The Only Truly Authentic Shaolin System

[r.(shaolin)]

You really think EVERYTHING was wiped out? Where is the proof? . . .

I am not saying that.

however I still fail to see how any of that explains away close, family style ch'an transmission of master to disciple, in an unbroken link from pre 1928 . . . .

I wasn't trying to explain away the family style Ch'an transmission.

. . . I think it is a little hilarious that you would think that a wushu champion brought back Shaolin training.

That not what I was getting at. What I said, was at first is was wushu champions like Lu Xiaolin who were assigned to help re-establish kung-fu training at Shaolin. I gather you don't believe this happened.

That might be news to a few lineages lol, who can trace their transmission back to monks in the murals!

Interesting. How do they do that? I gather you're talking about the Ji Qing who allegedly is being depicted in one of the murals at Shaolin.

However, I will rely on what I have "pieced" together, lol, because it makes quite a bit of sense and is externally provable beyond what the people telling it say.

I understanding your feelings and am I'm with you on this. You may have a lot more of the facts. Possibly you can correct the facts in my post way back in the beginning of this thread.

r.

the compilation of traditional sets practiced at Shaolin, is very recent and comes from disparate sources. What complicates this matter somewhat is that the main old monks that give todays Shaolin its credibility, such as Shi Zhenxu, Shi Degen, Shi Suxi, Shi Suyun, Shi Hai Deng, Shi Xing Zhen, Shi Yang An etc. were all martial arts enthusiasts who learned their martial arts mostly from a variety of sources including lay masters. Just look at their bios.
For an example, Shi Hai Deng’s martial arts comes from a number of sources. He first began studying martial arts at the age of 7 from his maternal uncle. In 1920 at 18 he entered the University of Sichuan. His stayed there was short. Hai Deng then enrolled at the Police Academy in Chengdu and graduated from there. From there in 1931, Hai Deng went to Woyun Si in the Emei mountains where he studied Bai Mei Quan of the Emei school. At that time as well he began studying Meihua Zhuang with a monk master named, Ru Feng. From this Shaolin monk he learned just two sets Soft fist and Plum blossom fist. Anyway Hai Deng spent most of this time at Woyun Si studying Emei martial arts and Bai Mei Quan. In 1943, Hai Deng, went to Zhaojue Si and received this tonsure name (Hai Deng) from Zhi Guam Fashi. Basically Hai Deng Fashi had expertise in: Yizhi chan; 36 Tongzi gong; Meihua zhuang and Bai Mei Quan - of the Emei school. Sometime during the 60s, the Chinese government briefly restore Shaolin Si and designating Hai Deng to be it in charge.

It appears Zhenxu is the main connection, to the Shaolin martial arts at the present Shaolin's claims of a single monastic lineage. However it also appears that Zhenxu knew a limited number of the sets that were practiced in the 1800's at Shaolin.

Shi Zhenxu arrived at Shaolin in 1920 and at best only studied with Shi Henglin for only 2 or maybe 2+ years. Both Zhenxu and Degen both gained much of their martial art knowledge from various lay-masters.

[richard sloan]

That not what I was getting at. What I said, was at first is was wushu champions like Lu Xiaolin who were assigned to help re-establish kung-fu training at Shaolin. I gather you don't believe this happened.

and I am not sure why you would infer that I don't believe that happened. Lu Xiaolin's presence at Shaolin is not strictly relevant to my point. From one perspective, Lu Xiaolin may very well have been on a mission to restore training and that is certainly an angle to look at in the history. From another perspective, let's say a perspective internal to the temple, Lu Xiaolin was helping to do something that was already happening and possibly placating some meddling influences, perhaps we might even say providing some cover. Clearly there is a heavy wushu flavor in Shaolin, which only makes sense from a certain Ch'an position as government influence waxed and waned. Recently, for example, quite a few people took me to task because a lot of pureland monks were being brought in to restore some buddhist flavor in Shaolin after there was a purge of older Ch'an monks like Shi Wan Heng, but meantime to the pureland influence, the old cao dong and lin ji lineages, and a few other guys from some of the other Ch'an families, were still going strong with one or two representatives or more within Shaolin. So that is what I am saying- often there are several histories being laid down concurrently. It is quite possible, and we have to allow for this possibility, that several things were going on at the same time...I am of the mind that the monks used the government and were also used by the government, even I would say many *survived* the government, despite.

