No need to apologize, Banjos_dad...
...and extra kudos for plugging our forum sponsor ;) . Shaolin is seriously complicated, the most complicated manifestation of martial arts in the modern era. Frankly, that's why it interests me so. And I'd be the last person to cap on anyone for 'epic' posts. Maybe a troll post is worthy of some capping, but honest opinions fuel the discussion. After all, isn't discussion exact what the forum here is all about?
Been waiting foryou to chime in on this, richard sloan
You know, personally I've always liked Yanming. He's extremely charismatic, very skilled and a great motivator, which is all you really need from an instructor. And I think his crossover work (for lack of a better term) is extraordinary, which is why I brought up his book here in the first place. But, with all due respect, the family issue is bothersome. Celibacy is not a 'lark' in Chan Buddhism. It's part of the teachings and if you explore those, you can understand the motivations behind them. Surely, there have been those who have broken celibacy vows and there always will be. However, they all fly in the face of doctrine, and that's philosophically very difficult to negotiate. If you discard the doctrines of Chan, you essentially throw the baby out with the bath water, sort of like Victoria's Zen At War. The heart of the celibacy issue, like any issue in Chan, is attachment. You can counter with something like "well, obviously you're attached to the doctrines" but that opens up a whole mess of philosophical baggage.
Anyway, in regards to shaolinboxer's comment, Yanming's new book could never be the Shaolin bible. It's too short. It looks like a fine introduction to Shaolin - very Yanming style with all the "beautiful!" "awesome!" "amitoufo!" and "train harder!" comments that you'd expect from him. I'm curious how that will translate to written word. Knowing Yanming, I can hear him saying that when I read his book, but I'm not sure that others will. We shall see.
it's all about onions & garlic
If it was all about onions and garlic, that would totally bum me out. I've never heard the hungry ghosts thing. My understanding of that prohibition is that it seeks to cut the attachment to foods that are too stimulating. I'm not going to completely disregard that at this point, because my own personal alchemical changes in diet have produced some surprising results, so who knows? Maybe I'll have to give them up someday to reach nirvana. Not today, tho. ;) Clearly, there are effects of what you put into your body. Again, it's all about severing attachment.
It's difficult to follow all the precepts. You must remember that Buddhism was not originally developed for lay people like us. It was developed as a science to harness the mind, strictly for ascetics. So denial of attachments is key. We call them attachments for a reason. Many of them are hard to give up. We all fall from the path sometimes. It's a difficult path. But saying 'others fall from the path' is a weak argument. The pursuit of Chan does not lie in comparison of your personal practice to others. You can certainly make valid claims that others fail at keeping vows and hide those failures, but that skirts the real issue.
Yanming's case raises some interesting questions. His break from the tenets can be intellectualized as revolutionary or ****ed as heresy. It's denial of denials, which could actually work in a recursive philosophical way, although like with any recursive logic, it can get real sticky. Personally, I could beleive everything he says - that he's risen above the attachments of liquor, meat, and sex - if he could also rise above the attachment of being a monk. Do you think he's attached to his monk title? I have the utmost respect for those that have walked away from it. Ironically, that can show more resolve, sort of like in Hesse's Sidhartha.
Like I said earlier, I've always liked Yanming. We had a great relationship in the past, and despite a past professional split, I support him as much as I can support any of the monks. I'm not trying to bash him here at all. There are plenty of others here who would be happy to do that. Quite the opposite, I'm trying to promote his book because I think being published by Rodale is very exciting. At the same time, any mention of Yanming on a Shaolin forum is bound to elicit such a discussion and I'm eager to see how this plays out, especially now with the book imminent.