Wat Mongkolratanaram ( th, วัดมงคลรัตนาราม) is a small Thai

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple located in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. A wat, it mainly attracts Thai American Buddhists, many of whom are students at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

, but it also draws in many local, non-Buddhists who come searching for the authentic

Thai food Thai cuisine ( th, อาหารไทย, , ) is the national cuisine of Thailand. Thai cooking places emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge. Australian chef David Thompson, an expert on Thai ...

public brunch on Sundays or attend its frequent cultural events. The temple is home to a Thai school for

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

youth, as well as Berkeley's Thai Cultural Center. In 2001, it marked 25 years of being a temple by completing renovations to its Victorian -era building to adapt the architecture to temple style. In February 2009, a group of neighbors sought to shut down the Sunday public brunch, citing litter and traffic. The Zoning Adjustments Board of Berkeley voted 8 to 1 to keep the Sunday brunch, and the board chair "praised the temple for being a positive influence" in the neighborhood. The brunch runs on donations; visitors pay for tokens and exchange them for dishes. The Thai-born Ajahn Manat is the current abbot of Wat Mongkolratanaram. In 1997 the Wat was home to the East Bay chapter of the

Cypherpunk A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal g ...

References

External links

Yelp page for Wat Mongkolratanaram
Thai-American culture in California Thai Theravada Buddhist temples and monasteries Overseas Thai Buddhist temples Culture of Berkeley, California Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area Buddhism in the San Francisco Bay Area Buddhist temples in Berkeley {{AlamedaCountyCA-struct-stub

See also

References

External links