my whole point is that many things like that happened in conjunction with something that was already a happening transmission. Usually in institutions like Shaolin there is always a lot of historical overlap, convergence and divergence, if you will.

Interesting. How do they do that? I gather you're talking about the Ji Qing who allegedly is being depicted in one of the murals at Shaolin.

Well, naturally if your ancestors are depicted in the mural one would know this. I believe there are a number of historical figures, actual monks, who still have lineages extant who are in the murals...I did have a short list of names of a few of them laying around somewhere. Here I will be the first to admit to a degree of lazy ignorance, as my Chinese is good enough to order food and get a cold beer.

I understanding your feelings and am I'm with you on this. You may have a lot more of the facts. Possibly you can correct the facts in my post way back in the beginning of this thread.

r.

maybe? but I wouldn't put much store in facts...in history I've come to the view that facts seem quite transient as new facts always seem to surface which add to the pictures we try and paint when we look back. Rather than use the word correct, I would say maybe I or others could simply add to.

I'll have to look back when I have some time, to be honest I remember vaguely looking at the title of this thread and thinking it was not one I would find that interesting, as it's premise as stated in the title is a bit ludicrous.

[Songshan]

I think teh followers of songshan shaolin need to recognize that they are not the only source of shaolin. They are "a" source, but not "the" source. There is in fact no "the" source anymore and there hasn't been for a very long time.

you cannot take back what was never yours to begin with in other words.

I think the songshan practitioners, myself included, don't believe songshan shaolin is "the" source of shaolin. Everyone is familiar with the Songshan Shaolin Temple's history. It speaks for itself. The authenticity debates on modern shaolin vs other shaolin styles were created by modern day practitioners. Somewhere along the line someone's ego bruised. As I read some of these threads, I often wonder why there is such a need to prove who is learning "real" shaolin? A lot of folks went on the defensive when monks left shaolin and began opening schools in the US and other countries. I haven't met a songshan practitioner that says Bak Sil Lum is not real shaolin, etc.

I think the PRC is working a process where Songshan Shaolin is becoming "standardized" and having guidelines set. This is happening not so they can be "the" source but to stabalize and restore a part of China's culture, history, and its martial arts. Why can't they?

[LFJ]

However, if you think that there has been no PRC hand in the comings and goings of the shaolin in the here and now, then I am afraid your eyes are simply shut and you actively do not wish to know the truth.

as mr. sloan said, i'm not sure where you got this idea of me thinking that. lol

don't create my "disrespect" by projecting your anger and your words onto me. I challenge you to quote me where I have stated what you say I have.

i'm not angry. i'm simply astonished that someone could actually believe the illogical mess of a story you have come up with, especially in the face of all the old masters we owe so much to. its insulting their sacrifice.

you said this:

"pretty much" means "virtually" as in no Ch'an transmitters, no Kungfu transmitters, no shaolin transmitters. None of these were in the temple in 1980.

not sure where you heard this. but again, the physical structure of the temple is not its limit. you cant suggest that because monks were forced out that somehow that marked a break in transmission.

and by saying so, in the face of all the old monks who sacrificed to continue the transmission, you are saying they are fakes and liars because to you the tradition didnt exist until after jet li's movie when the government recreated it!

