To the Buddhists, Shaolin Monastery in
A Shaolin monk can break pieces of bricks with a single chop of his palm. He can withstand the attack of a spear without getting injured. The question is: monks are supposed to be peace-loving people. Should they practice martial art?
To be sure, martial art of Shaolin Monastery isn’t of the ‘soft’ type, like Taiji or Aikido. Rather, it belongs to the ‘hard’ type. A kick by a Shaolin monk can be fatal.
And I am never so sure if they are genuine monks in the first place.
3 comments:
A nice reminder that action has a vital place in how we choose to live our lives. As you may know, I have been debating topics similar to this on The Buddha Diaries. Cheers, PaL
Peter,
Mind explain further?
the roots of Shaolin kung fu are in Kalarippayatt, an ancient martial art of Kerala, southern India. Bodhidharma mastered Kalari, and on his travels into China stopped by the Shao Lin monastery. The monks there were vulnerable to raids by bandits and attacks from wild animals, and he taught them to fight. The roots of the martial art are in living harmoniously; to fight is the last refuge, and avoided wherever possible. You can see from the stands of the monk in this picture, this is very close to 'horse' posture in Kalari. However, there is some degradation in the training, and I would recommend a beginner to Kalari rather than Shao Lin.
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