His official biographers paint Phra Dhammachayo as a golden child, the "reincarnation of a crystal ball" who was destined to lead his army of followers on the path to enlightenment.
But to his detractors, the monk is little more than a master manipulator, a self-confessed admirer of Hitler who has voiced his desire to “rule the world” through religion.
The mysterious abbot of the controversial Dhammakaya temple looks much younger than his 71 years, reportedly due to two facial massages a day and expensive cream. He rarely gives interviews outside the official media channels of his temple, which operates its own 24-hour satellite TV station and website.
During mass ceremonies, Phra Dhammachayo sits in the innermost circle of his thousands of followers. Unlike another temples where people can sit wherever they feel comfortable, Wat Dhammakaya followers must always display discipline.
The image is intentional.
“It will impress visitors,” said Mano Laohavanich, who was once the top-ranking monk at Wat Dhammakaya and one of Phra Dhammachayo’s most trusted aides.
Dr Mano is now a lecturer at Thammasart University and the Chulabhorn International College of Medicine, as well as a key member of the Reformation of Buddhism Committee.
“Dhammachayo successfully built his empire by copying a military structure with rigid ranks and discipline. Like a soldier, you are not allowed to question your superior,” said Dr Mano, who once broke this rule by questioning Dhammachayo’s teachings. The pair fell out, and Dr Mano subsequently left the temple to become one of the temple’s most outspoken critics.
Taking off: An aerial view shows the two UFO-like domes which dominate the vast expanse of the Dhammakaya temple grounds in Pathum Thani. Much of the land was donated by wealthy supporters.
THE GOLDEN CHILD
Phra Dhammachayo was born Chaibul Sithiphol on April 22, 1944, in Sing Buri province. His father, Chanyong, worked as a mechanic for the Industrial Works Department.
According to Wat Dhammakaya’s website, when Chaibul’s mother, Juree, was pregnant, she dreamed that a revered monk handed her a beautiful baby and said: “This child is a reincarnation of a crystal ball. Raise him well. You can rely on him in the future.”
Later, the official story goes, Juree dreamed that she found an ancient Buddha statue in a sand dune on the bank of the Chao Phraya river. After it was polished, the statue glowed so brightly that it provided light for the entire city.
Chanyong’s job forced him to relocate constantly, meaning the young Chaibul spent much of his childhood under the care of his mother and relatives. When he entered Grade 1, he was sent to live in a Bangkok boarding school.
According to the official biography, the school’s aristocrat owner took an immediate liking to Chaibul and wanted to adopt him. But Chaibul’s father refused to hand over his son, despite the lucrative inheritance that would have been promised to him. Nonetheless, Chaibul quickly became at ease in the world of the aristocracy, often being taken to visit Sa Pathum Palace. He also accompanied the school owner to make merit, cultivating an interest in dhamma from a young age.
But instability continued to follow Chaibul, and in 1950 he had to follow his father to Phetchaburi to attend Grade 4 at Arun Pradit School. Another move to Ratchaburi would see him enrol at Sarasit Phityalai School, where he would remain until the end of primary school.
At age 13, Chaibul returned to Bangkok to study high school at Suankularb Wittayalai School. According to the Dhammakaya website, he was left almost entirely to his own devices and learned how to live a frugal life which instilled him with an air of confidence and responsibility.
“His formative years prepared him for a great mission, which has been his dream from childhood,” the website says.
Up the order: Supporters of Wat Dhammakaya are split into 'ranks' based on the amount of money they donate. Those in the higher ranks gain closer access to Phra Dhammachayo.
‘HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND LOVE’
Scratching beneath the official biography’s colourful narrative, a different story emerges. People who knew Dhammachayo before his days in the monkhood tell of an insecure young man with grand ambitions for power.
“He loves to be the centre of attention. He liked it then and he loves it even more now,” said a former school classmate who spoke to Spectrum on condition of anonymity.
During his years of study at Kasetsart University during the 1960s, Chaibul stood out from his peers by becoming a cheerleader. “He knows how to control a crowd,” the former classmate said.
