WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH ! Part 3

Follows on  from WATDHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH ! Part 2.

The Dhammakaya enthusiasts I spoke to on my visit would appear to consider that conventional Thai Buddhism has seriously lost it way and had become innately corrupt , promoted outdated superstitious practices and had many temples and monks which  tolerated poor behavior amongst the monks and the laity and they seemed set up to encourage regular donations and 'merit making' - (tamboon in Thai) for the  laity without equally encouraging and directing them to make real changes in their lifestyle and spiritual commitment that they feel ought to be made to become a true follower of the renunciant Buddha. In effect they wanted an easy life with occasional visits to the temple to top up their supplies of 'Buddha Magic' to help with problems in their life that need solving.

You will find no faint hearts or weekend part time Buddhists in Dhammakaya - when you join it's a 24/7 , for life full time existence and it appears that you must leave your old ways behind when you begin this journey and you will be encouraged to and will no doubt willingly donate any extra money you may have (or not have!) to the 'Movement'. It is this obsession with money and wealth that is part and parcel of the Dhammakaya movement that leads many ordinary Thais to hold the movement in great suspicion and with some fear.

My 'down to earth' , rooted and wise minded wife whilst dropping me off at the temple refused to come and have a look alongside me and showed no curiosity whatsoever and showed much disdain for both the temple and it's values and to a lesser extent my visit.

Undoubtedly I'd posit that lots of its enthusiasts really do cleanup their lives and live disciplined and useful existences with meditation and a devotion to the temple and movement at their heart. While you walk around Bangkok you are easily able to place a Dhammakaya business because they will always prominently display a picture of the Dhammmakaya founder - the meditation master monk Phra Dhammachayo in a high position in their business premises. These businesses in my humble opinion frequently appear clean, well-organized and thriving in comparison with that of some of their non Dhammakaya neighbours.

I'd urge anybody who's remotely thinking of visiting to study its curious and rapidly growing worldwide movement or simply really wants to visit a gob hitting illustration of what can certainly be called and merits the title  'Amazing Thailand' to visit and take a look.

So in conclusion and particularly since you can travel there on a brilliantly cheap12 baht city bus picking up just outside of Rangsit Future Park that takes about twenty minutes for the journey and stops just outdoors the temple I would urge you to go and HAVE A LOOK !

Oh and for the record whilst I was enormously impressed by their enthusiasm , undoubted huge endeavors and gob smacking breadth of their vision I will certainly not be joining them - it looks far too much like a cult and far too intrusive into my existence for my liking !

If you were ever wondering what kind of temple and cult that alien beings from another world would create then in my opinion Wat Dhammakaya would tick most of the boxes !

Truly AMAZING THAILAND !

WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH ! Part 2

Follows on  from WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH ! Part 1

Main pagoda and towers for the roof.

I asked the tour guide whether there have been any nuns - and he responded no - not now - but you will find well over 1200 monks on-site housed in condo like structures and a number of them work in an enormous Buddha statue factory on the  temple site that has produced over a million Buddha statues up to now which comprises the outside and interior from the primary pagoda.

I also came across in addition a volunteer village , a medical facility along with a school for child monks and a monk dining hall using the familiar huge UFO dome that can house all 1200 monks in a single sitting.

 Initial meditation hall can house 100,000 people with underground car park. 

It should also be said that the original temple is a modest , ultra modern and chic Thai temple which is beautifully designed and executed and sits in verdant gardens and behind it lies a lake and a golden pyramid structure which houses the remains of Kuhn Yay Acariya.

Original white ultra modern temple begun in 1970 with just 3000 baht.

Their overarching concept of growing their religion is to set up modest 'branch offices' of Dhammakaya around Thailand and also the world these outlying 'temples' are relatively simple and modest structures and the energy and donations are channeled to the primary temple ,Wat Dhammakaya. The temple publicizes itself as a place designed for the whole world and a major centre for promoting world peace they hope it will remain for well over a 1000 years. Enthusiasts are urged to go to the primary temple as frequently they can and when they do should wear only white and modest clothing  The most important day of their year is Magha Puja day and when I visited in 2014 it fell on the 14th February  when they expected in excess of  500, 000 supporters to attend. I really wanted to see this (see the stunning video below) but my wife vetoes it and it was Valentine's day ......

