Spreading Peace with a Great Faith of Mankind

Wat Phra Dhammakaya rapidly grew, along with the heart and mind of its supporters which has grown in great numbers throughout the years.  So much so, that the original 80 areas were not large enough to accommodate the community and therefore its size was increased to 1000 acres for the purpose of serving as a World Meditation Centre.

The very first meditation hall, accommodating only 500 people (named ‘Catummaharajika’), was filled to capacity in only 5 years.   The number of people who attended the sermon grew at a very fast pace similar to ‘Ban Dhammaprasit.’  People ended up sitting outside on the grass lawn in order to be able to participate in any religious ceremony led by Luang Phaw.  Even when it rained, people would sit outside to listen to Luang Phaw, obviously this could not go on for too long and it was decided that a new meditation hall would need to be built.  Therefore, the 12,000 capacity thatch roofed Meditation Hall was built, but in only a short period of time, the same thing happened, over-filling with people.

  Then, it was decided that the community would need a much larger staging area for meditation and ceremonies. Therefore, the ‘Great Assembly Hall,' with the help of all of its supporters, was built within an area of 500,000 square meters and able to host 300,000 people.  Even to this day, the building is still being expanded further.  However, it has been utilized as a main staging area for all religious ceremonies since 1996.

Having seen numbers of supporters increase regularly, Luang Phaw Dhammajayo decided to build the next phase, which consisted of the ‘ Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya,’ (Golden Pagoda) and Meditation Amphitheatre both designed to last for thousand years and have an area of 1,000,000 square meters in order to serve 1,000,000 monks and laypeople from around the world who will regularly come to practice Dhamma in the future. 

The day 1,000,000 people from over the world come to meditate at Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya will be the day that the people of the world will stop, think and ask themselves why so many people have gathered in one place to meditate.  The images that they will see will sink into their heart and they will strive to find the answer for themselves.

Besides, the Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya structure, in order to pay our highest gratitude to the Great Teacher, the Memorial Hall of Phramongkolthepmuni and the Memorial Hall of Khun Yay Acariya Maharattana Upasika Chandra Khonnokyoong.  Both are used as a gathering place for meditation and for all people to come and pay homage.  Around the same time, Khun Yay Acariya Maharattana Upasika Chandra Khonnokyoong's dining hall was built in order to allow supporters to offer food to the community of monks. 

Currently, Wat Phra Dhammakaya is a centre for Buddhists all over Thailand and it is also one of the main staging areas for major Buddhist ceremonies worldwide.  Success was possible because of the great devotion and dedication of Luang Phaw Dhammajayo.  For this reason, he was bestowed a High Royal Order of the monastic ‘Raj level’ by His Majesty the King of Thailand to be recognized as a leading monk in meditation with the title “Phrarajbhavanavisudh,” on December 5^th, 1996 (2539 B.E.).