Iron Monkey and White Lotus Cult

[bungle]

Hi
I love the film Iron Monkey. Something in it sparked my interest. The shaolin monks in the film are supposed to be bad guys. Members of a secret White Lotus society. I think i've seen this elsewhere. Anyone know anything about this and shaolin history?

Oh and my favorite is the Eagle claw nun.

Thanks
Andy

[MasterKiller]

White Lotus Rebellion

Chinese anti-Manchu uprising that occurred during the Ch'ing dynasty. It broke out (1796) among impoverished settlers in the mountainous region that separates Sichuan prov. from Hubei and Shaanxi provs. It apparently began as a tax protest led by the White Lotus Society, a secret religious society that forecast the advent of the Buddha, advocated restoration of the native Chinese Ming dynasty, and promised personal salvation to its followers. At first the Ch'ing administration, under the control of Ho-shen, sent inadequate and inefficient imperial forces to suppress the ill-organized rebels. On assuming effective power in 1799, however, Emperor Chia Ch'ing (reigned 1796–1820) overthrew the Ho-shen clique and gave support to the efforts of the more vigorous Manchu commanders as a way of restoring discipline and morale. A systematic program of pacification followed in which the populace was resettled in hundreds of stockaded villages and organized into militia. In its last stage, the Ch'ing suppression policy combined pursuit and extermination of rebel guerrilla bands with a program of amnesty for deserters. Although the Manchu finally crushed (1804) the rebellion, the myth of the military invincibility of the Manchu was shattered, perhaps contributing to the greater frequency of rebellions in the 19th cent.

[bungle]

Thanks for the info. Do you know how that white lotus society is connected with shaolin specifically? Did they take over the shaolin temple? I remember one of jet lis films. Might of been last hero in china. Where he has to fight a corrupt member of the shaolin temple. They come to town and start some kind of temple. Part of the film involves Jet moving next door to a brothel. I think he played Wong Fei Hung.

[MasterKiller]

The movement had roots in 4th-century worship of the Buddha Amitabha. Maybe it's connection to Buddhism throughout the centuries also connected it to Shaolin?

[Phenix]

Originally posted by MasterKiller
The movement had roots in 4th-century worship of the Buddha Amitabha. Maybe it's connection to Buddhism throughout the centuries also connected it to Shaolin?

nope. nothing to do with buddhism.

it is a special culture of chinese.:D
In the history of China, when one wants to start a rebel or anything, one always uses the name of Gods or Buddha or....
It is about using the Relegious believe system to dope the followers.

Same with the Taiping rebellation. By the name of God, the leaders claim they are the son of god, to put them in a by default ruler position.


These all are a sad slavering of human act. it is a matter of control those honest peasant and farmers with thiere belief and taking advantage of them.


Since the people are most not literate and cant differential from the Daoist god to the Buddhism Boddhisatva. All sorts of stories being created to control and exploite the poor people.

In the same token, by the name of Shao Lin how many HIS-Story has been created for the personal greed of power.

Read a book title, Shao Lin martial art secret teaching ( it is in chinese, an old book which describe Chan buddhism and martial art relationship, the issues about the anti-qing which is not an act of shao lin chan buddhism..... that book still available) one can see how things get clarify.

[WanderingMonk]

white lotus cult is a distorted version of the coming of Maitrea buddha.

Maitrea buddha is the buddha that will come before the "end" to rescue man. sort of your second coming of christ type of thing.

Whenever China was in trouble (political/social/ economical turmoil), a version of this cult pop up. It started in the Song dynasty, it was called "white lotus school" or "white lotus vegetable" because it advocate vegetarianism.

It started as a splinter group of buddhism. as the movement spread, it absorbed many uneducated followers and rituals for financial gain, etc. As the movment deviate, people in leadership position began to take advantage of the situation and commissioned a stone tablet with the declaring the birth of maitrea buddha and the coming the of new age. they buried it and "found it" during escavation. Using this as their propaganda, they tried to overthrow the yuan dyansty.

Zhu Yuan Zhang used this movement to help overthrow Yuan dynasty, but he knew it can turn on him, so he crack down. yet, it came back and threaten the stability of ming for a long time.

