This temple is quite vast and more than one dome has been built by now (the Google photo looks to be several years old). The surface of the UFO is ringed with seats for thousands of monks to sit and lead the meditation of tens of thousands of its cult members housed in dozens of massive open-air meditation pavilions surrounding each UFO. The gold Buddha image contained inside the UFO, under the central gold bubble, is wholly alien looking: willowy, amorphous, unearthly. The temple is open to the public, but access inside the UFO is not. You need a car to drive around the grounds, still under construction, but much further developed than in this Google pic. There are many bizarre sculptures on the grounds, including a giant fiber optic fountain made from gigantic forks and spoons outside the monk's feeding hall.
Religious - Buddhism
Links: www.dhammakaya.or.th
By: noooby
http://www.siamorama.com/pix/ufo2.jpg -- one of the gigantic "UFOs"
http://www.siamorama.com/pix/ufo4.jpg -- a second one
http://www.siamorama.com/pix/ufo3.jpg -- one of their home-made parking barries showing the UFO in flight, radiating.
The vast pavilions seem to be an attempt to massively parallel the meditative power of a million cult members silumtaneously, perhaps to levitate these enormous celestial disks.
Surprised that it's gained the nickname "UFO temple"?
The Asahi Brewery headquarters in Tokyo is a post-modern pedestal topped by a gargatuan golden squiggle (an heroic "flame" say the Board of Directors?). I was on a train headed for Nikko when we passed the brewery and the office ladies sitting across the isle from me all screamed, "There's the gold shit building!"
http://yasui.anjiro.com/~anjiro/pictures/2003_japan/tokyo/tn/07100071.jpg.index.html for pics of the Asahi Brewery
By the way, as wild as this temple is, it's not the most extraordinary new wave religious monument being built in Thailand. Just north of Pattaya, The Sanctuary of Truth, a mystical 100 X 100 X 100 meter teakwood fantasia, is being hand-carved by a private army of craftsmen that has already been at work for 30 years (another 20 to go).
None of us were alive to see the Taj Mahal being built. Head to Thailand if you want to these two world wonders of tomorrow in progress.
The Dhammakaya Cetiya is a symbol of mankind's peacefulness arising from the helping hands of people around the world creating world peace through inner peace.
WDC. World Dhammakaya Center /Dhammakaya Foundation / Wat Phra Dhammakaya is located at :
Khlong 3, Khlong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand Tel. (662) 524-0257 to 63
http://www.dhammakaya.or.th
In fact, world peace will be a result of everyone having a peaceful mind. Therefore, we need a center for mindpower development for everyone so that people will be spiritually happy and find true happiness within themselves.
Besides developing the mind's power through meditation, we also cultivate moral conduct for interested people. Therefore, we will organize many activities beneficial to all mankind.