Katina

Katina...

My mother in law has taken upon herself to serve the temple of her small village with this years' katina. This is a small temple with just three monks in the suburbs of Kadugannawa. During the past three months or so my husbands' parents, along with many other upaasika upaasikaa in the village served this small ancient temple to renovate it, in various aspects.....
Everyday my father in law goes to the temple at 7 a.m. with many other villagers for the renovation process.
We being in Colombo hear about this arduous endevoir only through the phone...
and yesterday we came home for the ultimate event of the katina... preceded by three 12 hourly pirith (the 3 main sutras) chanting ... katina perahera and then the big ceremony...

Being in the midst of all this... I came to know about the monks in this temple...
the chief monk, who had won the hearts of many, due to his piety and good character... is a teacher by profession and he comes to the temple only in the weekend... and then there is this 14 year old samanera monk, hailing from an economically restrained family in Ampara...who under his circumstances has gained a soft corner in the hearts of most upasikaas in the village...
The third monk, who is probably in his 40s or 50s...is the main monk that resides in the temple...
And the stories I hear about this particular monk is not quite writable... and simply put, he sure is a disgrace to the robe...
But still, the villagers are reluctant to reject him or openly criticize his behavior due to the cultural obedience to the noble robe...

Now... to the point of katina... in Walpole Rahula theros' book ... I remember he writes.... (not the exact word translation , but the gross idea)
" in an age where some of the monks hold on to their respective temples, with such bond and desire... inviting them for the vassa, to stay in the same temple for three months.... is in fact absurd"

And when the monks are established in a particular temple... without being on the walk...like the forest tradition monks, does this whole ordeal of Katina serves a purpose?
When the robes and the atapirikara are stacked up in the temples, that you pay the monk, to buy a robe/atapirikara, to be presented ceremoniously to the same monk, does it serve a purpose ?
When the monks have instilled, into the minds of the laymen, that katina is the ultimate meritorious act that grants, best of the places in heavenly realm, and it paves the way to nibbana.... and this meritorious deed can only be performed by the relatively rich and affluent in the society, does it serve a purpose ?
When .... my hard working father in law... who worked tirelessly for the temple, at the end of the day, sits on the floor and tell me...
දුව....මට නම් පේන විදියට මේ විදියට නම් සල්ලි නැතුව නිවන් යන්නත් හරිම අමාරුයි....
මීට වඩා සාමාන්‍ය විදියක් තියෙන්න ඕනෙ මිනිසූන්ට....
(Daughter... as far as I can see... now only the rich can achieve nirvana...there should be a simpler way for the lay people...)

In this age...for monks established in village or town temples ....does katina still serves a purpose than the cultural hype of the ordeal...and does katina alone holds this described meritorious payback that seems to attract the lay in to continuing this practice in to the future...

"We don't need to be threatened with eternal damnation in order to be kind to one another, do we? "If people are only good because they fear punishment and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed" —Albert Einstein