Ven. Kadigamuwa Nayaka thera addressing a group of Dhamma school teachers and novice monks in the North Central Province at the Bingiriya Maha Vidyalaya expressed his concern about the growing trend among young Bhikkus to leave Sasana after university graduation. More than 1,350 young had thus left their village temples during the last five years after securing government jobs, the Thera said.

The Nayaka Thera said temples had been closed for want of resident monks and many others were on the verge of closure for the same reason. He stressed the need to arrest the trend urgently and ensure that temples were not thus abandoned in Sri Lanka known the world over as a land of pure Theravada Buddhism. The most important duty of a Buddhist monk was, the Nayake Thera said, to conserve and disseminate the teachings of the Enlightened One. Mundane matters, he said, were of secondary nature to a monk who had ceased to be a layman. The Buddhist temple was the very foundation of the Sri Lankan society and it was essential for the clergy and the laity alike to protect it for their own sake.

"Most people and devotees listen to Buddhist sermons very attentively but they never apply the sublime Buddhism to their day-to-day lives," the Thera said. Therein lay the reason why people were not at peace either with themselves or with the world. Buddhism, he said, was an eternal truth to be followed and respected in everything that a person did. It had to be properly practised if its benefits were to accrue to people.