World Religions in Greater Boston: Home

Update: In the fall of 2006, Wat Nawamintararachutis relocated from Watertown to a new center in Raynham.

History

A group of Thai families resident in the Boston area became interested, late in the 1990s, in founding a Theravada Buddhist temple in honor of the Thai monarch Rama IX, Bhumibhol Adulyadej, who was born at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge on December 5, 1927. The group enlisted the support of Phraphromwachirayan, abbot of the Royal Temple Wat Yanawa in Bangkok, who had helped establish a temple in Chicago and was developing other Thai Buddhist temples in the USA. Following Thai tradition that the laity should provide the impetus for realizing such a vision, the Boston Thais organized their community and met the requisites for supporting a new temple.

Wat Nawamintararachutis was inaugurated on August 1, 2001 in Boston as a Theravada Buddhist temple of the Mahanikai sect and is registered as a nonprofit organization, the NMR Buddhist Meditation Center. (The other Theravada temple in the Boston area is of the Thammayut sect.) “Wat” is the word for temple in the Thai language. The name itself is, characteristically, a composite of several Sanskrit words. As a whole it can be taken to mean “the Temple of King Rama the Ninth of the Chakri Dynasty.” For convenience the temple is called simply “Wat Nawamin.”

Thai monks are always in residence, numbering from a few up to 10 at any given time depending on the time of year (monks make a seasonal retreat and often they come to visit on the occasion of special events and festivities). Generally they are selected from a corps of so-called “missionary monks” based at the Sangha university in Bangkok, Mahachulalongkorn, to serve Thai communities abroad.

On June 1, 2003, the temple moved to its current address in Watertown, a private house. The community is searching for a suitable new site in the Boston area, hopefully of 10 or more acres, where a proper temple complex can be built with facilities for monks, a meditation center and a cultural center for Thai arts and learning.

Services

The resident monks host hour-long meditation and chanting services daily at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM. In addition, throughout the day, the monks are available to receive laity for counsel, to perform religious rites, and to tutor in Buddhism, Thai culture, and language. On Sundays, the busiest day of the week, informal lessons are offered to children and adults. They are taught in Thai by both monks and laypersons, and subjects regularly consist of Buddhist philosophy, Thai culture, and language. All of these services are open to all people.

Also, throughout the year, the community hosts about a dozen events, usually at Hibernian Hall (151 Watertown St.), that celebrate Buddhist holy days and public events. Such gatherings function as fundraisers as well.

Sangha (the community)

Throughout the year, hundreds of different people attend the daily services at the temple and the larger events at Hibernian Hall. From five to 30 people may attend any given morning or evening service, while up to 500 may participate at the special events.

The community consists primarily of Thai families, many of them in the restaurant business and various professions. Besides Thai people, Americans and other nationals not of Thai origin attend the services. The community extends to the network of other Thai Buddhist temples in many American cities and towns that support each other in various ways; the most well-known of them are in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.