There is always a book that sits on a shelf like that. You flip through the first pages a few times, but you never get round to reaching the last. One day, when the mind grows quiet, you pack that one book in your bag, sit down beside strangers, and find an evening arranged where people open their copies side by side.
Centre1’s meditation leadership society is hosting a reading group, “Reading Vibe”, with Professor Jo Ok-kyung. It takes place at Centre1, Level 3, 11 Sinheung-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, from 7pm to 9pm on Friday 28 August, and it will be led together by author and writer Kang Min-ji, known as a “meditation taste spot”.
You open the book you used to read alone beside another person’s breathing
Reading Vibe is not a format where participants read beforehand and then present their impressions. Instead, you open your own book brought along at the venue, read in silence, and then share what lingers with the person sitting next to you before that aftertaste fades. The organisers describe the gathering not as solitary reading, but as a reading party where people come together to share, and cultivate growth in their inner life and spirituality.
The lack of pressure to finish the book lowers the barrier significantly. It also means that the more you have been putting off a book, the more it suits this occasion. An evening where you can start again from unfinished pages without anyone asking questions is rarer than you might think.
A list chosen by more than 1,300 responses, 〈The 50 spiritual books that changed the lives of Koreans〉
This session comes with a 〈The 50 spiritual books that changed the lives of Koreans〉 list selected through a public survey. Thirty organisations, including a meditation taste spot and Centre1, co-hosted and collaborated. The list was built based on survey results produced by Korea Research, based on responses from around 1,300 people.
Participants simply pick one book among the odd-numbered rankings in the list and bring it with them. In the odd-numbered rankings are: Neil Donald Walsh’s 〈Conversations with God〉; Michael A. Singer’s 〈The Untethered Soul〉; David Hawkins’ 〈Letting Go〉 and 〈Revolutionary Consciousness〉; Hermann Hesse’s 〈Demian〉; Buddhist monk Beopjeong’s 〈Mujosaeng (Nothing to Possess)〉; Paramahansa Yogananda’s 〈Autobiography of a Yogi〉; Kim Sang-woon’s 〈Waching〉 and 〈Mirror Meditation〉; and Kahlil Gibran’s 〈The Prophet〉, among others. Translated editions, works published in South Korea, old classics and contemporary buzz titles are all mixed together on one list.
From the moment you choose a book, the gathering is already under way. Some people pick a volume because the title catches their eye; others do it because they remember a book’s pages being picked up, put down, and picked up again in a bookshop.
Three threads, flowing through two hours: focus, resonance and integration
The two hours are split into three threads. The first 30 minutes are a round-robin introduction to the books each person will read. Then, for the next 30 minutes, there is a period of individual reading that fully immerses you in the text alone—time for focus.
After a short break, participants divide into small groups of two to three and share the passage they have just read. This is the time for resonance, which the organisers call DEEP TALK. The final 20 minutes are filled with integration, as everyone comes back together to trade questions and answers and wrap things up.
The structure itself—reading, speaking, and meeting again—has been designed as a kind of meditation practice. The line for this gathering, a spiritual journey that expands beyond each person’s realisation into “we”, compresses this flow precisely.
Jo Ok-kyung, who has handled the language of the body, and Kang Min-ji, who has found the taste of meditation
Professor Jo Ok-kyung, who will run the session, previously worked as a professor at the Seoul Buddhist Graduate School and as an adjunct lecturer at the Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine. She has served as chairperson of the Korea Meditation Academic Society and the Korea Yoga Academic Society. She is currently chairperson of the Korea Somatic Psychology Education Association. She is also a translator who brought Ken Wilber’s 〈Integral Psychology〉, 〈Beyond Eden〉, 〈Ken Wilber’s The New Physics and Cosmology〉, 〈The World’s Most Beautiful Courage〉, 〈Sung Saeng Tae Spirituality〉 and 〈Eye of Spirit〉 into Korean. She is cited as someone who has helped shape the language of domestic spiritual discourse.
Writer Kang Min-ji made a name for herself with 〈Meditation Taste Spot〉, where she compared and introduced the practices of world meditation teachers. She completed a master’s programme in the Department of Seon Studies at Dongguk University. She holds qualifications as a meditation specialist instructor through the Korea Meditation Leader Association and as a yoga teacher through the Korea Yoga Training Institute. She has worked as the club head for Trebari’s reading group “Meditation, This Is the Taste”, and as the IPKU community director at Mind Lab, and she previously served as a coordinator for the Wisdom 2.0 Korea community. The hands-on planner who has long put together meditation gatherings is also behind this running of the session.
On the hillside near Namsan, Level 3 where a different time flows
Centre1, where the gathering will be held, is a meditation space that opened in Haebangchon in August 2024. It is only a few steps away from the noise of downtown, yet it leaves you with the impression that the density of the air changes once you open the door and step inside. Because the space sets out with the quiet and insight of the leader as its guiding theme, it also matches the nature of this reading meeting.
Imagine a Friday evening at the end of summer: you climb the hill, open the door to Level 3, step in, and take a book out of your bag. When reading you have been doing alone for a long time briefly becomes a matter for several people, and the sound of turning pages overlaps, that brief density is likely the sensation this gathering intends to pass on.
It is all right even if you cannot finish the book
The word “spirituality” often feels distant. But when you look into the list of books that more than 1,300 people say changed their lives, you find novels, autobiographies and old collections of essays alongside one another. It turns out that an experience in which your heart was shaken greatly at some point in your life was another name for spirituality.
Reading Vibe is a place where you can say that you do not have to carry that shaking alone. An evening where you can take a book you could not finish and a heart that is yet to be put in order as it is is waiting for you in Haebangchon on 28 August.
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