Paccaya Foundation, a Thai non-profit dedicated to contemporary contemplative practices rooted in Buddhist wisdom, is marking its 10th anniversary this week with a major expansion into education. The foundation has announced the August 2026 launch of The Jataka School, an independent early-years and primary school in Bangkok inspired by Buddhist values and modern pedagogy. The anniversary is also being commemorated with Ratna, a month-long exhibition by Japanese-American artist Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow.
Founded in 2016, Paccaya Foundation has spent a decade facilitating retreats, public talks, and experiential programs that explore how Buddhist practice can be incorporated into daily life. The establishment of The Jataka School represents the foundation’s most ambitious project to date, extending its work from adult contemplative programming into children’s education.
Paccaya Foundation founder and director Kuhn (Bo) Sucharitakul described the move as a natural next phase. “If our first decade was about planting seeds of practice, this next decade is about nurturing environments where those seeds can grow,” he said in statement shared with BDG. “With Jataka, we are translating timeless Buddhist values into a living educational practice for children and families in the modern world.”
The Jataka School in Bangkok’s Bangchak neighborhood will serve children aged 3–11. Designed as an intentionally small learning environment, the school will aim to blend British academic standards with a developmental framework inspired by Buddhist wisdom, developed in collaboration with Middle Way Education in the United States and supported by Khyentse Foundation, founded by the revered Bhutanese lama Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and individual donors.
Rather than positioning Buddhism as a fixed cultural identity, the school curriculum will be aimed at cultivating clarity, compassion, and resilience in students through age-appropriate practices of reflection, ethical inquiry, and creative exploration. Educators involved in the project have described the approach as one that integrates contemplative awareness with critical thinking, emotional literacy, and a global outlook.
Art and creativity will be central to the Jataka model, encouraging students to value process over product, develop intrinsic motivation, and engage with local and regional artists and crafts traditions. The school’s founders say this creative emphasis is intended to nurture curiosity, empathy, and a sense of connection with culture and community.
Admissions for The Jataka School are now open ahead of the planned opening in August.
Ahead of the school launch, Paccaya Foundation is also hosting Ratna, an exhibition by noted Japanese American multidisciplinary artist Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow. The exhibition, running from 4 February–4 March, is hosted at Baan Thewes, a restored ancestral home on the banks of Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River that also houses initiatives of Paccaya Foundation.
The exhibition represents the foundation’s first formal engagement with visual art. The title, Ratna—meaning “jewel” or “precious offering”—signals its focus on dana (Skt. generosity). Crow’s works, informed by Buddhist ritual, Indic wisdom traditions, and sacred geometry, invite visitors to reflect on offering as an embodied practice rather than a material exchange.
“As Paccaya enters its second decade, we are widening the ways people can encounter contemplative practice,” Sucharitakul explained. “Alongside retreats and dialogue, we are now engaging education and culture as living practices. Ratna is an offering in itself—and it opens the ground for what comes next: The Jataka School.”
Several works are intentionally impermanent. Quiet Earth, a carpet of flowers recalling the tradition of Tibetan sand mandalas, is designed to dissolve, while a stainless-steel sculpture created for the exhibition will be gifted to The Jataka School after the show closes. In this way, the exhibition’s central theme of offering is enacted materially, linking the art directly to the foundation’s educational mission.
“The exhibition invites visitors into an urban space for reflection on generosity, devotion, and the ways living Dhamma practice can be woven into everyday life,” Paccaya Foundation told BDG. “Through impermanent materials, participatory works, and site-responsive installations, the exhibition explores creation itself as an act of offering.”
“Art and education are both powerful vehicles for contemplative practice,” Sucharitakul added, “because they invite creativity, participation, and inquiry—not consumption.”
Public programming throughout the exhibition includes weekly meditation sessions, dialogues with teachers from different Buddhist traditions, a Valentine’s Day flower-offering ritual, and a children’s art experience led by educators from The Jataka School, underscoring the connections between contemplative practice, creativity, and learning.
Baan Thewes, built in 1935, carries its own history of Buddhist scholarship and cultural exchange. Associated with Thailand’s Prince Chanthaburi Narunath, a noted translator of Buddhist texts, the house now serves as a contemporary space for dialogue, practice, and cultural engagement. Its restoration and reuse reflect Paccaya Foundation’s wider interest in renewing inherited forms in ways that speak to present-day life.
Paccaya Foundation takes its name from the Pali word paccaya, meaning a facilitating condition. As it enters its second decade, the foundation is positioning itself as a catalyst for new expressions of Buddhist practice—through education, art, and community-based inquiry. With the opening of The Jataka School and the presentation of Ratna, the foundation is signaling a shift from primarily hosting contemplative programs toward shaping longer-term environments in which Buddhist values of generosity, compassion, and mindful awareness can be lived and learned across generations.
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Paccaya Foundation
Middle Way Education
Khyentse Foundation
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