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Narada Thero Affective Bonds and the Making of a Social Service Monk During one afternoon in April 1999, I—along with Thilak, my research assistant —met Venerable Narada. Thilak and I received directions to Narada’s temple from Thilak’s wife, who had been working with Narada at the local high school at the time. After a journey that stretched well over two hours because of the heavy traffic that normally follows in the wake of the country’s schools letting out each afternoon, we arrived at the foot of a narrow, steep driveway that, we were told, leads to the temple. Beside a concealed gateway (torana), there was no sign of a temple from the road. The large street placard that now indicates the temple’s name and address was not installed at the time. We began our ascent. As we came to a small curve in the road, the temple came into view. The land around the temple, dotted with garbage and plastic bags, was somewhat large. The temple was not. To our right was a small Bodhi tree.1 Several tattered Buddhist flags hung from its branches. To our left was the newest addition to the temple: a preaching hall that also functioned as a formal alms-giving hall (dānasālāva). Opposite the preaching hall and immediately after the Bodhi tree was a run-down three-room residence building with a makeshift kitchen in the back. Several senior students, I quickly came to learn, lived in the small residence, and Narada and his many younger students slept on straw mats in the preaching hall. On a small hill next to the preaching hall was a small, damp image house (pilimagē). Faded paintings that portrayed the Buddha’s past lives, randomly culled from the Jātaka collection, covered the interior walls.2 In the middle of the octagonally shaped room that symbolizes the Fourth Noble Truth—the eightfold path—was a four-foot-high tiled platform, with a small table to receive flowers and other offerings. Sitting on the center of the platform was a large, colorful sculpture of a Bodhi tree. At each of the four cardinal directions was a buddha statue, representing the most recent buddha—Gotama—and three of his predecessors.3 At the time of that first visit, construction had only recently begun on what would become a four-story living quarters that would, in the course of the next ten years, be large enough to house more than seventy-five monks and novices. 1 2 • Narada Thero On our arrival, the temple’s deputy head monk welcomed us. He told us that Narada, who had just returned from his teaching duties at the village’s high school, would see us shortly. After about a ten minute wait, we were offered tea and biscuits . As is customary, I had brought an offering to the temple: a box of milk powder to which I nervously clung as we waited to meet the temple’s head monk. Narada, who was forty-one at the time, arrived within twenty minutes or so. After sitting down on his chair, he warmly welcomed us to his temple. His clean-shaven head and face stood in marked contrast to the monks with whom I had previously interacted at the University of Peradeniya. I was struck by his vivacious demeanor and warm eyes. His bright, large smile immediately put me at ease. Although he was the temple’s head monk (literally, big lord [loku hāmuduruwo]), he was quite unassuming; his maroon polyester-blend robes had several small holes which, I came to realize over the next week or so, were the result of his active participation in the temple’s ongoing construction projects. Thilak introduced me as an American student interested in studying the lives of Buddhist novices for my PhD. Luckily, Narada was quite familiar with the university system as well as with the process of thesis writing, because he was a university graduate and not at all suspicious of my wish to conduct research at his temple.4 After some more small talk, Narada unhesitatingly opened his temple to us. The fact that Thilak’s wife worked with Narada certainly helped. After giving Narada a brief and somewhat imprecise description of what I hoped to research—namely, the phenomenon of Buddhist novices, their training, and education—Narada called all of his students to the residence hall. Apparently , he thought that we would be interviewing them all...

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