Chan Monk White Eyebrow Part 1
Current writters and website operators mistakenly identify our founder as a Taoist prist.As a result Bai-Mei has been called a taoist system.
From the perspective of Chinese culture and the history of Chinese religions,most writers who presented Bai Mei the Chan Monk as a taoist priest overlooked the an important distinction between the taoist as a philosopheror the man of tao who practices the way of tao and the taoist priest who practices the religion.(religious taoism).
Modern Bai Mei Shaolin started with CLC.Hence the ultimate authory on the orgin of our system rests with him.He,his children and his disciple Chan Suey Dor(also known as Chan Dor) of New York all agreed on one thing,that Bai Mei is a Shaolin system.This statment is supported with the following discovery:Chang's oldest son Beng Lum produced a book,Bai Mei,Chang Lai Chuen in 1989.On the first page we find a pic of CLC sitting with the background of a Chinese word for longevity flanked with two colums of characters.On the next page another shows his son Chang Beng Lum sitting against another frame of writting,but flanked with the same colum of charactures.The right one says:Bai Mei transmits the true superior art.The left one says:Inside the halls of Siu-sud(as apart of Mt.Song,being another way of referring to the Shoalin Monastery)are exhibited the results of wonder.There is a pic of Chang Beng-Fatt,it shows him under a colored banner bering this message: "Bai Mei came from Chan Buddhism"It evolved from Shoalin's martial arts inside the Shaolin Monastery of Den-feng, Mountain Song in Henan.However how did the notion taoist religion creep into the history of Bai Mei?
HB Un's book has a photostat copy of a drawing of a person in taoist robes was represented as the "portrat of White Eyebrow"The chinese statemaent stated that this was the "genuine of Bai Mei,the spirtualy real person(ibid)"Pointedly,the next two pics contain a caption under the pics stating:"the monk Chuk Fat Wan, the teacher of GM CLC in chan buddest garb and GM CLC in taoist robes.The author apparently could not discern the difference between buddhist and taoist ones.Most amusedly,both Chuk Fat Wan and Chang Lai Chuen actually had buddist robes.
Third the book,Emperor Chen Toured Southern china(Shortened as Emperor Chen-Lun) that was written about 150 tears ago described the fight between Bai Mei and Ji-sin.There is not much significant difference between the two versions(Hung-ga's),except(1)that in this version of the story Bai Mei and his students are the good ones,and Ji-sins students are the abusers of the martial arts.Ji-sin was supposedly guilty of spoiling his students
(2) Bai Mei and his students were authorized to capture those abusers who had mudered some innocent people
(3) that although the two versions agree that that Bai Mei and Ji-sin were both members of the five elders of the Shaolin system,in the book Emperor Chen-lun,our founder the Chan Monk Bai Mei was addressed sometimes as a man of Tao,sometimes as old Monk(pg.189).It is self-evident that any elders of the Shoalin Temple must be buddhist,and as abbots of temples they were most certainly Chan Buddhist Monks,not priests of the taoist religion.
Evidently,the writer used the word "Tao" in a dual sence.Thus,man of"Tao" can be interpreeted to mean both the taoist religion practitioner and also to whoever pursues his spiritual path in a taoist way,He not only used "men of tao" to cover both Ji-sin and Bai Mei,but also to identify Ji-sin's(Gee-Shin)students.To futher substantiate this point,consider the following points.On page 182,Ji-sin was reported to say"because they(Bai Mei and his disciples) do not treat us as fellow men of the same school and the same tao". Next the writer describes the situation immediately before the fight saying..."We see two men of tao,hurriedly entering reporting to Ji-sin,Sifu,really bad news"
The religion of Chan Monk Ji-sin has never been qustioned.Thus,the religion of his colleague of the same school and of the same tao,should not be questioned and most certainly not called a practitioner of the Taoist religion/Taoist Priest