Wat Songdhammakalyani

Wat Songdhammakalyani, on Petkasem Highway in Nakhon Pathom, is a Theravada monastery of bhikkhunis (fully ordained nuns). Wikipedia dates it to 1960, when the land bought three years earlier became a temple. Its founder was Voramai Kabilsingh. Her daughter Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, ordained in Sri Lanka in 2003, is the abbess.

Wikipedia reports that Thailand’s two main monastic orders, the Mahanikaya and the Dhammayutika Nikaya, have not officially accepted fully ordained women. Thai Wikipedia adds that its Thai name uses วัตร (“practice”) in place of วัด (“temple”) because legal obstacles prevent it from calling itself a temple. The monastery itself is a working community that receives visitors.

The monastery describes itself as an international centre of learning for female monastics and laywomen. Its site lists weekly Dhamma and meditation sessions with Ven. Dhammananda, weekend meditation at the Medicine Buddha Vihara, and silent retreats for women. It also keeps a medicine buddha shrine hall, a library and gardens.

Visitors are mainly women. The monastery says it is open to genuine female spiritual seekers of any religion, and that husbands or teachers accompanying them are accepted only after a conversation with the abbess. Day visitors report to the front desk and can ask a monastic to show them around. Overnight guests are treated as members of the sangha, keep the monastic schedule and the five precepts, and should expect very basic rooms on a busy highway. Groups bringing students can join short programmes about monastic life. Dress modestly, and read the visitor page before you go, since it holds the current rules and the registration form.