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At Wat Phra-Dhammajak, we have five large festivals every year that the public is cordially invited to attend

Respect to the Teacher Day Ceremony

Once a year, on a day determined by Luang Pa, Wat Pra-Dhammajak has a celebration for our Abbot, which we call "Wai-kru Day" or "Honor the Teacher Day." It is our biggest celebration of the year. All Luang-Pa's students come and join in this ceremony. His closest students will each bring a small bowl that they have decorated with banana leaves and flowers that they will place on the altar. You can see the "Bai-Sri" bowls in the pictures to the left. The students also prepare different kinds of food as a symbol of respect for the teacher. In this way students show their gratitude to the to the teacher and thank him for his teaching and kindness. Students believe that this ceremony will bring good things into their lives.

In this celebration there is also Thai traditional dancing and traditional Thai plays.

To see pictures from the 2001 celebration, click here.

Special Rice Cooking Festival

On the first Sunday after the end of the the Buddhist Lent we have a special rice cooking ceremony; it is part of the Tod Katin ceremony (see below). The special rice for the ceremony has sixty ingredients and is cooked by unmarried women dressed entirely in white. The rice is cooked for five hours and then placed into small packages and given to the lay people who have come for the ceremony.

This festival originated in the Ayuttaya era of Thai history and continued until the time of King Rama I of the present Rattanakosin reign. The festival was revived by King Rama IV in the 19th century.

In Wat Phra-Dhammajak, we celebrate this festival on the first two nights of the Tod Katin Ceremony.

The Tod Katin Ceremony

The Tod Katin Ceremony is to give monks new monk robes and thus allow lay people to make merit. This ceremony is celebrated one month after the Buddhist Lent in every temple in Thailand.

The Tak-Bhat Tae-Vo Festival

When the Buddhist lent ends we celebrate the Tak-Bhat Tae-Vo festival.. Traditionally we believe that this is the day that the Buddha came from heaven to the city in northern India known as Sangkasa-nakorn . Thai Buddhists believe that people who join in this festival will get special merit.

In the ceremony lay people place "Kao Toom Hang" or cooked rice wrapped with coconut leaf in monks' bowls. In some places, monks walk in a queue between two lines of people who place the rice into the monks' bowls.

In our temple, monks walk down from the hill and receive rice from people who have lined both sides of the path.

The Vien Tien Festival

Three times a year, on the full-moon night of the third, sixth, and eighth month of the lunar year, Thai Buddhists celebrate the Vien Tien Festival. These three times occur on the Makapucha Day, the Wisakapucha Day and the Arsalahapucha Day. We do the same thing on all three days -- lay people, led by monks, walk around the stupa within temple three times. The first round is to show respect for the Buddha; the second is for the teachings of the Buddha, the Dhamma. The last round is to show respect for the monks.