Accounts from those who have been there point to alot of poverty. In fact, several KFM articles mention this. This is the thread to discuss it.
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Accounts from those who have been there point to alot of poverty. In fact, several KFM articles mention this. This is the thread to discuss it.
From my experiences there are 4 broad groups of locals:
1 - the Shaolin (DengFeng) rural population - poor
2 - the population working in the martial arts sector (teaching, running schools, etc) or related businesses (equipment, uniforms, students transport, travel agencies, etc) - doing much better than most rural Chinese
3 - the "management" (government and tourism officials, big school owners, ... all the way to the abbot) - doing very well even by western standards
4 - the students - they come from all over China and range from very poor to quite comfortable, depending on their family
So IMO overall Shaolin business has certainly had a fantastic impact on the economics of the region and the living standards of most of the locals, creating lots of jobs and bringing lots of $$$ that otherwise would have never been spent / invested in Henan.
Wall
Hows about your run-of-the-mill monk? I've heard they don't do so well. And then there are also the monks-in-training. Again, I hear about lots of poverty with them.
Isn't this like asking how real mice are doing at Disney World?
Poverty Levels in Henan Countryside…US$200 / year
Henan has a population of about 100mn people. About 80mn are farmers. They are very poor with an average household income of Rmb1600 per year. That is US$200 a year, or 17 dollars a month. (Data Source: China National Bureau of Statistics – June 2006)
Shaolin Temple Earnings…over US$20mn / year
Gate ticket earnings:
- About 1,500,000 tourists / year @ US$5 / ticket = US$7.5mn
- The temple gets about 25% of that, or just under US$2mn
Shaolin performances:
- 60 countries a year, over 1000 performances a year
- The troupe earns about US$10,000 each performance, at 1000 performances
- That is about US$10mn
Performances (Feng Zhong Shaolin)
- Originally performed at the Beijing Ballete Concert Hall and now throughout China
- Earned them about US$8mn in 2005
In total that is roughly US$20mn a year
On a side note the Deng Feng municipality alone has already generated over US$100mn in tourist dollar revenue ending July 2006 – obviously most of it attributed to the Shaolin temple and its surrounding wushu schools.
There is no doubt that the success of the Shaolin temple has had little impact if any on the overall living standards and conditions of the peasant farmers and small factory workers in the Dengfeng municipality. There are over 600,000 of them. Citizens still have limited access to very minimum standards of education and medical care. Factory layoffs and unemployment are high, while umemployment insurance and pensions are virtually nonesistant.
Anyone who tells you that the Shaolin temple is pumping money directly into the local economy to help the Dengfeng citizens are pulling your leg. Shaolin revenues are no doubt going into the devleopment of more tourist related business models and real estate investment projects, while government revenues are going into industrial infrastructure devleopment.
Now you know why when fat cat spiritual leaders like Shi Yongxin recieve cars from local government departments that it enrages local citizens.
And I do stand corrected….Shi Yongxin already does have an MBA.
Sources:
http://cme.ce.cn/left/rw/200604/16/t..._6715211.shtml
http://www.zynews.com/2006-08/15/content_415084.htm
Bungbukuen, you are partly incorrect.
Many people at Shaolin (DengFeng), many of the people I've known personally, have substantially increased their earnings, and now support their otherwise very poor families, thanks to Shaolin.
They have transformed themselves from sons and daughters of poor peasant farmers and small factory workers to tourist guides, kungfu instructors, taxi drivers, weapons and equipment sellers, hotel staff, shop and restaurant operators, etc.
Note that I'm not saying that the Shaolin temple is pumping money directly into the local economy to help the Dengfeng citizens, I am saying that the Shaolin business and tourism boom is having huge positive fallout effets on the local population.
The boosting in local spending and investment by millions of non-local and foreign people impact the economy on a macro level, regardless of the local re-investment, or lack of, by Shaolin itself.
In simple terms: if all of a sudden millions of extra people spend millions of extra dollars in your town, directly or indirectly it will have a positive economic impact on the whole town and most people living in it :)
Wall
NB. this is all relevant to the DengFeng and surrounding area only; the rest of Henan obviously derives no tangible macroeconomic benefit from the Shaolin boom, and so remains a very depressed chinese rural region.
