Wat Suan Mokkh

Wat Suan Mokkh, formally Suan Mokkhabalarama (“the grove of the power of liberation”, in the hermitage’s translation), is a forest monastery in Chaiya district, Surat Thani, in southern Thailand. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu founded it in 1932 near his home village and moved it to its present site about ten years later. Around forty monks live in huts in the forest, and another part of the grounds is reserved for nuns and lay women.

The place is best known among foreign visitors for the International Dharma Hermitage, about 1.5 km east of the main monastery. The hermitage’s site calls it Buddhadasa’s last project. It runs silent ten-day retreats from the 1st to the 11th of each month. Instruction and talks are in English, and the method taught is mindfulness with breathing (ānāpānasati). Participants keep the Eight Precepts, eat two vegetarian meals a day and rise at 4 a.m. There are no shorter or longer options and no partial attendance.

The monastery’s grounds also hold Buddhadasa’s library and the Spiritual Theatre, and the hermitage offers a tour of both on the morning the retreat ends.

Outside the retreats, the hermitage’s site says you can stay at the monastery for up to seven days (longer with the abbot’s permission), with free dorm or room accommodation and a chore as part of the practice. It adds that there is no schedule and no instruction there, which suits people who have already done a retreat. Registration for a retreat must be made in person; the site rules out booking by post, telephone or email.

Buddhadasa’s talks and books are also kept at the Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives in Bangkok, which describes itself as “Suan Mokkh Bangkok” and does not run meditation retreats.