Dr Mano said Chaibul’s childhood was far from a happy one, being born into a broken home. His father left his mother when he was less than a year old, and both soon remarried. He has never lived in one place for an extended period of time.
“He didn’t understand what love and warmth from family really is,” Dr Mano said. “This shaped him into the kind of person who craves attention, who always has to make a good impression so that people will like him.”
Dr Mano said Phra Dhammachayo is attuned to people’s feelings and selects his words carefully to make them feel good about themselves. It’s a skill that can also help him exploit people’s vulnerabilities, helping him build a cult-like following.
One former university friend, who also preferred to remain nameless, told Spectrum that Phra Dhammachayo had always been a likeable person.
“Chaibul was a fun-loving person,” he said. “Kasetsart students love to have fun. That is why he became quite famous on campus.”
The former friend said Chaibul was actively involved in university life, but described him as a manipulative leader who loved to control people.
“Now he gets to live his dream. He is revered by millions of people and he has total control of them,” he said.
In the crosshairs: Left, activist Buddha Issara wants a probe into Wat Dhammakaya's ties to Khlong Chan ex-chairman Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, right.
LEARNING FROM LEADERS
The Dhammakaya website describes Phra Dhammachayo as being exceptional from other children. While studying at Bangkok’s Suankularb Wittayalai, he had the chance to listen to spiritual teachings from many guest speakers. Apparently inspired by what he heard, Chaibul formed a Buddhist Youth Club with his friends.
“Chaibul often looked at the stars to find the answer about the meaning of life while other children his age liked to play,” the website says.
Chaibul also apparently liked to read and became interested in the biographies of great leaders from world history. He would read their stories repeatedly until he could recite the facts of their lives from memory.
The Dhammakaya website says Phra Dhammachayo was inspired by these people’s lives as he set his sights on greatness. “With his wisdom beyond his years, he wrote in his memoir when he was 13 that, ‘If I choose to be in the secular world, I will go to the apex of secular world. If I decide to choose dhamma, I also want to go to the top,’ ” the biography says.
The website, however, excludes the name of the historical figure that, according to Dr Mano, young Chaibul was most interested in — Adolf Hitler.
Dr Mano said Chaibul became infatuated with Hitler, admiring the way the Nazi dictator could control a crowd, and expressed a desire to follow in his footsteps.
Chaibul was obsessed by the fact their birthdays were only two days apart, and that they shared similar childhoods of poverty and loneliness.
One day when Dr Mano was still a monk, he took a ride in a red truck with Phra Dhammachayo and passed a billboard with a picture of the world on it. Phra Dhammachayo told Dr Mano that he had no desire to be Thailand’s supreme patriarch. Instead, he pointed to the sign and said, “Look at that, it is the world. I want to own it.”
Nowadays, Dr Mano said, the structure of the temple is partly modelled off the rigid discipline and personality cult of the Nazi Party.
“His first strategy was to target students, just as Hitler did when he first established the Nazi Party,” Dr Mano said. “Then he slowly spread his teachings to the rich and powerful.”
Senior politicians, as well as some of the country’s leading businessmen, are known to be among the prominent supporters of the temple.
Dr Mano explained that during major ceremonies that Dhammachayo attends, the seating arrangement is based on the “rank” of his followers. Ranks can be purchased for anything between 1,000 baht up to several million. Those who donate more are able to sit in the inner circle, while those in the lower ranks are forced to remain at the fringes.
BELIEVING IN MAGIC
According to his biography, when he was still in high school Chaibul stumbled across a book called Dhammakaya, based on the teachings of Phra Mongkol Thepmuni, of Pak Nam Phasi Charoen temple. The title refers to a philosophy of meditation that, it claims, will lead to enlightenment. The book said, “If you want to follow the path of the Lord, you must learn to know and to see.”
Chaibul was reportedly struck by the word “dhammakaya”, and became infatuated with the idea of visiting Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen to learn more, convinced he was now on the path to finding true meaning in his life.
