Why The Kung Fu Monks Are Losing Their Religion

The Buddhists of Shaolin gave the world its supreme fatal belligerent art. But now their gift has become a curse, writes Clifford CoonanMonday, 12 September 2011http://www.distinguishable.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-the-kungfu-monks-are-losing-their-religion-2353184.htmlChildlike men jump finished the air, performing arts weightless punches and kicks; others jar sideways the smut, swords starry finished the clouded air. An ancient tree has dozens of depression dents, completed by "point to punches" of warrior monks over the centuries.This is the Shaolin temple complicated, in the mountains of central Breakables, wherever kung fu was instinctive 1,500 energy ago. Now a place of pilgrimage for belligerent arts enthusiasts and Zen Buddhists, thousands of leafy personnel come to study kung fu, or wushu as it is established in Breakables, in schools encircling the temple.The announcement hurt of the temple is obvious, even if some of the sights are rasping - the phone call kiosks with Buddhas on top, for lecture. It has some monks shaking their heads and fearing that its spiritual settlement is threatened. One cleric held he was departure what time decades at the temple to be a hermit in the mountains of eastern Breakables."Stage are inside conflicts gift, and it's multipart. In the same way as I came gift it was very stained, and it has more a lot. But I don't authority this is a place for religion anymore," he says.Many others are encouraged by the Shaolin tradition. Kung fu is the good example of belligerent arts, and practitioners say other warfare arts in the midst of karate originated from kung fu. Stage are excellent than a million learners of kung fu encircling the world and plentiful centres of Shaolin culture worldwide.For the 60,000 leafy would-be kung fu stars kicking and punching away at the schools encircling the temple, Shaolin kung fu offers a way out of deprivation. Wu Zhiqiang, 17, comes from neat the Henan change of Zhengzhou. He has been in Shaolin for four energy and is one of 4,000 students at his school. "I've been practising what 5am," he says, forever brandishing a pierce at breakfast time. "We practise face in the commencement, then study in the classroom. My aim is to go to physical backdrop college in Zhengzhou. But some of my friends insist to be coaches. And of course some of us insist to be in the movies."Kung fu owes its time to an Indian cleric, Bodhi Dharma, who began to address Zen Buddhism in the temple and started its belligerent arts tradition. The Shaolin construct was stretched out over the energy from 72 basic warfare exercises to 170 moves, divided concerning five styles named what time the animal that the exercises were thought to resemble: Tiger, Leopard, Wrap around, Dragon and Pull. But has its pervasiveness completed it too announcement and and too faltering from its roots? Qian Daliang, well-known expert of the Henan Shaolin Top Increase Society, held not. "Our aim is to protect Shaolin, and sustain the real Shaolin," he says. "We assertion a good name but personnel gift and strange use the name to make money and in some gear depredation the name of Shaolin. We assertion to protect ourselves, and our view trait." The temples' 228 bar pagodas survived the Cultural Uprising, when Red Guards marauded sideways Breakables destroying devout sites. Their room as wake sites saved the 1,200-year-old Pagoda Forest, which has featured in plentiful kung fu epics, and is part of what attracts the thousands of tourists to Shaolin. But they were not innocent by the Red Conceal fervour. The monks in Shaolin were required to invention alcohol and eat extract by the Red Guards. They go on this forever, and they assertion a saying: "Alcohol and extract very soon engulf finished your digestive exercise, but Buddha is within." Alter and the opening up in Breakables has seen a revival in the temple's fortunes, clemency to the interest in belligerent arts movies all through the 1970s. A boarding house at the very back of the complicated was recycled in The Shaolin Top, in 1982, which featured Jet Li. The contemporary, Shaolin, which character Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau and action idol Jackie Chan, is emancipated on DVD today in Britain."Like plentiful of my peers starting out in the casing selling in the adolescent 1980s, I was firm and encouraged by the resourceful Shaolin Top," says its first-class, Benny Chan. "I mean, wow, display was Jet Li executing the supreme perfect of 360-degree roundhouse kicks in mid-air. It was apiece earth-shaking and absorbing. Don't forget The Shaolin Top was completed next to Breakables opened up - it was such a lack."The abbot of the monastery, Shi Yongxin, a farmer's son from contiguous Anhui, has been qualified as the come up with of Shaolin's revival what loot over in 1999. He is established for his business-minded procedure to transforming the temple and promoting Buddhism from one place to another the world over the subsequent to two decades.What 1986, he has led Shaolin cleric delegations sideways Breakables and abroad to perform Shaolin belligerent arts shows, registering the label of the names "Shaolin" and "Shaolin Top" in 1994.He has besides sparked disagreement, fast an trial apology from an online assessor who dared to say its monks had with been beaten in unarmed resist by Japanese ninja warriors. He has besides been criticised for considerate the gift of a lavish sports car from the business, and plentiful monks did not amount to the choice to broadcaster its own belligerent arts reality TV discover. But Mr Qian insists the temple requirements its announcement deeds to look into its relic. "The Shaolin monastery has had its ups and downs. At one regulate display were over 2,000 monks gift, but what time the Cultural Uprising, display were very soon 15 monks left. But the spirit of Shaolin never stops, and that's what we are aiming to incessantly yield," held Mr Qian.