So, the arts thrived outside the temple and yes, they must thrive to be known!

this is obvious, but what i said about thriving was in regards to chan, but may as well be in regards to the arts as well. as mr. sloan said, if only one person understands, there is chan, there is still active transmission. you dont need hundreds of monks living inside the temple to have that. and the temple being closed down or taken over doesnt mark the end of everything.

the traditions and transmissions were still running full with those old monks who defended it and preserved it through the rough times. to suggest all they went through was for a lie is very insulting. at any time they could have said skip this, its not worth it. but they didnt even fight back. they just kept true to their tradition and passed it on no matter how tough it was. thats proof enough of their true chan transmission right there.

Also, you have no idea whatsoever what my experience is, but you reveal that yours is quite recent and not open to understanding the true diaspora of shaolin that has occurred not only once or twice, but many times over hundreds of years.

you demonstrate your experience through your speech. you seem like you read a few things, heard of the current politics and rumors, then came to your own conclusion. its obvious you have no actual experience studying with any of the chan monks who hold lineage from those old masters. because you dont know their stories.

i've seen others like that. just saw one on russbo who was talking about the same thing, how everything in shaolin was a grand orchestrated lie by the government. even pre-1900's history was all made up....

it seemed to me that this all spread from him having a very unfortunate experience with some shaolin "master" who didnt keep true to the teachings and represent well. the guy was disappointed and lost all hope in shaolin, then practically turned against the whole thing.

but without having experience of the old masters and their disciples, without ever experiencing that true tradition, its difficult to see through the politics and the actors and understand shaolin.

this is obviously the position you are coming from. you have no experience of those old masters and so you're really speaking against what you dont know about.

who do you think keeps those alive and what gives you the right to say they are NOT shaolin?

nothing.

? i have no clue what you're talking about here. i just joined the conversation when you tried to say the tradition all the old monks sacrificed for did not actually exist until the government somehow recreated it...

[LFJ]

It appears Zhenxu is the main connection, to the Shaolin martial arts at the present Shaolin's claims of a single monastic lineage. However it also appears that Zhenxu knew a limited number of the sets that were practiced in the 1800's at Shaolin.

Shi Zhenxu arrived at Shaolin in 1920 and at best only studied with Shi Henglin for only 2 or maybe 2+ years. Both Zhenxu and Degen both gained much of their martial art knowledge from various lay-masters.

true about the lay masters, but you should be familiar with the shaolin generation list. the heng character denotes the 35th generation, while zhen the 29th.

shi henglin was obviously not shi zhenxu's only master.

you are not taking into account his previous master, who was of the 28th shaolin generation, but belonged to another temple when he sent zhenxu to shaolin for further study- which is commonplace in chinese monasticism. zhenxu studied with him for over 20 years before coming to shaolin and studying with henglin.

[David Jamieson]

LFJ-

You need to stop accusing me of saying things I NEVER said.

When you can get a grip on that, I will discuss with you.

[r.(shaolin)]

true about the lay masters, but you should be familiar with the shaolin generation list. the heng character denotes the 35th generation, while zhen the 29th.

shi henglin was obviously not shi zhenxu's only master.

you are not taking into account his previous master, who was of the 28th shaolin generation, but belonged to another temple when he sent zhenxu to shaolin for further study- which is commonplace in chinese monasticism. zhenxu studied with him for over 20 years before coming to shaolin and studying with henglin.

Zhenxu came from Longxing Monastery, where he was ordained. However, other than assumptions, as far as I know there are no records of the sets he learned or that he even studied martial arts there. What is generally said is that he studied martial arts from Shi Hengln, and as you point out with a 35th generation teacher. Never-the-less, if Zhenxu's Shaolin martial arts was that extensive, it just does not make sense that his students would later be picking-up their martial arts from other lay masters .

