Live and Let Dine

In the basement of a former Catholic church in the Bronx, a Buddhist monk uses radish broth and tofu to tip the scales toward karma.

Photos by James Boo

Sitting in the basement of his temple—a makeshift cafeteria lit by soft fluorescent tubes and populated by plastic furniture—Thich Thien Chi struggles to explain the meaning of “Chieu Kien,” the temple’s name. After 38 years of practice as a Buddhist monk, half of them spent here in the Bronx, he doesn’t make a particularly forceful evangelist.