PS for The Xia: the 'monks in training' are students, and as such how well they are doing financially mostly depends on their families earnings (usually they come from peasant families so they are not doing so well). The 'run of the mill monks' as you call them usually are doing pretty well by local standards; they have basic teaching or performing salaries which they augment with teaching to foreigners or other "entrepreneurial" activities, and thus overall are doing better than most young people in Henan (keeping in mind that Henan standards are a low starting point).
I remember when they were building the Tamo statue above the cave. Laborers would carry a block of stone up the tortuous mountain trail from the Nunnery on their backs - it was brutal, hard work. They worked at dawn and dusk, when light was poor, because it was way too hot to attempt when the sun was high. These stones were easily 75-100 lbs. I know because I tried to lift one with the mistaken idea that I'd contribute to this great task. They were paid the equivalent of $0.25 a stone. And they were happy about that. That was good money for that amount of work for them.
In Henan, there are still cave dwellers. In fact, some of them aren't that far from Shaolin. Many rural Chinese live very poorly - ramshackle dwelling, dirt floors, no electricity or plumbing. There are some extremely poor areas of China. Shaolin isn't one of them anymore. It's one of the most affluent temples in China now, so of course there's considerable trickle-down. Remember the forced relocation? That was a huge shakedown and many of the migrant poor who made their living hawking crap in front of the temple were sent on. Most relocated to Baimasi, which is the next most popular tourist temple in the area. But if you want to see poverty near a temple, check out the beggars in front of some of the smaller ones. Visit Guanlinsi and pay your respects. The poor there will break your heart.
They have a documentary called Shaolin Ulysses that talks about some of the monks that came to the U.S. and covers a little bit of history from where the Shaolin temple was around 4 monks to where it grew so now there are 18,000+ students.
One of the boys who came over, they talk to his family, mom and dad and sister, and they said they lived in a cave when they first were married, and show the cave.
The sister does taiji because she was a girl she was not allowed to be a monk like her brother. It was extremely sad the frustration on her face as she did the taiji form and the fact that she can't make as much money as her brother because he is a monk and is in the U.S., and she isn't, all just because she's a girl.
Equally sad was the fact that her taiji wasn't the best ... it really made me want to go over to China and give her lessons and bring her and her parents back to the U.S., but I don't know how I could do that. Anyway if every poor person from China came over here it would cause a breakdown of civil services in this country.
Anyway overall the suffering and poverty in the world caused by overpopulation and lack of infrastructure around the world is extremely sad.
Wall – it is completely preposterous to imply that the majority of inhabitants of the Dengfeng municipality are somehow poverty free, or even operating at levels near minimum international poverty line standards. The reality of it is that Dengfeng is also an impoverished region, so I do not know why you try to candy coat this matter. It is insensitive and a real slap in the face to the poor peasant farmers.
Granted the 83 odd wushu schools in Dengfeng (teaching 50,000 students) brought in a cool Rmb500mn in 2005, or US$60mn. Undoubtedly this has created some isolated opportunities for local citizens to get ahead, and I am very happy for those who have improved the quality of their lives and their families. But the large majority of benefits go directly to business and government - not Joe Blow.
For the majority of the 600,000 people living in Dengfeng, the overall quality of living standards in terms of income levels, education, medical / healthcare, unemployment insurance, pensions, etc…, are far below international poverty line standards, and therefore is simply blissful ignorance to think that the tourist “boom is having huge positive fallout effects on the local population”.
The father of one of the monks in the U.S. is some kind of instructor at Shaolin, and the sister teaches taiji as well, and from the pictures of their house, they have the bare minimum, a phone, some old appliances, small dwelling, nothing fancy at all.
Have you seen Shaolin Ulysses? Take a close look at the credits. ;)
As for Dengfeng, if your talking about the city of Dengfeng, it's not so bad. If your talking about the region - the county - well, that's a different story. I think there are 13 areas in Dengfeng county and some are rather poor. Like I said, there are still cave dwellers nearby.
In regards to lunghushan's reference, the monk you are refering to is Zhang Lipeng (aka Shi Xingpeng). He was featured on the cover of our 2002 Shaolin Special (Jan/Feb). His sister, Zhang Meimei, was our got qi master for our 2003 Shaolin Special (Nov/Dec). Lipeng's father is Zhang Jianshu, who I've known for over a decade. I've had meals at that house shown in Shaolin Ulysses and if you think that's 'the bare minimum', you don't know China at all. Their home was a mansion compared to what most Chinese have in that area. That's where this issue is tough to discuss with people that haven't spent a lot of time with the common folk of China (or India, or Africa, or such nation). The scale is so completely different from what we experience in 1st world countries.
