Iwas speaking to my teacher recently. He has spent many years training in Shaolin, training in China, in the temple and learning from the monks themselves. He eventually trained enough and earned the right to be called Shaolin disciple. This is not a warrior monk. Warrior monks are the ones that supposable spend their lives in the temple training, don’t venture out, don’t compete in any competitions, the top tier. Disciples are allowed to leave, compete and basically do what they want. When I questioned him about his time in China, what it was like and life in the temple.
Some of the stuff he told me shocked me and did not at all match of to the myth and legend of the Shaolin temple that I believed. This led me to do a bit of research.
A little Shaolin history
Before I get into that I’d like to talk about a bit of history. The Shaolin temple complex in the mountains of central China was born some 1500 years ago. It owes it’s existed to an Indian monk, Bodhi Dharma who began to preach Zen Buddhism in the temple and started its martial arts tradition. It started as 72 basic fighting movements and expanded to 170 moves divided into five styles named after the animal that the movements resemble: Leopard, Tiger, Snake, Crane, and Dragon.
Shaolin was introduced to the western world in the 1970 TV series, Kung Fu starring David Carradine. In the intro, we see a young monk completing a rite of passage ceremony where he had to lift and move a heavy cauldron filled with glowing cinders, this caused his arms to be branded with a dragon and a tiger. This monk also had fighting skills that were unsurpassed.
Back then no one had seen anything like it. Today not so much. You can go to any city, theme park or cruise ship in the world and find a Shaolin school or performance. Shaolin has become a brand and that’s where the problem lies.
But one thing is for sure: Anyone attempting to research the history of the Shaolin past 1928 is going to have real trouble.
Cutting a long story short the Shaolin temple found themselves on the wrong side of a losing battle between warlords. Chiang Kai-shek reign began. The temple was overrun with the surrounding areas. Some 200 monks were killed. The National Army spent weeks systematically burning and destroying this symbol of Old China. This is not the only time history talks of its destruction. In particular, it’s said that the Qing Dynasty, sometime in the 1600s or 1700s, destroyed the Shaolin Temple. It is then said this led to 5 fugitive monks escaping and managed to continue the Shaolin and Kung Fu ways. There’re also times in history where the temple was ransacked and lied abandoned for long periods of time. This obviously led to many of the old and ancient texts being destroyed or lost.
During the radical political campaigns of the turbulent 1966-76 Cultural Revolution – when religion was basically banned – still more buildings, statues, and relics were destroyed.
But nerveless the temple rose back up and by the 1970’s it was fully back in business.
Shaolin today
When I spoke to my teacher. He basically said they temple are in it for the money. Shaolin has become a national brand. There’s no such thing as them not taking foreigners as they pay the most. You don’t stay in the temple, you stay in surrounding accommodation that used to be old Kung Fu schools. The problem started in the 80’s. The Chinese government started sponsoring Shaolin as a national brand.
I don’t like to say it but basically, the temple sold out. The temple used to have loads of Kung Fu schools around it usually from former monks but the government shut them all down so the temple was the only place to go and now the schools are accommodation for foreigners and new students. If anybody were to go there and train to today, you pretty much have pay through the nose for everything even water. Yeah, you can learn the forms and fighting if you willing to pay. Buy the robes and have your picture taken with the Abbot who some have nicknamed CEO Monk.
Everything is commercial and they no longer train for free. They used to really soley on donations. It’s big business, there are many satellite Shaolin schools the largest accommodates over 8,000 students. In 1980, the Chinese government hired a number of former masters to write new sacred Shaolin texts to replace those lost in 1928 so the reliability of Shaolin texts is sketchy at best. The Shaolin “brand” owns properties all over the world. Shaolin is currently building a huge luxury hotel complex called “Shaolin Village” in Australia. Now I have no idea what that is going to entail.
My teacher also said the Shaolin traditions are more upheld by foreigners now, that have learned there then opened their own classes back home such as himself and other local Shaolin teachers you can find.
But it’s not all bad news. There are many former Shaolin warriors’ monks that have rejected the commercial ways so ventured into the mountains and small villages to open their own Shaolin schools away from the government and tourists looking to site see. Best thing is you can also go to these small temples, stay and train with the monks sometimes for free as long as you do some of the daily chores, like how the temple used to be. Only they are not quite as military as the traditional temple. After a little research, one such example of this can be found on a blog I discovered called Stevie on the move. Now this is more like it. Although he was charged a small donation he talks about it being a very peaceful and spiritual place, what you would expect from a Shaolin temple. It a very interesting read and short which is what I like.
I also came across this BBC documentary on YouTube called Extreme Pilgrim linked below. It’s about British catholic a priest on a pilgrimage into other religions. In this episode, he visits the Shaolin temple expecting to find enlightenment but soon discovers the temple is basically a branded theme park where you can train but not much else. There’s not much Buddhism or meditation. He soon ventures into the mountains to find a monk who runs a small monastery where he truly has some eye-opening experiences. This must have been more of what my teacher was talking about.
So, it seems the Shaolin temple has truly lost its essence. What made it what it was. The films portray it as a mystic place full of spirituality and enlightenment. Can it return to its old ways? In saying that who knows, maybe it’s always been this way, with much of its history lost or destroyed we may never know what it once was.