[LFJ]

why not?

grandmaster suxi's knowledge of traditional wushu was very extensive. he was known as the king of shaolin boxing. master deyang was known as the young king of shaolin boxing. with such an encyclopedic knowledge of traditional shaolin wushu, he would have no reason to learn from others, but he in fact studied with several lay masters as well.

master deqian was another disciple of ven. suxi. why would he "need" to study with other masters? why would he "need" to travel around asia to study with lay masters? to recover shaolin arts that had been spread out.

longxing monastery was where ven. zhenxu was ordained. correct. but his master was originally from shaolin, of the 28th generation. hence their shaolin dharma names. thats why he was sent to shaolin for further study. after abbot henglin passed, i see no reason why ven. zhenxu would not continue to recover and accumulate old material from lay masters.

and what does it mean "what is generally said"? by whom? anyone who holds lineage to him by chance? or is it just whats said on the one english website that mentions him?

[r.(shaolin)]

Hi Richard
Do you know who the full name of Zhenxu's teacher at Longxing Monastery (Shi Hen Li? but doen't fit the lineage) and the sets he learned there? Does anyone know?
r.

why not?

grandmaster suxi's knowledge of traditional wushu was very extensive. he was known as the king of shaolin boxing. master deyang was known as the young king of shaolin boxing. with such an encyclopedic knowledge of traditional shaolin wushu, he would have no reason to learn from others, but he in fact studied with several lay masters as well.

master deqian was another disciple of ven. suxi. why would he "need" to study with other masters? why would he "need" to travel around asia to study with lay masters? to recover shaolin arts that had been spread out.

longxing monastery was where ven. zhenxu was ordained. correct. but his master was originally from shaolin, of the 28th generation. hence their shaolin dharma names. thats why he was sent to shaolin for further study. after abbot henglin passed, i see no reason why ven. zhenxu would not continue to recover and accumulate old material from lay masters.

and what does it mean "what is generally said"? by whom? anyone who holds lineage to him by chance? or is it just whats said on the one english website that mentions him?

[LFJ]

his longxingsi master's name is ven. shi chunzhi, 28th gen. shaolin.

as for trying to name each set he ever learned and where, good luck. you probably cant pin that down for a lot of the more recent monks. especially since we know his wushu knowledge was extensive and came from many different sources.

he invited master wu shanlin and his oldest son, wu qianyou, to shaolin to teach him and ven. dechan, degen and the rest.

[LFJ]

he didnt study with abbot henglin until after being sent to shaolin upon the passing away of his master ven. chunzhi.

[richard sloan]

further to a point raised above, it is actually nothing out of the ordinary to send your disciples to learn from other masters- in one way it shows respect to other shifu, that you entrust your disciples to another, also it helps expand the knowledge a bit within one's line, like new blood...often you will see sight variations in forms for example, different flavors come into the picture in this manner in part. the gates or camps at shaolin were both insular but also not. also you have to watch because not every monk is from the cao dong sect in Shaolin, Shi Wan Heng is one such example. a master may take a disciple and seek out a different master for a variety of different reasons, for example many monks begin to specialize at certain levels, like Shi Su Goong, for example. my own shifu has sent me to study with other masters as well, for example a seminar with Dr Yang Jwing Ming, and a few others....I did miss out on a trip to Austria to do a tandem seminar with him and Master De Yang which I wish I could have gone on. Anyway, one point I would like to raise is that many of the monks just sincerely love martial arts and love to learn what they can from whom they can.

the monks don't turn their nose up at folk masters and I don't believe they ever have, folk masters actually make up a lot of the body of knowledge that we have and I think was also quite the way things have been for a very long time, and as far as I know this has always been so- so I don't think we can count it strange or be dismissive of lay masters being in the vein so to speak, of what contributed to a monk's education. after all, it is a well known fact that many of the shaolin lineages we have now out and about in the world today are actually lay lineages- every lineage outside the temple in the US or the UK or Taiwan or Malaysia or Vancouver or wherever- these are all legitimate transmissions as far as the temple is concerned from my experience so it is not really counted as anything peculiar to find lay masters in a monk's line- such as many of our brothers here in this forum. the monks don't discriminate like that. so nobody holding a place in a 'modern' lineage, we can't turn our nose at lay masters who contributed to the body of knowledge, and monks certainly recognize their ability to maintain and contribute to the education of their disciples and vice versa.

