Dec 26, 2016
We're super happy to welcome back a popular guest from season 1 of the Bangkok Podcast - our veritable friend Phra Pandit. As a long-time monk in Thailand and noted lecturer on dhamma, Buddhism, meditation, and deep thought, Pandit is a great source if insight and information.
On this show we (well, Greg, as Evo is traveling) will talk with
Pandit about what happens when a particular Buddhist temple
becomes really big. So big, in fact, that the government wants to
shut it down. In this case it's the Dhammakaya temple, which has
millions of devotees all over Thailand and is led by a rather
controversial monk. As of the date of this post, police have been
camped outside the temple for several weeks as deadline after
deadline for the surrender of the head monk have come and gone and
nothing's happened. It's kind of like the world's most boring
standoff...but something's got to give eventually. Pandit gets into
some details on the political machinations behind the target on the
temple's back, as well as why the stakes are so high for the
temple's head abbot, the magic ingredient that lets a temple go
from being popular to a nationwide social phenomenon - and just how
many people does Dhammakaya's 'flying saucer' meditation area hold,
anyway? (Hint: a lot. Check
out the picture of the saucer area below). 
Don’t forget to leave a
comment or tweet to us – @BkkGreg or @EvoTerra!