In the ching dynasty, it became "clear water", "red sun", "white sun", "green lotus", "red lotus", etc. Of course, we all know about the "boxer rebellion".

In the each generation, there were bloody clashes (resulting in tens of thousands of death each time) with the government, It undermined yuan, ming, and ching dynasty. Slogan of "new age" and replacement of the current regime often is mixed in with their message.

why do you think PRC is scare to death of the recent new "buddhism" poping up in China?

[WanderingMonk]

Originally posted by Phenix


nope. nothing to do with buddhism.

it is a special culture of chinese.:D
In the history of China, when one wants to start a rebel or anything, one always uses the name of Gods or Buddha or....
It is about using the Relegious believe system to dope the followers.

Same with the Taiping rebellation.

No, I think taiping is a bit different. that leader was really messed up. I think he made a wrong turn on his road to damascus.

he had a dream about christ and christ called him, brother. so, he figure he was God's other son. hemm. He suddenly became a fanatical "christian". Yet, his entire expsoure to christianity was having listen to a bible story some five to ten years back and owning a bible which he didn't really read.

[Phenix]

Originally posted by WanderingMonk


he had a dream about christ and christ called him, brother. so, he figure he was God's other son. hemm. ...

By the name of Buddha, God, Shao Lin, Chan,... lots of screw up things has been done in China's history.

[canglong]

originally posted by hendrik
In the same token, by the name of Shao Lin how many HIS-Story has been created for the personal greed of power. Unfortunate for you that you doubt everything and those things that are true you can never see. Southern Shaolin is a myth to you no matter how much sense it would make that it be a mandate for the Northern Temple to reach out to the masses South just being a logical destination. One can only wonder what you have to gain by not acknowledging even the possiblitiy of its existance. Since you have no previous book to speak of and none in the works the only thing left is your ignorance of the topic. Please spare us all you ignorance and arrogance and leave this topic of discussion to those with open minds and empty tea cups.

[bungle]

Thanks for all the information. Sounds scary.

Getting back to my original question. How was the white lotus cult connected to shaolin? Anyone know? I'm not sure if the characters in Iron Monkey are accurate at all but the monks did display skill in Kung Fu. I'm assuming then that they were supposed to be trained in Shaolin kung fu.

A long time ago i seem to remember reading something about a cult taking over shaolin for a short period. Have i got my memory banks and wires totally screwed up?

[WanderingMonk]

Originally posted by bungle
Thanks for all the information. Sounds scary.

Getting back to my original question. How was the white lotus cult connected to shaolin?


It is not.



Anyone know? I'm not sure if the characters in Iron Monkey are accurate at all but the monks did display skill in Kung Fu. I'm assuming then that they were supposed to be trained in Shaolin kung fu.


I was under the impression that they were ex-monks thrown out of the shaolin order (in the movie). So, they joined up with whoever in power to support themselves.




A long time ago i seem to remember reading something about a cult taking over shaolin for a short period. Have i got my memory banks and wires totally screwed up? [/B]

That's new. you got any more details? I personally don't know any occasion in which a foreign cult takes overs aholin temple. It is also dubious claim because shaolin is sort of special with its relations with the government (it was allowered to have a standing army), so a lot of people will keep a close watch on it (so, it don't go rogue). hence, I find a cult temp taking over shaolin to be highly unlikely.

[Phenix]

Originally posted by canglong
Unfortunate for you that you doubt everything and those things that are true you can never see. Southern Shaolin is a myth to you no matter how much sense it would make that it be a mandate for the Northern Temple to reach out to the masses South just being a logical destination. One can only wonder what you have to gain by not acknowledging even the possiblitiy of its existance. Since you have no previous book to speak of and none in the works the only thing left is your ignorance of the topic. Please spare us all you ignorance and arrogance and leave this topic of discussion to those with open minds and empty tea cups.





1, This is what Gene post
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Southern Shaolin...
...is not my area of expertise. It's a real tangled mess, to be truthful, if you try to get to the facts. Figures like Gee Sim are very difficult to validate historically. Even the southern temple is hard to prove. Now there are three temples in southern China trying to lay claim to that heritage.

