In 1980, she entered monastic life under the monk Seongil at Sinheungsa in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. In 1994, the year she turned 38, she wrote “A Study of Temple Food Culture,” the first thesis in Korea on temple food, for her graduation from Joong-ang Sangha University. That year she was also diagnosed with end-stage cirrhosis and improved in about a year.
From March 1995, she appeared on Buddhist Broadcasting System’s Pureunmat Pureunyori to introduce temple food. In 1998, she founded Borisa in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, as a base for research on temple food. In 2000, she published the book Venerable Sunjae’s Temple Food.
In 2001, she opened the Sunjae Temple Food Culture Institute at Botasa in Seoul. In October that year she held an exchange event at Yakcheonsa in Jeju with Mori Shido, a leading temple food master in Japan, and Dong-A Ilbo introduced her as someone who had recently raised interest in traditional temple cooking. In 2002, she returned to her hometown Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, reopened the institute and began regular courses.
In 2005, Buddhist TV’s Venerable Sunjae’s Temple Cooking began airing. In 2011, she published Temple Cuisine Seasoned with the Stories of Venerable Sunjae, her first new book in 11 years.
In 2016, she was appointed the Jogye Order’s first temple food master. In 2017, she received an honorary doctorate from Joong-ang Sangha University and published What Do You Eat to Live? In 2018, she became chair of the Korean Food Promotion Institute, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
In 2019, she received the Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit at the Cultural Heritage Administration’s awards for cultural heritage protection. In 2021, she finished her three-year term as chair of the Korean Food Promotion Institute. In 2022, she appeared on KBS1’s Hanguginui Bapsang. In 2024, she was invited to give a lecture at the reopening of the renovated Korean Temple Food Culture Center.
The breakthrough yearIn June 2025, she lectured on “1,700 Years of Temple Food Wisdom: Fermentation” to mark temple food’s designation as national intangible heritage. In December, the year she turned 69, she appeared as a White Spoon on Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars season 2 and reached the top 7, drawing public interest beyond religion. It also became known then that Lee Chang-sub of the group BTOB is her nephew.
In 2026, she appeared on Wavve’s The Chefs of the Temple Kitchen and became an endowed professor at Dongguk University’s Dharma College. She also published the essay book Nareul Sallineun Eumsikdeul (Foods That Save Me), her first in 15 years.
Sunjae (born Jul 28, 1956) began promoting temple food in 1994, the year she turned 38, by writing the first thesis in Korea on temple food, and became known on Dec 16, 2025, the year she turned 69, when she appeared as a White Spoon on Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars season 2. In 2016, the year she turned 60, she was appointed the Jogye Order’s first temple food master.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.