A passer-by hugs Slava Slasarenko while he collects donations.
A harsh mix of wind and rain is enough to keep most people indoors, but not Slava Slesarenko. Wrapped in his bright yellow robe, he stands outside the Moulin de Provence Bakery in the Byward Market with his eyes closed.
Now and then, someone adds to the black bowl cupped in Slesarenko’s hands – a handful of change or a box of chocolates. After each contribution, Slesarenko turns to his benefactor and bows deeply with a smile.
Meditating with his alms bowl in hand is just one of the practices Slesarenko adopted over the last 23 years, ever since he dedicated his life to Buddhist monkhood. His conspicuous post on bustling street corners is meant to draw attention.
Every day, after his morning prayers, he walks through the downtown core, starting at his home at O’Connor and Lisgar. Rain or shine, Slesarenko says he continues his street practice, sometimes beating a drum, so people know there is a monk in the city.
“It raises the thought in human mind that there’s something else available,” he says.
His own search for something else led Slesarenko to leave his hometown of Sevastopol, the second largest port in Ukraine, in 1989. He was 19 with 15 years of cadet schooling. The Soviet Union was at war and Slesarenko was expected to serve in Afghanistan with the navy.
He had not heard of Buddhism, but Slesarenko says he already considered himself “a peaceful person. I did not want to go to war, simple like that.".
Soviet military service, however, was not voluntary. To convince the government he was unfit to serve, Slesarenko turned to self-injury. He ended up in intensive care, suffering from severe blood loss, and was relieved from duty three months later.
The incident was a turning point for Slesarenko. “I always believe in, you know, something more beautiful and important we can do with our lives than just exist,” he says.
When he recovered, Slesarenko divorced his wife, quit his job and took his paycheque to the airport. “I just left,” he says. “I knew something was wrong.”
Slesarenko booked the first flight he could afford out of Ukraine and landed in Kazakhstan. With the rest of his money, he bought a bus ticket into the mountains of Afghanistan.
For three months during avalanche season, he survived alone – mainly on wild strawberries – before ice climbers found him and took him to their camp. He spent a month there before deciding to return to the Soviet Union.
He went to Russia and took a train to St. Petersburg. On the way, a note in the newspaper caught Slesarenko’s eye. Buddhist lamas from Mongolia were teaching at a local temple. Slesarenko had never set foot in a temple before. When he walked in, however, he found what he had been looking for.
“Once I come in the main hall, I look at the altar and I smell the incense, and it was so calm and quiet . . . and I just felt I didn’t want to go anywhere else,” Slesarenko says. “I want to stay as I am right here.”
Slesarenko began volunteering at the temple and soon caught the attention of the head of the monastery. He studied there for three years as the first Slavic monk until Junsei Terasawa, a Japanese Buddhist monk, recruited him as a student. Under his guidance, Slesarenko organized Buddhist communities in Russia and Ukraine.
By 1999, however, Slesarenko was looking for a new challenge. He came to Canada, where he said he had to “start from zero.”
After 14 years in the city, Slesarenko says he sees a hunger for community in Ottawa, where everyone suffers alone with constant stress. “People have hundreds of friends on the Facebook,” he says, “but at the same time, they don’t have nobody to just sit and chat when they’re in trouble.”
To fill that void, Slesarenko engages the community beyond his street practice. Since January, he has opened his home at 11-226 O’Connor St. for daily public prayer sessions at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Attendance is sporadic, but Slesarenko says he is content to pray, even when alone.
“I just do my practice and try to show people instead of teaching them,” he says, “just show by my own example that it is possible to be happy.”