The myths are easier - you might poke around the southern forum. Since they have more stake in the reality of those myths, given that the 5 elders are the founders of their styles, they'd have more to say.

If you want to address this historically, I'll refer you to The Origins of the Tiandihui by Dian Murray. Good luck with that.


__________________
Gene Ching

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and Hui Neng is a southerner who brought the mind seal of buddha to the south in Tang Dynasty. There on Chan Buddhism even reach Japan. So, care to tell us what did the Northern temple reach out about to the masses South?



2, are you one of the White lotus cult? :D

3, or are you a great shaolin disciple who knows everything.
in that case, please explain to all of us here in detail about "Chan Chuan Yee Ru" or zen and martial art is one. that shao lin's core concept. :D

[Phenix]

One of the slogan of the white lotus type of chinese cult in china, is that they make claim :

this is the dharma ending era, the true dharma is no longer with the monks. the lay people has the true buddha's dharma.

Thus, they raise lots of followers and look down on the buddhist monks and nuns, because they have the TRUE secret teaching of the Buddha.

[GeneChing]

Saved me retyping that.

There's a lot of research published in English on the Boxer Uprising, as well as their motivations for connecting to Shaolin, etc. Another good one is Joseph Esherick's Origins of the Boxer Uprising. If your really want to know, check out some of these books. It's a really exciting period of world history, and as long as you don't mind being the villianous West, there's some very good reads about it.

[Shaolinlueb]

Originally posted by GeneChing
Saved me retyping that.

There's a lot of research published in English on the Boxer Uprising, as well as their motivations for connecting to Shaolin, etc. Another good one is Joseph Esherick's Origins of the Boxer Uprising. If your really want to know, check out some of these books. It's a really exciting period of world history, and as long as you don't mind being the villianous West, there's some very good reads about it.

so we're the badguys huh? do we at least get cool uniforms and not thsoe ferry tights they used to wear?

[GeneChing]

There have been periods where Shaolin was maligned, no doubt. However, most scholars lean towards the opinion that cults like the White Lotus sect were just using the name of Shaolin. They may have had no real conncetion to the temple.

For that matter, the Boxer Uprising was a very ambiguous period in history. Westerners called it the Boxer Rebellion, in fact, that's probably how you learned it in High School. But scholars have changed this, since it wasn't a rebellion against the government as much as it was a civil rejection of the imperialist forces of the west. It was highly ridiculed by the west because it used spiritualism against guns - of course, the guns won - more proof that the Chinese were 'uncivilized' and justification for rapacious treaties. However, from the Chinese view, this was a recall to traditional values, supported, although somewhat covertly, by the Chinese government. Who was the villains in the Boxer Uprising? Probably the western alliance more than anyone.

[WanderingMonk]

If I remember right, the boxer rebellion started in the shangdong area. The white lotus cults were put down several time already by the ching government and decided that they have to play a new tune. The new tune they played was expelling the "foreign devils". They used this new banner to gather steam. Cixi (dowerger (sp?)) thought this was her best chance to knock the foreign powers out of china. so, the ching government embraced the movement and it ended with diaster. six european nations with us and japan sent their joint expeditionary force to put down the rebellion, and ching government was forced to pay more reparation.

so, technically, this was not a rebellion direct at the ching government. but, this type of movement has its way of changing their target and I am quite sure ching government would have end up as the target if the "boxers" were able to drive the foreigners out. all they had to do was substitue foreign devils with "machu devils" and keep rolling.

[Phenix]

Yup,

boxer rebellion is about Fu Qing Mia Yang or support the Qing and vanished the Westerners. and it was endose by the West Court Emperess.

it is not Fan Qing Foo Ming or over turn the Qing restore the Ming action.

[Ravenshaw]

Hey, I've heard of the White Lotus... Kung Lao (a Shaolin monk from the Mortal Kombat games) was part of a group called White Lotus, wasn't he?

[GeneChing]

Thsi thread is strangely parallel to our Pai Mei thread (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=29742&pagenumber=4) since we are discussing the same themes and time period. MK and I are batting around Southern creation myths and the Boxer/traid period there.