Visions and dreams

The statuary at Wat Chak Yai is quite haunting, and that's not the half of it

"All must enter the Great War someday before long. This is the fight against Death and, at that momentous time, each must stand alone in phenomenal battle. Those who prevail are liable to dwell in the blissful realm hereafter, but if they cannot, vice versa instead. Your armament: mindfulness acquired through concentration and insight meditations.

- Reverend PhraAca riya Phun Acaro

Wat Chak Yai in Chanthaburi has always drawn visitors, including many foreigners. It took a meditating monk's striking vision, though, to give the temple its place in the full sunshine.

The charismatic abbot, Reverend Acariya Dhammarat Dhammaratoe - a member of the Dhammayut sect founded by the spiritual master Rev Acariya Mun Bhuridatta Thera - is a man of extraordinary experiences who has inherited an extraordinary legacy.

He explains that in 1955 Rev Luangta Maha Bua established what became Wat Chak Yai, not far from the lovely Phlio Waterfall in Laem Sing district. (Chak is sometimes transliterated as Chark.)

It long remained a rustic monastery, but was blessed with a ring of Buddha statues, and these formed the basis for what last year became the Maha Patumvidhya Yanasampanno International Buddha Park.

Abbot Dhammarat - who looks far younger than his 80 years - took note of the hundreds of visiting tourists and the many foreigners who came to be ordained at Wat Chak Yai. The humble temple seemed destined for greater things.

The name Yanasamapanno is an honorary entitlement for Buddhist parks in deference to the memory of the righteous warrior.

Phra Dhammarat arrived a decade after the temple's founding, having been presciently directed there from northeastern Sakhon Nakhon province by his master, Rev Acariya Phun Acaro.

He learned that Luangta Bua had recruited local people and the faithful to erect the monks' residence. Followers bought additional land and built more thatch-bamboo-and-timber dwellings.

One night while meditating, Dhammarat heard the voice of a celestial entity, advising him to stay at the monastery. It warned that drawbacks lay ahead, but if he remained patient and persistent, an unprecedented phenomenon would occur that would greatly enhance his spiritual wellbeing.

This divine being said a large number of Buddha sculptures would appear and related construction would take place in the monastic compound in the weeks and years to come. Incredibly, Reverend Acariya Phun Acaro had predicted exactly the same thing, with the number of statues exceeding that of the resident monks.

To the lineage that began with Acariya Mun and continued to Acariya Phun Acaro was now added Acariya Dharmarat.

As to the prediction, it came true.

The first of these venerable images to be erected came straight out of a former Laem Sing district chief's nightmare. The senior public servant dreamed that he lost all his limbs and asked the monks what he should do in the face of what seemed like a dire warning.

Build a Buddha image, Reverend Dharmarat advised him, and offer it to the temple of your choice. It could be any style or size, but a small one was best for a monk's residence, a medium one for the sermon hall, and a large one for the monastery grounds.

The district chief swiftly had a statue fashioned that depicted the Buddha in the blessing posture, an image associated with people born on a Monday, and had it placed on a lawn in the compound.

Dozens more statues followed.

The site could not yet be called a temple. The condition of the buildings barely qualified it as a monastery. After some lobbying, though - during which Dharmarat sternly pointed out that he'd never sought out financial support - the government's Religious Affairs Department allowed the temple designation.

In his efforts to attain insight, Acariya Dharmarat says he actually conceded to death - by betting his life on the triumph of dharma. Having overcome all fear of death, he meditated at the edge of a cliff in Sakhon Nakhon and did sitting and walking meditation from evening until early morning, a practice initiated by Acariya Phun.

Such rigours left the disciples overwhelmed by drowsiness at dawn and through the day. Dhamarat says he once fell off the cliff in his sleepiness, but thanks to his virtuous deeds of the past, the hands of an ethereal entity caught him and saved him from injury.

Reverend Dharmarat says tigers sometimes walked past while he meditated at night. The following mornings he would look for their footprints, but found none for three days. On the fourth, however, they appeared.

Sometimes he meditated while holding a long- handled umbrella, unaware at first that a poisonous snake had curled around the handle. Showing mercy, he merely touched the serpent with his torch to chase it off.

In his early years he would often meditate in various horrific places to master his fears and was invariably rewarded with courage.

Venerable Acariya Dhammarat's 2,204 homilies and treatises appear in many publications and on the hundreds of concrete pillars around the temple grounds.

The foremost of these he reserves for people who have led delusional lives in the karmic vortex. He stresses the Buddha's crucial discourse on death, pointing out that everyone, from the greatest emperor to the lowest commoner, must vigilantly prepare to fight against death in all its belligerence.

The consequences that wait in the hereafter depend merely on the karmic repercussions deriving from their accumulative undertakings in lives past and present.

And yet so many people persist in their obsession with physical matters, forever snatching at the illusive water and flame, always vainly. Most of us hanker after nirvana, and yet linger over what is insubstantial.

ON THE PATH

• To get to Wat Chak Yai from downtown Chanthaburi, take Sukhumvit Road toward Trat province for about 15 kilometres, until you reach a three-way intersection. Turn right toward Laem Sing district. Just 200 metres further along is the temple, marked by a tall concrete sign as Maha Patumvidhya Yanasampanno International Buddha Park.
• Find out more at www.WatCharkYai.com.