Another book about meditation also referred to Ajarn Lukchan, a nun who was a disciple of Pra Mongkol Thepmuni. This fortified Chaibul’s resolve to practise dhamma at Pak Nam Temple, and to track down the mysterious nun.
In 1963, when Chaibul was 19 and preparing to go to college, he visited Pak Nam Phasi Charoen temple hoping to meet Ajarn Lukchan. But he was unable to track her down, so instead turned his attention to academic pursuits.
His classmates say Chaibul was not a natural scholar, and had to repeat at least one year on his way to graduating with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from Kasetsart in 1969.
During his first semester at university, however, he returned to Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen to study meditation. This time, according to the temple website, he found Ajarn Lukchan.
The book he had read about Ajarn Lukchan had described the nun — also known as Mae Chi Chan — as a magical figure, capable of flying simply by using the power of her mind. In a more bizarre part of the story, she was able to use this mental strength to divert two atomic bombs that the US had apparently dropped on Thailand in 1945 — redirecting them to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“Chaibul fully believed in what he read and he wanted to have the same powers,” Dr Mano said. “So he began to search for the magical nun.”
According to the official story, “When Dhammachayo first met the grand mother [Mae Chi Chan], she was 53 years old. She looked like any ordinary nun with a slim body. But her eyes were bright, shining with the light of people who possess the wisdom of dhamma.”
Although Lukchan never studied and was illiterate, simply using words she was able to enlighten the minds of her disciples, the website claimed.
On his first day of meditation study, Dhammachayo asked Ajarn Lukchan if heaven and hell were real. The nun replied, “They are real. I have been there to help my father who was in hell because of drinking. I entered a phra body [similar to an angel] to bring him to heaven. Do you want to go? I will teach you and we will go together.”
‘NOTHING BUT A LIAR’
Spectrum went to Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen to learn more about Ajarn Lukchan — who died in 2000 — and her supposed “magical powers”. The temple was full of people who had come to make merit on Makha Bucha Day. Somdej Phramaharatchamangkhalacharn, the abbot of the temple, is the Acting Supreme Patriarch of Thailand. He was also the preceptor of Phra Dhammachayo.
The temple is situated on more than 20 rai of land alongside Bangkok Yai canal, though there is little available space between its many tightly-packed buildings. Thousands of worshippers flock to the temple each day to visit the high-ranking monks who reside there.
Spectrum approached several people and tried to ask them about Mae Chi Chan. Most were unwilling to answer. But one person agreed, so long as his name was not published. He said he had known Dhammachayo since his university years, and was among the first to be ordained as a Dhammakaya monk before becoming disillusioned and abandoning the order.
Asked about Ajarn Lukchan, he said: “Mae Chi Chan is real, but the Mae Chi Chan or Ajarn Lukchan that Chaibul believes in was nothing but a liar.
“Mae Chi Chan was a blind old nun at the temple, who was very talented. The one Chaibul met was just a fraud.”
He explained that when Chaibul went looking for Mae Chi Chan, this “fraudulent” nun happened to be there at that time, and was able to convince Chaibul that she was the real deal.
She later taught Chaibul and his friends from the Youth Buddhist Club meditation at the temple.
According to the Dhammakaya website, it was during this period of meditation that Chaibul learned the meaning of life.
MIND GAMES
Phra Dhammachayo was not only drawn to meditation and spirituality — he also became adept in the art of illusion. According to the Dhammakaya website, Phra Dhammachayo was walking among the used book vendors in Sanam Luang one day when he came across street performers staging a magic show. Chaibul was intrigued, and returned to watch the show every day, slowly picking up all of the magicians’ tricks.
“He told me he used the tricks that he learned from the show and performed them at Kasetsart University during faculty parties, and he always got a lot of attention,” Dr Mano said. “He just loved being loved.”
The former follower told Spectrum that before Chaibul was ordained, there were also times that he ran into trouble with girls.
“He was a pretty boy, he knows how to work his charm and he knows how to make people love him. Especially women,” he said.
