Evolution of Meditation Halls in Dhamma Practice : หน้า 52/232

The very first meditation hall, accommodating only 500 people (named ‘Catummaharajika’), was filled to its capacity in only 5 years. The number of people who attended the sermon grew at a very fast pace similar to ‘Ban Dhammasrit’. People ended up sitting outside on the grass lawn in order to be able to participate in any religious ceremony led by Luang Phaw Dhammajayo. Even when it rained, people would sit outside to listen to him, 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 ‘Dhammakaya 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 the main staging area for all religious ceremonies since 1996. Having seen the number of supporters regularly increase, Luang Phaw Dhammajayo decided to build the next phase, which consisted of the ‘Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya’, (The Golden Pagoda) and The Grand Meditation Stadium both designed to last for a 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 practise meditation in the future.