A Common Practice, A Separate Experience

Anne Lilburn

February 2, 2004

New faces do not go unnoticed on Sunday mornings at the New York Buddhist Church, a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th streets. Newcomers are asked to introduce themselves to the 50-person crowd gathered for the weekly Dharma service.

"Would you like to make an offering of incense?" asked one older woman to each new visitor. "I can show you how, if you like. It's very easy."

She led them up to the small incense altar at the front of the hondo, the room where services are held, There, Dmitri Bakhroushin took over the lesson, teaching the church's four first-time visitors oshoku, the incense ceremony, which, according to the church brochure, is requested of all who attend the service. According to the brochure, oshoku "is a way to express gratitude and respect, symbolizes the act of purifying our minds and bodies, and reminds us of the impermanence of all things."

On the incense table, two strings of spare beads hung on a wooden hook for anyone to borrow. Bakhroushin carried his own prayer beads, a string of simple, marble-sized wooden beads strung into a loop and ending in a tassel.

The offering ceremony looked waltz-like from a distance, and was simple enough for the newcomers to learn: first, a bow, with arms at side. Then, with beads held in the left hand, a pinch of incense, from a bowl on the right, tossed into the burning urn. After that, one step back, followed by a bow with hands together in a praying position, called gassho, which to Buddhists symbolizes not prayer, but simply respect and gratitude. After another step back, the beads were returned.

While teaching the incense ceremony, Bakhroushin reassured his students that, although a small bowl full of twenty-dollar bills and checks sealed in envelopes sat to the left of the urn, monetary offerings were neither required nor expected of them.

Bakhroushin, who travels 85 blocks each Sunday from his home in Washington Heights, found Buddhism while serving in the Army in Vietnam. While on leave, he took a vacation to Kyoto, Japan. At the time, Bakhroushin was devoutly Russian Orthodox. He searched the hotel for a Bible, but what he found instead was a Buddhist text. As he read, he began to see what he says are striking similarities between the texts of both Buddhism and Christianity.

He has been coming to the New York Buddhist Church since 1976, and says he now enjoys welcoming and teaching others. As more experienced congregants stepped up to the incense, some carrying prayer beads and others not, each pausing and bowing in his or her own time, Bakhroushin noted that everyone performed the ceremony slightly differently. Buddhism, he explained, was about an individual experience, not about a strict set of procedures and rituals.

"We're not supposed to have ritual, just salvation through faith," he explained.
Instead, he said the experience of the incense offering was meant as a personal way for each individual to focus his or her meditation.

"This is a symbolic way of purifying the mind," said Bakhroushin. "We burn away the bad thoughts."

Though the incense ceremony was an important part of the Dharma service, Bakhroushin said that it was not the most meaningful part to him. Instead, he preferred the Nembutsu chant. In the chant, the congregants chant "Na-mo, a-mi, da-bu," which in Japanese means, "I rely on the Buddha of immeasurable light and immeasurable life."

Jeniere Bailey, a 27-year-old Virginia native who has been coming to the temple since moving to New York two and a half years ago, also comes mostly for the chanting.

"It makes me feel better. I know it sounds stupid, but if I come here in a bad mood, I feel better after. It sets my day."

For others, the rituals and ceremonies are the least important part of this church. Marami Sumitami, 30, came to New York from Japan ten years ago. Though Buddhism has been a tradition in her family for over 400 years, she said she knew little about it until coming here to this church. In Japan, she said, everyone is Buddhist, and temples are closed off, open only to members. The general public is allowed to pray to the Buddha statues outside, but religion is generally limited to festivals and celebrations.

"In Japan, I don't have any chance to learn about it, never had a chance to study it, because it is just the way," said Sumitami. "I never had a chance to hear monks."

She comes to hear the minister, Reverend T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, a friendly minister who stopped frequently during his sermon, delivered in both Japanese and English, to smile and laugh at himself as he translated his words between the two languages. In the end, he delievered the same sermon twice.

"In Japan, monks are higher than us," said Sumitami. "Here, they are more friendly."

Sumitami brought her friend Futoshi Funakubo, 24, who has been visiting from Japan for the past month, to see the service and to hear Reverend Nakagaki speak. Funakubo said that he too had never heard monks speak in Japan, and he enjoyed the relaxed and informal rapport with the minister.

They were not the only ones who took to the amiable minister, who mingled with his parishioners over sushi and green tea after the service. Marianna Datseris, 26, a medical student looking at residency programs in New York, was visiting the church for the first time. She's not a practicing Buddhist, and she said she wasn't looking for a religion as much as she was seeking a spiritual experience. Though she came mostly for the meditation, she said, she was drawn in by the service.

"All this was very lovely," she said. "I liked very much taking in what the reverend said, and also his nature, how he is," and added that she liked how he laughed and smiled as he spoke.

Each churchgoer seemed to value a different aspect of the service, This, said Bakhroushin and fellow long-time churchgoer Jerry Pevahouse, a twenty-year Buddhist, was in keeping with the religion's emphasis on the individual experience. Buddhism, he said, encourages each person to have a personal, individual experience, unique from the person meditating or chanting to his or her left or right.

The difference in opinion also seemed in keeping with Reverend Nakagaki's sermon, which focused on bringing together the different schools of Buddhism by learning to appreciate and celebrate differences and by finding common ground.

"Oneness is a difference, and difference is a oneness," he told his congregation. "I hope you can keep that in mind."

(Updated May 4, 2004)