To add some salt in this wound, Zhang Jianshu's house was completely demolished during the Shaolin relocation. I saw him fleetingly in 2003 (in fact, there's footage of one of his other protege in my video Shaolin Trips: The First World Traditional Wushu Festival). At that point, I think his house was scheduled to be demolished or just recently demolished. I can't remember now. Last I heard, the Zhang family left the area. I haven't seen them since.
Man, Gene, wow, is there anybody you don't know? That's crazy.
So most Chinese are even poorer than them? That's not very good at all.
Okay, I'm going to shut up now because I know nothing. Will you please just post a lot so we can read?
Yep, there it is, Gene Ching as the Shaolin consultant.
Okay, I don't know what I was thinking. Meimei doesn't look like she's doing taiji there. She says she learned for 3 years, but I have no idea what that form is. It's too stiff for a taiji form.
Anyway, also you can't tell how big the house is.
Who knows. They don't look like they're doing that bad -- they even have a yard, something a lot of people in Seattle don't have.
I never said any of that...? Are you sure you are referring to my post? Please go read my post again :)
Oh I forgot, aren't you that guy that never reads other people posts and keeps trying to argue, the one from the Huston Shaolin thread a while ago?
Now I understand ... :rolleyes:
If you are interested just go and re-read my post and you will notice that I did not write any of the things you mention, and that in fact I wrote the opposite, indicating Henan repeatedly as being a very poor region, and that Shaolin business has greatly improved things for many DengFeng residents by Henan standards, keeping in mind that Henan standards are a very low starting point.
Wall
Wall – just because you are getting your China facts mixed up there is no need to feel frustrated.
If you look income levels (urban and rural) between Dengfeng and the rest of the cities in Henan as produced by the Zhengzhou statistical bureau, you will see that Dengfeng is in fact one of the poorest municipalities.
Average Urban and Rural Montly Net Incomes (RMB)
Xin Mi: ...............Urban 8758...................Rural 4500
Xin Zheng:..........Urban 8800...................Rural 4800
Xin Yang:............Urban 9100....................Rural 4690
Kong Yi:..............Urban 9045....................Rural 5499
Dengfeng:..........Urban 7410...................Rural 3990
I would love to see you try to convince any of the thousands of peasant farmers and families living in the Dengfeng area who have limited access to proper schooling, medical, pension benefits, etc…, that Shaolin temple is having a positive affect on their lives. Poverty and regional income disparities are a severe problem, and it is naïve to assume that corporate revenue dollars somehow majically reduce poverty levels on thier own. What is needed is proper government taxation policies and social infrastructure spending programs.
Cheers,
On the last page with all the discussion about what the living conditions are, it IS a kind of wierd complicated issue. To give some perspective, here's a couple pics I took in the area surrounding Xi'an, technically part of the same municipality:
This is a typical kitchen with "simple appliances":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17497713@N00/230811993/
You can see the floor in the kitchen is brick but in the rest of the house it is packed earth. (dirt) On the left is a larger stove, home made out of bricks and powered with wood scraps as coal is too expensive for this family. That funny handle on the right is the billows to get the fire hot enough for Chinese cooking. You can see a smaller propane powered burner in the background too though. I was too embarrassed to take a phot of the rest of their home. This wasn't a tourist site. It was a friends classmates home. No heat. No indoor plumbing.
This is one of those "yards" that were mentioned earlier:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17497713@N00/230812272/
What wasn't mentioned is that they are generally communal. You might not have a yard in Seattle but you don't have them in cities in China either. The houses you can see surrounding the yard, housing numerous families, are not heated and have no plumbing. There is an outhouse out back and a water pump in the yard to collect water for drinking and washing. The entrance to the "residences", which are either single or double rooms, look like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17497713@N00/230812442/
Again no heating. Just a single room with enough space under the door that mice can come in and visit. The walls and floor are either bare concrete concrete with cheap primer covering it.
These pictures were taken in the area around Xi'an which is a much richer area than the area around Dengfeng. The people here mostly don't have to worry about starvation but 2 years ago there was a disastrous flood and I expect some people went hungry then. Some 500,000 yuan were raised in disaster relief, 50,000 actually made it to the area.
You know, it's unusual, you've managed to somewhat irritate me :) That speaks volumes about your trolling skills, as I very rarely get irritated, bravo!