 

Maha Puja day at Wat Dhammakaya - Official Video

Nevertheless everyone I met in the temple were very friendly and welcoming and there was no hustling for any money on this my first visit. I additionally discovered a semi-falling apart 3 story shopping mall of which just the first floor was occupied by Dhammakaya companies for example votive shops, a massage shop and many food shops. The massage shop that I  visited and had an excellent foot massage for 250 baht had their round-the-clock DMC TV channel on quietly in the background for the entire time. Also close by to the compound was a housing estate with houses available for sale known as 'Meditation City'.

   

Semi Moribund Wat Dhammakaya shopping mall

WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH is continued in Part 3.

WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH ! Part 1

Wat Dhammakaya - main pagoda surrounded by 10s of thousands of white clad devotees

The Thai Buddhist (and some critics would label it a 'cult') order of Dhammakaya has it's roots nearly 60 years ago way back in 1959 and was started by the renowned Thai meditation master Phra Dhammachayo and has grown in numbers , reach and influenceever since.

The 'movement' has grown meteorically when after his death the leadership was passed to his most devoted (and disciplined) disciple of his leading 'nun' Khun Yay Acariya (Chandra Khonnokyoong) who established the temple at its current site near Rangsit in the northern Bangkok suburbs.

Founded on its new green field site in 1970 it has grown year on year from an initial 80 acres to now occupying well over 1000 acres and frequently holds congregations of its followers that can be in excess of 500,000 people.

I'd first visited the temple just over 10 years ago and I was then staggered by the scale and almost insane vision of the environment, people and buildings and on my recent two month visit to Thailand I wanted to visit the place again and find out what had happened in the following ten years.

Suffice to say the spiritual vision and its physical execution as befits a now truly worldwide movement is now well beyond crazy and also the huge , inhuman scale of the vast concrete and gilded structures is gob smacking , redolent of something which the Nazis or even the North Koreans would build and something warrants a sharp intake of breath and a heart stopping ' WTF'  Amazing Thailand moment.

The place lacks any homeliness and roots in the local population that is the mainstay of most Thai 'wats' (temple in Thai) and in my humble opinion  represents a gross perversion of mainstream Therevadan Buddhism with it emphasis on personal liberation, mindfulness and non-attachment along with 'doing good' . Dhammakaya temple is using its focus on huge structures and mass events to act as a massive show of spiritual energy and power designed to show to Thailand and beyond it is a force to be reckoned with.It would appear that building the temple and mega super-sizing the vision has become the foremost guiding principle of the movement.

UFO like pagoda made up of million Buddha statues

On entering the temple site you are first confronted by the dome of the underground meditation hall with its surrounding cascading fountain and moat. Past that you soon come across the largest structure on the site and also on EARTH!

The primary UFO shaped and alien looking modernist pagoda is encircled by a 3.2km of  a two story doubled deckered huge concrete structure that took ten years to construct which will remain unpainted (as a pint job would require huge efforts and materials and require constant updating whereas the concrete will age and stain with the passing of the years to achieve a more natural look).

It like the concepts of the Nazis Third Reich is designed to last a 1000 years and bisecting one side there is an enormous hydraulic bridge to ensure that it can open when necessary to receive huge ornamental carriages and barges where necessary. It looks rather like some vast unfinished airport building with no planes and when I visited virtually no people save for a few mediating woman dressed in white.

They also have just began setting up some support towers that eventually will support a vast roof and which will go to  make it the biggest structure ever put together on planet earth !  The 'UFO' pagoda consists of 300,000 identical Buddha statues constructed in the familiar Dhammakaya Buddha alien type shape - and now the interior of the pagoda has become sealed and full of over 700,000 Buddha statues.

After being stopped a couple of times by a pleasant  girl in white on a motorbike and then a monk I was 'encouraged' to join an organized tour group from the visitor centre which I was happy to do.

I checked into the tour centre and became a member of a Burmese tour group that led by an English speaking Burmese guide so we continued the visit on an electric golf cart around the site also, he also asked regarding who I was and whether I was in fact a journalist and likely to talk about them (for the previous 2  hours I was traveling around unchaperoned and on foot filming most of the structures).  I suppose the fact that I am blogging this now and spent much of my time looking for good video shots mean that in a way he was astute to my intentions and was right. There seems to be some degree of paranoia to the outside world and their perceptions of them.

WAT DHAMMAKAYA - and my visit to the largest structure on EARTH is continued in  Part 2