On September 1, 2006,
three dozen kung fu masters entered Shaolin Monastery to begin
their nine-day intensive meditation
at Closing Gate. It is part of the
preparation for a top level martial
arts contest that has ever taken
place in history - or it is so
claimed.
In his early film
"Shaolin Temple", Jet Li
practiced Shaolin kung fu for good
twenty years before facing his
moment: to pass the matrix of 18 Iron Man - only after that he
would be allowed to leave the
monastery and see the world. This
scenario is not fictional but an
authentic Shaolin tradition. Now when
the Gate is reopened on September 9,
the kung fu guys will once again face
the Matrix, and the world will have a
chance to see a live show of Iron Man
battle.
By the time martial
artists fight tooth and nail at
Shaolin for their place in the kung
fu world, civil artists will come to
Shaolin to hold a joint seminar on
Zen's place in our livies. Their
mission is to find a linkage between
Zen and comedy, Zen and music, Zen
and kung fu, and Zen and just
everything under the sun.
And these are just a
couple of introduction chapters. If
you want to skip to main content,
wait until middle of October when
Shaolin is to open a grand theatre
for Zen music concert.
Located in the Valley
of Waiting Immortal, the open theatre
will be so epic that is capable of
accommodating 700 performers and 3000
audience at once. In this unspoiled
corner, the music can perfectly blend
into the natural elements - the sound
of running water that reverberates in
hush, and of the pine trees audibly
vibrating in night gusts. And the
surrounding hills, in the flicking
lights of 1000 colourful lanterns
hidden among the trees, return echoes
from all directions.
As audience sit on
cushions meditating in this panoramic
setting, the melody flows unruffled
and refined. In such a united effort
of contemplating the void and
understanding the indefinable, time
stops, dimensions are lost, and the
rest of the world could just fade
away ... ...
While in a short
distance the temple stands quietly,
illustrating the power of silence.
All these happenings
are breathtaking. Yet not everything
is rosy. In recent months, Shaolin
Monastery has attracted great deal of
criticism from the general public,
being accused of becoming less a
Buddhist hub but more a business
entity. When the abbot expressed his
delight over the award of a luxury
car for his work on promoting the
local business overseas, he was
especially reproached for looking
like a businessman, talking like a
businessman and acting like a
businessman.
Probably he is the one.
But who says a businessman can't
practice Buddhism? After all, there
are a thousand ways to enlightenment,
aren't there?