I conclude by saying:
1 - I'm not getting my China facts mixed up (I'm actually partly saying the same thing as you are, if you cared to read what I write ... :rolleyes: )
2 - I'm stating my China facts as experienced by me, in first person, for months, in Henan, in various trips :)
The families of the statistics? I've seen a variety of them, been guest at their homes, made friends with their sons and daughters involved in KungFu schools and related businesses ... businesses they can have thanks solely to Shaolin tourism, otherwise they would be plowing a field for some meagre subsistance food, like most people in rural Henan do, or trying to move to a bigger city to work in dead-end poverty line manufacturing.
Of course, many are still doing that, but Shaolin business has helped just as many carve for themselves a better life as KungFu teachers, shop assistants, tourist guides, restaurant operators, and may other jobs that would otherwise simply not exist in dengFeng.
It does not seem a difficult concept to understand...
But I guess you've lived there all your life so you know best ...
I've made the contribution I could to this thread with all the info I have on the subject, so I have nothing further useful to add ... and have no interest to be lured in an obvious troll :)
Wall
PS. I've just read your post below: as expected ... another attempt at trolling, this time by making it personal, with a little flattery to come across "nice" :rolleyes:
No one is trying to steal the show from you Wall. Just correcting your facts. No one is arguing that the hustle and bustle has helped a number of families. But with regards to the overall population they are still at the same levels and lower with the rest of the province. Unless you are claiming that income levels produced by the Zhengzhou municipal statistical burea are wrong and that your few months living in China and network of friends provides a much more reliable and accurate statistical base:p
It is good to see that you are trying to learn more and even trying to integrate into Chinese culture. You should be proud of your efforts as most people never make it down there. But do not assume that living in China for a few months makes you an informed expert. You are still a rookie and have years to go.;)
BBK
LOL
It's fun to watch folks try to out-pretentious each other!
Come on now, unkokusai, that's what forums are for. There's nothing like a good troll to fan the flames, eh?
I think the main dispute here between bbk & w is based on perspective. I know w has been to Shaolin many times, but he's probably stayed only in that region - Dengfeng city, Shaolin valley, etc. Dengfeng county actually encompasses a lot more and many of those extended areas are much poorer. Only the areas immediately surrounding Shaolin and Songshan have benefitted from the tourist boom. I've been taken far off the beaten path in Dengfeng to some of the impoverished villages and that's what's lowering these stats that bbk keeps quoting. That's hours away on sketchy dirt roads.
Spot on Gene, I've been talking all along about the DengFeng town and immediately surrounding area only, as clearly and repeatedly explained, but Bung just wants to read it otherwise so he can troll along :)
I've noticed he's trying it with you in the 'Abbot pimps his ride' thread, where you have "sugar coated a nasty illegal act just to boost up your mate the abbot" ;) :rolleyes:
:)
How is it an illegal act if one govt. institution gives to another govt. employee?
???
PRC Nerd Law Facts:
PRC law defines bribery as the giving of monies or goods to personnel of State organizations or public servants for improper benefits. Improper benefits are also defined as excessive amounts of money or gifts, and are considered bribes.
Under PRC law, government administrative personnel may NOT:
a) Receive gifts while discharging official duty within the PRC. Gifts are gift articles, gift money, vouchers or goods purchased with nominal costs, whether given outright or in the name of or in the form of receptions, ceremonies, seminars, weddings and funerals;
(b) Receive gifts in performing official duties relating to foreign parties only. Such gifts are gift articles, gift money or vouchers, and must be reported according to value.7
According to section eight under criminal law in China, graft in the amount of more than Rmb100,000 is punishable to a minimum of 10 fixed years in prison.
The fat abbots pimp ride is easily worth over Rmb100,000 in China.
Source:
PRC Criminal Law - Chapter VIII: Graft and Bribery
Provisions Against Offering and Accepting Gifts by State Administrative Organs or Personnel in Performing Official Duties within the PRC (《国家行政机关及其工作人员在国內公务活动中不得贈送和接受礼品的规定》), art. 2-4.
Yeah, but this was a STATE organization giving another person in a STATE organization a STATE owned car for their use.
Yes? Even if it was a personal owned car which is extremely doubtful, it was a STATE organization giving an employee in a STATE organization a gift.
Do you understand the difference?
No law was broken, give me a break.
Anyway I don't get your high and mightiness over this. Who the heck cares if somebody gets a gift? I don't care if you give him a SUV ... why should I? Why should you?
