Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen
Vast royal temple complex where Dhammakaya meditation was born, crowned by an eighty-meter glass-mosaic stupa.
This guide to Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen in Bangkok opens in 1916, when a young monk named Sodh arrives by boat at a crumbling, leaking temple with thirteen monks and no abbot, sent there by his seniors as either a test or a punishment. It follows what he says happened to him meditating alone on a full moon night soon after, the practice he began teaching from it, and the monks who started arriving from across Thailand to sit with him. You'll hear how the temple's fortunes changed over the decades that followed, up to Sodh's death here in 1959. Stand at the base of the tower ahead of you before you start climbing.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.