Provision of Facilities for Meditation at Dhammakaya Foundation : หน้า 21/91

ROVISION OF FACILITIES W t h e steady increase of interested public coming to study meditation and culture for the raising of the quality of the mind, the Dhammakaya Foundation has led the way in the provision of purpose-built facilities to allow meditators to learn how to practice in some degree of convenience, even though the numbers who come to practice at any one time may reach the 200,000 mark. Unlike many other contemporary Thai temples the provision of parking space has been planned from the outset. Despite the size of the congregation, the facilities provided are designed to complement the natural environment, and at the headquarters there has been an extensive reforestation of once acidic and infertile land to create a cool and refreshing environment amenable for meditation. The headquarters of the Dhammakaya Foundation has been designed with a covered capacity of 300,000 and open-air capacity of 1,000,000. From the temple's origins, thirty years of dedicated effort and altruism by like-minded volunteers, has transformed the original eighty-acre plot of land into a world centre for education in meditation and morality. Developing such a centre will allow like-minded people to come together from around the world with co-operation as the watchword in raising the quality of mind for all people throughout the world. This centre, known as the World Dhammaakaya Centre (W.D.C.) is a project of multination al significance. Not only a centre of education, but for liaison and exchange, W.D.C. will enable national boundaries and time-zones to be transcended so that the peace-loving peoples of the world can practice meditation and cultivation together even though they may be separated by thousands of miles.