A space that awakens a leader’s inner self, Center ONE — from calm to insight
Haebangchon in Yongsan District, Seoul — it’s only a few steps away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, but once you step inside, time feels different. The meditation leadership society Center ONE, which opened in August 2024, is a meditation space for corporate CEOs and executives as well as professionals. It is not a simple healing café or a yoga studio. It is a place that set out with a mission to foster leaders’ calm, insights, and progress in awareness.
From a 40-year practitioner to a businessman — Founder No Sang-chung
Before becoming a businessman, Mr. No Sang-chung was a meditation practitioner and a person in training. After entering the world of meditation at the age of 15, he has practiced for nearly 40 years, and he emphasizes that to become the master of one’s own mind, you must elevate your awareness—and that you should meditate and practice every day to do so.
The reason he decided to create a meditation space did not start as a mere business idea. Amid fast-paced advances in modern technology that are bringing sweeping change across every industry, he felt firsthand that leaders at many companies and organizations cannot find their direction and are anxious. He came to believe that it has become an era in which leaders need insight, and concluded that meditation—by having leaders look inward, maintain calm, and build insight—is the right way to do it.
He then says, "Today’s leaders can no longer exercise leadership using functional competencies alone. This is an era that requires the power and insight to manage your own mind. Meditation is the best way to develop that."
The company Carat Global that Mr. No Sang-chung built has contributed over the past 24 years to strengthening companies’ global competitiveness based on global capabilities and leadership education. Center ONE aims to take this journey to a new stage—by advancing leaders’ awareness, creating better workplaces, and securing companies’ long-term sustainability.
The space itself is practice
Center ONE aims for something like HOME— a nest where leaders can drop in anytime to rest their minds. That philosophy is infused throughout the space.
Outside the rooftop terrace, there is a moss garden where you can do "earthing" barefoot. Inside, the wild feel comes from stones called Jecheonseok and deep-mountain ferns. The center places artifacts from the prehistoric era throughout so visitors can sense the mindset of people who made earthenware pots with soil thousands of years ago. Visitors often say that even the interior details and every line of text hanging on the wall reflect the founder’s personal touch.
The interior—made up of a yoga salon (Yoga_Salle), a seated meditation room, and rooftop space—captures many different textures of meditation. Movement meditation, sound meditation, and silent meditation flow within a single space.
Center ONE membership — embed meditation in everyday life
Center ONE runs a membership service for corporate CEOs and executives as well as professionals, in six-month and one-year terms. When you join the membership, you receive a range of benefits, including 1:1 meditation coaching, daily classes, access to the seated meditation room, membership days, and online classes.
Startup CEOs who are just getting started typically have to struggle with a lack of funding. To make sure they never have to give up meditation due to financial circumstances, the center eliminated all membership costs as well, so they can attend most meditation classes for free or for an amount that is not burdensome.
Meditation is a capacity you build the way you build muscles—by using it consistently. Membership is a structure in which that consistency is supported jointly by the space and the community. Making sure it doesn’t end after just one visit is the biggest feature of the Center ONE membership.
Meditation for beginners intensive course — the sea of calm
Most classes can be taken for free or for a non-burdensome fee, but there is one process that charges education fees properly. It is "Sea of Calm" and "Road to Insight." This is a course for those starting meditation for the first time or those who want to properly lay a foundation again. As the name "Sea of Calm" suggests, the goal is to step away from the waves of everyday life and reach the quiet bottom of your inner world.
In the meditation for beginners intensive course, the Sea of Calm, participants are guided to find the door to meditation that fits them by combining various methods such as seated meditation, walking meditation, kkita-kkita-ban, and body scan meditation. A key feature of this intensive format is that you learn the theory and practice of meditation every week for five weeks, then return and apply it in daily life, building it into a habit.
Advanced meditation course — the road to insight
If "Sea of Calm" is meditation for beginners, "Road to Insight" is a process of looking deeply into yourself within that calm. The core is to recognize your mind’s patterns through meditation and raise your awareness by one level.
The effects of meditation do not stay in calm alone. It also provides the power to make your life dynamic at the same time. The Road to Insight targets that exact point. What leaders need is not just relaxation, but clearer vision— the less inner noise you have, the more power you gain to read situations, and the more a steady center takes root so you don’t sway within relationships.
The philosophy of founder No Sang-chung is fully embedded in this process: advancing leaders’ awareness means not only better personal quality of life, but also healthier, improved workplaces and society.
Calm, insight, and progress in awareness
Center ONE is a space where you experience calm, insight, and enhanced awareness. In fast-moving everyday life, it’s a place to slow down for a moment, look back at yourself, and move forward again with greater clarity. Those three words contain everything Center ONE aims to be.
Meditation is no longer the exclusive domain of monks. It’s an era in which the world’s top entrepreneurs make meditation part of their work, and Harvard Business School teaches mindfulness. Center ONE intends to connect that trend to Korean leaders in the most approachable way.
It’s drawing attention whether this experiment, which began in a small space in Haebangchon, can rewrite a page of Korean leadership culture.
Center ONE information website: www.centerone.kr
Instagram: @center_one_official
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