Kundrol Dechen Ling (Khadiravan)

Kundrol Dechen Ling, also called Khadiravan (ขทิรวัน), is a retreat centre in the hills of Nong Phlap, inland from Hua Hin. It belongs to the Thousand Stars Foundation (Pandara, Thai for “a thousand stars”), which describes its tradition as “the Bon Buddhist tradition (Yungdrung Bon), which traces its lineage to Zhang Zhung”. The foundation teaches courses and retreats in three streams, Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, with a dedicated Dzogchen programme.

The first name, Khadiravan (“cutch tree forest”), recalls Green Tara, with whom the name is associated in Tibetan teachings. The Tibetan name Kundrol Ling means “land of the dakini”. The centre’s founder, Dr Krisadawan Methavikul (Kalsang Dawa), is a Tibetologist and former associate professor of linguistics at Chulalongkorn University, who left academia in 2007 to build the centre on land in her home district. Her co-teacher, Ajahn Meu Yonten Tongdrol, was ordained at nine at Tokden Monastery in Ngawa, Amdo, and came to Thailand in 2005 to help establish it. Both trained at Tokden’s Zhang Zhung Dzogchen College; the foundation says she was the first woman to complete it. Their lineage list opens with Guru Rinpoche, followed by the Bön masters Nyamme Sherab Gyaltsen and Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen, and they name the late Kundrol Mongyal Lhasey Rinpoche as one of their root gurus.

Krisadawan writes that Lhasey Rinpoche consecrated the land and advised building a stupa. The grounds now hold a Dhamma Hall with a Bodhisattva shrine, a pavilion, three mantra stupas, a candle-offering house, a mud guest house and a tent area. The Great Stupa for Peace and Harmony, also called the Shanti Tara Maha Stupa, is still being built. The foundation gives its planned height as 73 metres and says it will serve as a temple, meditation hall and college, and a living heritage of Tibetan and Zhang Zhung wisdom, art and architecture.