SHAOLIN MONASTERY
Students of the Shaolin Monastery in Henan, China.
The Shaolin Monastery is a Ch'an Buddhist temple at Song Shan in Henan Province of what is now the Peoples Republic of China. The monastery was built by the Emperor Hsiao-Wen in 496 CE, and the first abbot of Shaolin was Batuo, (also, Fotuo or Bhadra (the Chinese transposition of Buddha). Batuo was an Indian dhyana master who came to China in CE 464 to spread Buddhist teachings. Long famous for its association with Chinese martial arts, it is the Mahayana Buddhist monastery perhaps best known to the Western world.
The Shaolin monastery is the only temple in China that combines martial arts and Zen Buddhism. As such, monks at the monastery may be martial monks, scholarly or clerical monks, or both. However, even the martial monks also practice Zen Buddhism. It is held that Zen Buddhism allows you to store and build up chi, while martial arts is the act of releasing chi; therefore, the two complement and complete each other.
Long misunderstood in both China and the rest of the world, there are real practicing monks inside the Shaolin Temple who are little seen and known outside of inner Shaolin martial circles, and there are Shaolin performing "monks" who are actually not monks, but students from local schools trained and hired by the Shaolin Temple, to travel the world and perform in shows. While these students are trained by Shaolin monks in some martial arts, and do shave their heads, and wear monks robes, they are not real ordained monks. These students do not live in the temple, do not take Shaolin vows, and are not trained in Zen Buddhism, Shaolin Medicine, or classical kung fu forms; also, they do not have the most important aspect of being a real Shaolin monk – a master in the temple who calls them a disciple. These students are primarily trained in Shaolin wushu which is a competitive form of the martial art 'sport' of kung fu, and a cousin of the classical kung fu forms practiced by the temple monks. Jet Li is the most famous example of a Shaolin wushu trained student who never trained in the temple.
These students, like kung fu students at most Shaolin kung fu school in DengFeng, have a very regimented schedule for training, waking up at 4.30 AM to run and physically train all day. These students become active emissaries of the temple in the traveling show troupes which tour the world, performing modern wushu forms and hard qi gong feats of strength, which are popular spectacles for entertainment purposes, and to spread the Shaolin name, but do not educate people about the Zen aspects of Shaolin. To make things more complex, some traveling "Shaolin" tour groups are officially sanctioned by the Shaolin Temple, and others have no affiliation to the Shaolin Temple at all.
The real Shaolin monks that live in the temple study Zen Buddhism, and practice classical Shaolin kung fu forms, which are rarely seen outside the temple. These monks typically have not toured in traveling shows since the 1990's when several of the real monks defected while on a USA tour. The real monks are in constant flux as political infighting inside the temple creates a lot of tension, causing monks to come and go from the temple on a regular basis. While several of the real monks run schools for studying kung fu outside of the Shaolin Temple, none of these schools are officially sanctioned by the temple, nor do they train students in any form of deep inner Zen Buddhism, but rather teach mostly external wushu forms.
EARLY HISTORY
According to the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (AD 645) by Dàoxuān, the Shaolin Monastery was built on the north side of Shaoshi, the western peak of Mount Song, one of the Sacred Mountains of China, by Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (AD 547), and Li Xian, in the Ming Yitongzhi (AD 1461), concur with Daoxuan's location and attribution. The Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi (AD 1843) specifies that this monastery, located in the province of Henan, was built in the 20th year of the Tàihé era of the Northern Wei Dynasty, that is, the monastery was built in 497 CE.
Kangxi, the second Qing emperor, was a supporter of the Shaolin temple in Henan and he wrote the calligraphic inscription that, to this day, hangs over the main temple gate
DESTRUCTION
The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. Perhaps the best-known story of the Temple's destruction is that it was destroyed in 1716 for supposed anti-Qing activities; this destruction is also supposed to have helped spread Shaolin martial arts through China by means of fugitive monks. This story commonly appears in martial arts history, fiction, and cinema.
However, accounts of the Qing Dynasty destroying the Shaolin temple may refer to a southern Shaolin temple, which Ju Ke, in the Qing bai lei chao (1917), located in Fujian Province. Additionally, some martial arts historians, such as Tang Hao and Stanley Henning., believe that the story is likely fictional, appearing only at the very end of the Qing period in novels and sensational literature.
RECENT HISTORY
In 1928, the warlord Shi Yousan set fire to the monastery, burning it for over 40 days, destroying 90% of the buildings including many manuscripts of the temple library.
The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 targeted religious orders including the Monastery. The five monks who were present at the Monastery when the Red Guard attacked were shackled and made to wear placards declaring the crimes charged against them. The monks were jailed after being flogged publicly and parading through the street as people threw rubbish at them. The government purged Buddhist materials from within the Monastery walls, leaving it barren for years.
In the past, many people have tried to capitalize on the Shaolin Monastery by building their own schools on Mount Song. However, the Chinese government eventually outlawed this, and so the schools all moved to the nearby towns.
A Dharma gathering was held between August 19 and 20, 1999, in the Shaolin Monastery, Songshan, China, for Buddhist Master Shi Yong Xin to take office as abbot. He is the thirteenth successor after Buddhist abbot Xue Ting Fu Yu. In March 2006 Vladimir Putin of Russia became the first foreign leader to visit the monastery.
LIST OF STYLES PRESENTLY TAUGHT AT THE TEMPLE
Xiaohongquan - Small red fist
Dahongquan - Big red fist
Tongbiquan - Through the back fist
Liuhequan - Six harmonies fist
Taizu Changquan - Emperor Taizu's long fist
Qixingquan - Seven star fist
Da paoquan - Big cannon fist
Xiao paoquan - Small cannon fist
Meihuaquan - Plum flower fist
Luohanquan - Arhat (enlightened follower of Buddha) fist
Tongzigong - Shaolin child training
Dan Dao - Single sabre technique
Long – Dragon technique
Chi Lu Chuan - 8 Animal
72 Shaolin Arts
Changhu xinyi men - Long protect heart will gate
Martial arts groups from all over the world have made donations for the upkeep of the temple and grounds, and are subsequently honored with carved stones near the entrance of the temple.