He told Spectrum that it was his job to stop women from following Chaibul into the temple. “We had our club activities at the building inside the temple called Ban Thamprasit, and I had to be the human fence many times when his women came after him,” he explained.
“I asked Chaibul what he did with these women. He told me he did nothing but talk to them,” he said. “When I talked to the women, they all said Chaibul did more than just talk.”
GAINING GROUND
According to the Dhammakaya website, as Chaibul studied under Ajarn Lukchan he became impatient and wanted to be ordained immediately, but she encouraged him to finish university first.
On Ajarn Lukchan’s birthday in 1968, Chaibul promised to be ordained as a gift to her. After graduating from Kasetsart a year later, he vowed to become a monk for the rest of his days. His parents welcomed the decision, and on August 27, 1969, he was ordained at Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen by Phra Somdej and given the name “Dhammachayo”, or victory by dhamma.
On Feb 23, 1970 — Makha Bucha day — construction began on Dhammakaya temple.
The Dhammakaya website said funding for the construction started with 3,200 baht collected by Mae Chi Chan and a 196-rai land plot donated by a supporter, Khunying Prayat Paetpongsavisuthathibodi.
In 1972, another 80-acre piece of land was donated to the temple, expanding its site in Pathum Thani, about 40km north of Bangkok. The plot has now grown to some 3,000 rai.
But just a few years after the temple was built, the two other founders had a falling out with Phra Dhammachayo over his teachings and management style. They eventually moved on to other temples.
Dr Mano, who was still a monk, came back to help Phra Dhammachayo reform the temple. Within three years, its revenue grew 300%. The target was young and educated people who could be easily impressed by the polished appearance of the temple. The grounds were clean and tidy, dominated by the unusual golden dome at its centre.
Dr Mano also later helped establish a Dhammakaya temple in California, as part of Phra Dhammachayo’s quest for global expansion.
Wat Dhammakaya expanded its followers by using what was essentially a multi-level marketing model, where one follower would be given incentives to recruit new ones. The temple also has its own free TV satellite channel, DMC, to connect directly with followers. Publicity stunts, such as parades of hundreds of monks through the streets of Bangkok, help draw in followers lured in by the temple’s grandeur.
EARTHLY POWERS
Questions began surfacing over the temple’s doctrine as early as the 1990s, especially its insistence that merit-making be linked to the amount of money donated. It also drew flak over the selection of a woman dressed up in a golden peacock costume to lead a religious ceremony.
More recently, it has been embroiled in scandal over alleged links to the 12-billion-baht Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative embezzlement scandal.
Last Wednesday morning, hundreds of Phra Dhammachayo’s followers who gathered at the temple to celebrate Makha Bucha day were left disappointed when the abbot did not show up to preside over prayers.
Close aides attributed the abbot’s absence to illness. But the previous day, the Department of Special Investigation had summoned Phra Dhammachayo and other monks from the temple for questioning after they were accused of receiving more than one billion baht from suspects in the embezzlement scandal.
Though impossible to determine because of the temple’s refusal to reveal details of its finances, Wat Dhammakaya is believed to be the richest in the country. It has more than 50 branch temples nationwide, and has expanded overseas with more than 130 temples around the globe.
The preliminary investigation into the Klongchan scandal has also found that the cooperative would lend Dhammakaya followers money to make merit at the temple, charging them above-market interest rates. Some followers were asked to donate money regardless of its source.
‘HE LIES, HE CHEATS’
In the 1990s, Dr Mano said he returned from the United States to discover that Wat Dhammakaya had become involved with a range of businesses. On checking the temple finances, he found a document showing Phra Dhammachayo was involved with an “inappropriate business”.
“I told Phra Dhammachayo that this is not right,” Dr Mano said. His concerns were rebuffed.
The rift prompted Dr Mano to leave the monkhood in 1998. “It was the saddest day of my life to have to leave the monkhood that way, but I know I made the right decision,” he said.
The other former follower left because he became convinced Phra Dhammachayo was little more than a fraud.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I still believed in him. He lies, he cheats, and he also did many things that a monk is not supposed to do.” n