What A Decade In Buddhist Temples Taught This Prof About Business

When Hee-Chan Song first stepped into a Buddhist temple in Korea over a decade ago, he wasn’t planning a spiritual awakening. He was studying management.

“I went to observe how the temple operated as an organization — how it handled money, managed resources, adapted to development,” he tells Poets&Quants. “Temples aren’t just spiritual spaces. They’re institutions. I was interested in their internal systems.”

His early research focused on Korean Buddhist temples and how they evolved at the intersection of sacred and secular. “Korean temples have long adapted to Korea’s dynamic history. I explored the organizational tension between the sacred meditation domain (i pan) and the secular management domain (sa pan), which revealed compelling insights about change and adaptation,” Song explains on his website.

Today, Song teaches at the Sasin School of Management in Bangkok, where he leads an MBA elective titled Becoming a Mindful Leader. In the course, students explore leadership through the lens of mindfulness, learning to lead with presence, self-awareness, intention, and purpose — rather than relying solely on conventional business frameworks.

DESIRE, MINDFULNESS, AND THE NATURE OF GROWTH

But something happened on Song’s path through temples in Korea, Japan, China, and Thailand. That initial inquiry into temple management turned into something much deeper: a decade-long journey that reshaped his approach to teaching, scholarship, and business itself.

“Business is about desire,” Song tells P&Q in a recent interview, speaking by Zoom from a monastery in Bhutan. “How to create it, satisfy it, grow it. But Buddhist monks are also scholars of desire. They study why we want what we want. So I began asking: If we better understand desire, can we do business better?”

Through his years of monastic life and travel across Southeast Asia, Song’s understanding of desire evolved profoundly. Early on, he saw desire negatively. “Humans are always striving for more, for possession, and for conquest,” he says. “That obsession gives people a demonic kind of power.”

Later — especially after witnessing the serenity and contentment of deeply devout Buddhists living in poverty — his view became more nuanced. “Contentment is central in Buddhism,” he says. “But it can also sterilize ambition. In business, being content is rare — and not often rewarded.”

Now, he sees desire as energy. It’s neither good nor bad. “It’s the source of our motivation. Whether it’s Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or the late Lee Kun-hee of Samsung, all were driven by relentless desire. That’s what created change. The question is: How to harness that desire consciously, ethically, and with awareness?”

His work in Bhutan and China deepened this view, as he explored how Tibetan Buddhism shapes ideas of development and happiness. “Desire isn’t something to suppress,” he says. “It’s something to understand deeply. It can be used for good or harm — the difference lies in self-awareness.”

A STILLNESS THAT TEACHES

One of Song’s most powerful lessons came not from teaching, but from 20 minutes of silence in a Korean temple. 

He had arranged to meet a renowned monk, but was told the monk would speak first. If not, Song could not speak.

“He said nothing. So I sat silently too,” Song recalls. “We drank tea. We looked at each other. There were no words. But it was communication.”

The silence became a metaphor for Song’s work. “In Buddhist thought, language can create boundaries — it divides, defines, and often misleads. Silence invites you to empty your mind. It’s a way to truly connect.”

He published a 2025 paper in Organization Science exploring this theme: “A Buddhist Mindfulness View of Paradox: Silence and Skepticism of Language to Dismantle Paradoxes.”

TEACHING MEANING, NOT JUST CONTENT

In his Becoming a Mindful Leader course, Song starts with a deceptively simple prompt:
“Law is to justice, as medicine is to health, as business is to ___?”

“I don’t say anything. I just show the phrase,” he says. “There’s always a pause, some awkward silence. Then the students begin to speak.”

Their answers range from “profit” and “growth” to “social good,” “community,” and “innovation.” The conversation inevitably morphs into a debate on the purpose of business itself — and that can last hours.

“Even in my own career, I never really asked that question,” Song says. “I went from coursework to thesis to job market. I never stopped to ask: ‘What is business, and why am I doing this?’”

FROM KOREA TO THAILAND, TEXTS TO FIELDWORK

Song’s scholarship spans temples and traditions across Asia. In Taiwan, he studied Hsing Yun’s transformation of Fo Guang Shan into a global spiritual network — a case he calls a rare model for entrepreneurial research. In Japan, he explored how business titan Kazuo Inamori embodied Zen principles in his management of Japan Airlines and ultimately became a monk.

In Thailand, Song was formally ordained for nine months and studied the country’s Sufficiency Economy Philosophy, publishing on its implications for sustainability in Business Strategy and the Environment. He later spent two years in the Golden Triangle, researching how multi-stakeholder partnerships transitioned a region from drug economy to sustainable development.

In Nepal and Northern India, he retraced the Buddha’s path and reflected on the scientist-philosopher parallels between spiritual inquiry and academic research. “Buddha was also a researcher,” he notes.

PHILOSOPHER-ENTREPRENEURS AND THE FUTURE OF THE MBA

Song argues that the next generation of business leaders will have to be more than just managers. “We are entering an era where entrepreneurs must also be philosophers,” he says. “AI can do the technical work. But it can’t ask: ‘What matters?’ That’s our job.”

His approach is deeply influenced by the Buddhist philosophy of Yogācāra, which teaches that our perceptions of the world are shaped by our internal filters. 

“We don’t see the world as it is — we see it as we are,” he says. “Good, bad, just, unjust — these are not absolutes. They are illusions constructed in our minds.”

Song believes that business education should help students dismantle those illusions. 

“If we can break down the boundaries between right and wrong, self and other, we can open space for creativity and empathy — and ultimately, innovation.”

STUDENT RESPONSE: MEANING OVER METRICS

Students, he says, are hungry for this kind of education. “They know the functional stuff already — marketing, finance, operations. They want something deeper,” he says. “They want to talk about meaning.”

He has taught the Becoming A Mindful Leader course in Thailand, Japan, Korea, Bhutan, and China. “Everywhere, students respond the same way. They’re grateful someone is asking these questions.”

He acknowledges the skepticism from traditionalists in business education, but he’s undeterred. “It’s time to elevate business education to the level of philosophy or art,” he says. “Not every class needs to be about accounting or strategy. Some should be about what it means to be human.”

REIMAGINING THE MBA

If he could redesign the MBA from the ground up, Song says it would be rooted in self-reflection. “Any program would be great if it were designed to encourage genuine self-reflection and connect that to one’s work and business,” he says.

In the meantime, his work will continue through the Network for Business Mindfulness, a nonprofit he is coordinating with fellow professors across Asia.

“It’s not about inserting Buddhism into business school,” he says. “It’s about using the tools of mindfulness, philosophy, and self-awareness to help people reflect more deeply.”

That work, he believes, is just beginning. “We live once. If we’re not asking what truly matters to us, then what’s the point?”

For more on Song’s scholarship, see his 2025 article in Organization Science: “A Buddhist Mindfulness View of Paradox: Silence and Skepticism of Language to Dismantle Paradoxes.” 

DON’T MISS MBA STUDENTS ON WHY NOW IS A BETTER TIME THAN EVER TO STUDY IN ASIA and IN THEIR WORDS: WESTERN STUDENTS ON THE REALITIES OF GETTING AN MBA IN ASIA

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.