies on Buddha’s teachings, which still resonate after more than 2500 years. He seeks enlightenment while saving sentient beings, makes himself happy and free, then uses his time and energy to help address the sources of sufferings of others, be it discrimination, poverty, or regional conflicts. He has peace in his mind, and he has compassion towards other people. This is the life of a bodhisattva.

When he visited the Tumen River in China in the late 1990s, Ven. Pomnyun Sunim saw a starving child on the North Korean side of the river. He wanted to reach him to help, but he could not cross the border because South Koreans were not allowed to travel to North Korea. Birds could freely cross the border, but humans could not. He found it absurd that he had no idea that hundreds of thousands of fellow Koreans were starving in the North, and he could not help them. After this incident, his organization Good Friends published a report on the North Korea famine after interviewing hundreds of North Korean refugees in China who fled from the famine. The report was one of the first documents through which the international community learned about the urgency of the hunger situations in North Korea.

He has since worked tirelessly to address conflicts of all sorts, especially those originating in the Korean peninsula and other Asian countries. His unconventional and insightful approach to solving conflicts have informed and inspired Korean watchers in Korea and the U.S., including government officials, members of the congress, think tanks and NGOs.

In Mindanao, Philippines, his school building projects through JTS have brought the local government and Muslim groups together in remote mountainous areas. Parents from both sides worked together toward a common goal: to provide proper basic education to their children, something they had previously been unable to access. This collaboration has contributed to bringing peace to an area where people had been leaving due to ongoing conflict.

When Ven. Pomnyun Sunim went on a pilgrimage to India, he met a woman begging for money to buy milk for her baby. In Dungeshwari, he also witnessed hundreds of begging children and wondered why they were not in school but instead on the street. Later he learned that the milk that the woman asked for cost only about two dollars. He also found out that the school-aged children on the street could not go to school because there was no school in the village. This experience struck him deeply. Since then, he has been vigorous in his efforts to eradicate starvation, diseases and illiteracy in the world.

As a part of such efforts, he has founded the Join Together Society (JTS), an international relief organization that operates under the motto: the hungry should have food, the sick should be treated, and children should be educated. For long-term aid projects, JTS has provided education, medical services and village development for areas such as Dungeshwari in India and Mindanao in the Philippines. JTS has also been active in providing emergency aid relief in regions struck by natural disasters.

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim’s humanitarian efforts span across India, the Philippines and North Korea. JTS has also operated in other Asian countries including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Currently, JTS is conducting a sustainable development project in Bhutan.