'Khun Yai' Chand Khonnokyoong was born in January 1909 in Nakorn Chaisri Province, Thailand, to a family of rice farmers. She was the fifth child among nine siblings. When she was 12, her father died, and she did not have a chance to ask for forgiveness, which kept her unhappy about it for many years.
1927, when Chand was 18 years old, she heard about the supernormal meditative powers of the Great Master Phramongkolthepmuni, who taught an advanced form of meditation known as the Dhammakaya Knowledge. Chand wished that one day she would have the opportunity to meet the Great Master and learn this Knowledge from him to seek forgiveness from her deceased father.
Chand left home in 1935 when she was 26 to look for the Great Master at Wat Paknam. She began as a domestic helper for a regular benefactor of the Great Master, Madam Liab. She met a meditation master, Khun Yai Tongsuk Samdaengpan, who taught meditation at Madam Liab's home. Chand eventually attained Dhammakaya and could communicate with her father and ask for forgiveness.
In 1938, upon seeing Chand for the first time when she went to practice meditation at Wat Paknam, the Great Master greeted her with these words. "What kept you so long?" Then, without having to pass the usual examinations in meditation practice, the Great Master sent Chand straight into the meditation workshop. The workshop was reserved for the most accomplished meditators to study the Dhammakaya Knowledge 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop.
On 3 February 1959, the Great Master passed away at the age of 75. Five years prior to his death, the Great Master instructed Chand to continue to spread the Dhammakaya Knowledge to the world and to wait for key individuals who would carry on his mission.
In 1963, Chand met a young university student named Chaiyaboon Suddhipol, who was eager to learn meditation and later excelled in meditation within a short period. Chaiyaboon is none other than our Most Venerable Dhammajayo-Abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya.
In 1967, Chand's disciples helped construct a larger 2-story wooden building inside the Wat Paknam compound to serve as a meditation center. It was named "the Dhammaprasit House". In no time, the house overflowed with people flocking to practice meditation.
On the full moon day of 27 August 1969, Chaiyaboon Suddhipol was ordained as a Buddhist monk at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen. Within the same year, Khun Yai and her team received 78 acres of land in Khlong Luang, Pathumthani Province, from Lady Phaetayapongsa-Visudhathibodi Prayad to build a temple.
In 1970, Padej Pongsawat (Luangpor Dattacheevo) was delegated to look after the plot of land and oversee the new temple's construction. Khun Yai and Luangpor Dhammajayo remained at the Dhammaprasit House to teach meditation and help raise funds to construct the future Wat Phra Dhammakaya. Their starting sum was 3200 baht (US$160 in 1970).
In 1975, Luangpor Dhammajayo and Khun Yai moved from the Dhammaprasit House in Wat Paknam into the Buddhajak Meditation Center, later renamed Wat Phra Dhammakaya and the Dhammakaya Foundation. There are more than 200 branch centers spread across Thailand and abroad nowadays.
On 1 January 1998, Luangaos Dhammajayo and Yai's disciples throughout the world cast a gold statue of Khun Yai in honor of her 90th birthday.
On the early Sunday morning of 10 September 2000, Khun Yai passed away at the age of 91.