You really think the Shaolin 'temple' is some 'temple'? It's not, it's like China Martial Arts Disneyland.
Hey legal wizard - it does not matter if it was the Zheng zhou municipal government, the Dengfeng municipal government, or even Dengfeng Auto Corp. themselves who donated the gift. Shi Yongxin is still a public servant to the PRC, and the Abbott of the Shaolin Temle which also falls under the category of a state run organziation, who recieved an excessive gift. Of course how you want to interpret that meaning under criminal law is up to you.Quote:
Originally Quoted by Lunghushan
Even if it was a personal owned car which is extremely doubtful, it was a STATE organization giving an employee in a STATE organization a gift.
If you do not like my Nerd Facts, or feel that they are somehow inaccurate, please take it up with the sources and post your own facts with sources. I do not mind.
Overall I thought it was interesting to present another side to this story.
Buddhists, public servants, state organizaitons, corporations, Shaolin, or any other individual, are not above the law.
Yes I think it is a legitamate temple, and yes I think it is the Disneyland of MA.Quote:
Posted by Lunghushan:
You really think the Shaolin 'temple' is some 'temple'? It's not, it's like China Martial Arts Disneyland.
BBK
Not a legal wizard, but obviously you aren't either. If you can't make the distinction between a kick-back for political gain and the government doing something.
Why do you think it's a legitimate temple?
In China these days everything is about money. The people pretending to be monks in temples are pretending. You'd be hard pressed to find a real monk these days.
Anyways I'm done with this conversation. It's obvious that some people are believing the marketing B.S., and having a hard time understanding that it's just marketing B.S.
I suppose you think that Mickey Mouse is really a mouse, and not some guy in a mouse costume. It's the same with the 'Shaolin' temple. Those aren't monks -- those are guys in monks costume.
Hey Gene,
LiPeng his family moved back to their hometown in Hunan Province (near Zhang Jia Jie). His father is still teaching and celebrated his 60th birthday 2 weeks ago.
About Tjun Mei...her taiji ( as well as her KF) is really not bad at all (hey if you train 8-10 hours a day for 10-15 years:eek: ) ..don't know witch part the showed in the PBS Documentary:confused:
I think that religion, politics and money have been intertwined in various ways in China for centuries - the same way they are in the West. I recall reading about complaints of Chinese people durring the Yuan Dynasty over Tibetan monks robbing and cannibalizing travelers. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I guess my point is that it could be worse. Catering to tourists is preferable to catering with tourists.
What are your standards for a temple being "legitimate"? If catering to tourists makes you illegitimate, I would imagine that most temples that I've been to in China fail on that point, as well as the Vatican.
What's a real monk either? Beyond someone who has taken a vow to live in a monastic order? I would imagine that Buddhas are few and far between in China these days, but I'm not sure if that's any more so than in the past.
In Air America Robert Downy Jr. asks Mel Gibson's Character, "What kind of Buddhist runs guns?" To which he replies, "I said I was a Buddhist, I never said I was a good Buddhist."
If you're suggesting that Buddhist monks who are trianing in kung fu to cater to tourists in the present are less legitimate than Buddhist monks who trained in kung fu to kill in the past I'd like to have that argument fleshed out a little more.
"Buddhists, public servants, state organizaitons, corporations, Shaolin, or any other individual, are not above the law."
In China today? Yes they are. Whether they should be or not is a different question altogether, but if government officials recieving bribes in exchange for favors weren't above the law the majority of the Chinese government would be in jail.
It's been a while since I've seen that doc though. I remember admiring her lohanquan, but that's about it. I've put that documentary behind me, so my memory of it isn't that clear right now. Anyways, good to hear Zhang sr. had a pleasant 60th. His is a fascinating story. But then, there's a ton of fascinating stories at Shaolin.
I'm going to Disneyland tomorrow. Seriously. I'll check into this Mickey Mouse issue. ;)
I dunno. What do I know about Shaolin? I've never been there. From the various pictures, movies and things it looks like the monks at the major temples just put on uniforms for show, and go home to houses, TVs, VCRs, and a lot of them have wives and kids.
