Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen

Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen sits on the Thonburi side of the Chao Phraya River, in Phasi Charoen district. Wikipedia dates its founding to 1610, in the Ayutthaya period, and says “Paknam” (“river mouth”) appears in palace records by 1780. By the early twentieth century the temple had fallen into disrepair and had no abbot.

That changed when Luang Por Sodh Candasaro took charge, about 1916. Wikipedia reports that the community grew from thirteen monks to about five hundred under him, the largest in Thailand at the time. He is remembered for teaching a meditation method that the temple’s website calls Vijja Dhammakaya (wijja thammakai), and the monastery still presents that method on its site. His own page covers his life.

The temple has also had some foreign links. Wikipedia says it ordained several monks from the United Kingdom in his time and has since ordained monks and nuns of other nationalities.

This page describes Luang Por Sodh and Wat Paknam only. Other organisations draw on the same meditation tradition, and they are not covered here.

For a visitor, the plain facts are these. The temple is an active Bangkok monastery with a Thai-language website and no verified current programme for foreign guests. If you want to practise the method, the temple’s meditation page explains it in Thai, and the practical question of English instruction is one to ask at the temple.