Monks aren't supposed to have all that stuff, and families, are they? But what do I know. :confused:
Well, I did cross paths with Mickey and pondered his 'reality'. I'll say this - Mickey is real enough for countless children just like many Shaolin monks are real enough for countless tourists, spectators and beginners. There are only a few performers that are permitted to play Mickey, or Pluto (who snuck up on me from behind and startled me enough that I knocked over a little kid :o ) or especially Ariel. Ahh, yes, Ariel. She's another story entirely. Is she as innocent and wholesome in private life as she appears? We can only fantasize. But back to the analogy, all of these performers are very skilled at what they do in order to get that job. In a similar fashion, if one is to adopt the perspective that all Shaolin monks are parallel to Disneyland characters, there's a tremendous amount of skill therein. Whether they are 'real' or 'fake' could concievably be overshadowed by the very notion of what it might take to portray a Shaolin monk. Shaolin temple is not like the movies where there are wires, retakes and CGI. And I can attest that challenges matches are still fought there quite regularly. Even if they were just performers, they are superior to most martial artists simply because they have to perform this role so often.
Now I certainly won't deny the existance of 'performance' monks. In fact, I was one of the first to coin that phrase. Clearly, there are many at Shaolin who don robes and are not monks at all. When the festivals come, there are literally thousands in robes. There are only a few hundred monks at most, and most of them are wuseng. The devout Buddhist monks are not very accessible to tourists, by their very nature. They are there, but they are surrounded and greatly outnumbered. Does this make Shaolin valid or not as a genuine temple? How many 'real' monks do you need? Remember the lesson of the Hui Neng and how he became the sixth patriarch. Where did the dust alight then?
It's really ironic to me when someone says "In China these days everything is about money." Is it so different in America?
That's cool. There's no legal implications to that? If a foreigner has a challenge match will they get into trouble?
I have no idea. I guess 1 monk would do it. Do you really think there is 1 monk at Shaolin who is there for Buddhism and not for commercial reasons or because they don't have any other skills than teaching martial arts or hanging out?Quote:
Does this make Shaolin valid or not as a genuine temple? How many 'real' monks do you need? Remember the lesson of the Hui Neng and how he became the sixth patriarch. Where did the dust alight then?
No, but I guess that's the point is that the China of 200 years ago or whatever is gone.Quote:
It's really ironic to me when someone says "In China these days everything is about money." Is it so different in America?
...but this is the martial arts world. Challenges don't usually go there unless someone is seriouly hurt and usually things end with a bloody nose or a knock out. It really depends upon who you challenge. But just to give you an example, remember those 80 registered schools in the area? They have to coordinate the weekly day off because Dengfeng doesn't want rival schools to be out on the same day. When that happens, there's always fights. I'm told it's a weird logistical nightmare.
As for genuine monks, there are several. I've met more than a few. There are hundreds of fakes too, and I had to get past them to get to the genuine ones, but that's really not that hard. You just got to know the right questions. Many westerners go looking for 'real' monks and don't know the first thing about monks or Buddhism, so how could they even begin to find what they're looking for? To be frank, I've had the same problem in many spiritual centers. One of the worst places was Bodh Gaya. I literally had to beat back the tourist scammers there. It was one of the most intense tourist abuse situations I've ever been in, short of Jamaica, where at more than a few moments, I felt physically threatened and feared for my life. At the same time, Bodh Gaya was amazing and I had some very profound moments there. I'll never forget meditating beside the diamond seat - it was so powerful.
The U.S.A. of 200 years ago is gone too. Remember, America is only a little older than 200 years now. If you were to ask about the America of 250 years ago, well then, where would that put us?Quote:
the China of 200 years ago or whatever is gone.
Well it would put us back to being a British colony, when much of the country wasn't inhabited with Europeans. Yes, America of 250 years ago is gone too.
Oh, well. Honestly you've done much much more in your life than I will probably ever do in mine, so I really can't judge any of this, Shaolin or whatever.
(From your posts it seems like you do more in a week than I've done in a year).
Suzuki Roshi said (and forgive my paraphrasing) never stop to compare your practice to that of others. When you do that, you lose the way. Our lives aren't over yet, lunghushan, and there maybe past and future lives, so who cares who has done more?
It's important for you to question Shaolin. It's important for everyone to question it, and to arrive at their own conclusions. What I have issues with is when people propound their findings as the sole truth when it is subjective a relative. Many people go to Shaolin looking for a Mickey Mouse monk because that's what they've been told is there. And I'm not denying that Mickey isn't there. But just because there is a Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, doesn't mean there isn't a genuine mouse there too.
richard sloan, you of all people know what I'm talking about. And FWIW, Jamaica was amazing too and I had some very profound moments there. I'll never forget my meditation at Nine Mile - it was so powerful. ;)