Disciples are often sent to others.

[r.(shaolin)]

"it is actually nothing out of the ordinary to send your disciples to learn from other masters- in one way it shows respect to other shifu, . . .

. . .the gates or camps at shaolin were both insular but also not. also you have to watch because not every monk is from the cao dong sect in Shaolin, Shi Wan Heng is one such example. a master may take a disciple and seek out a different master for a variety of different reasons, for example many monks begin to specialize at certain levels, like Shi Su Goong, for example. my own shifu has sent me to study with other masters as well, for example a seminar with Dr Yang Jwing Ming, and a few others..

. . . the monks don't turn their nose up at folk masters and I don't believe they ever have, folk masters actually make up a lot of the body of knowledge that we have and I think was also quite the way things have been for a very long time, and as far as I know this has always been so- so I don't think we can count it strange or be dismissive of lay masters being in the vein so to speak, of what contributed to a monk's education.

Disciples are often sent to others."

LJF says, "as for trying to name each set he ever learned and where, good luck. you probably cant pin that down for a lot of the more recent monks. especially since we know his wushu knowledge was extensive and came from many different sources."

That is unfortunate. Shaolin historically valued such records and contextual information for potential insights into into the sets they absorbed. This was also done out of, what could be termed, 'ancestorial respect'.

Of course it is commonly known that a great many of Shaolin sets came from the outside. The current curriculum at the Shaolin monastery, in my continued opinion, is a recent development. This seems to be supported by what you are saying.

Our understanding of how new martial arts was traditionally absorbed into Shaolin is different. I think we can agree that many different sets and kinds of martial arts were practice at Shaolin by individuals, however, not all these sets were part of its official curriculum. What has been taught by the older generations in my lineage was that Shaolin had a specific process for how its curriculum was developed. This process happened over a long time and it included specific procedures and criteria for what would be absorbed. Once this process was complete, records were made of the set(s), the sets(s) history and what changes were made to these 'official' sets so that they conformed to Shaolin traditions.

r.

[richard sloan]

well, that would make sense but for all the manuscript documentation that basically refutes a more 'modern' attempt to reconstruct Shaolin's martial arts. I mean, in a certain sense, this kind of reconstruction which we are examining has happened quite a few times throughout Shaolin's history...

I believe it was the work of a few monks who went throughout China within the last decade hunting down many of the copies that were made of the texts in the monastery's library which people had copies of, first of all many of the books were salvaged from Shi You San's attack- many, many copies were made and distributed, a huge trove of volumes was buried during the attack, so it can no longer be said that the famous library of Shaolin is no more, and this was known to most if not all the monastics at least- Master De Yang is actually one of the monks responsible for these texts, and when compared there is very little deviance, the forms and sets are pretty much- to borrow a phrase- still within the monastic and immediate lay lineages- this corpus and what was researched all point to congruity. Again, his name escapes me....but I do have it somewhere...

I think it is also important to remember that martial art lineages have quite a bit of mythmaking intrinsic in their transmissions- in fact this is one of the things which I find personally fascinating as I am a huge fan of Campbell.

Best to be flexible, in my opinion. From an external perspective, as the effects of mythmaking in particular set in over time- and I don't mean that in a bad way- it is easy to see why from an external point of view, much of what is seen today by the outside world would seem to be a fabrication, as much of it is!! But likewise, from an internal perspective, and as more and more of that information becomes available and accessible, it should also be equally understood that there is indeed such an unbroken transmission as the monks are saying.

[richard sloan]

it would also be interesting to learn if people claim all of Song Shan was orchestrated/recreated by the government, did they recreate the whole temple system throughout the whole range of 72 mountains, or in ignorance, do they just maintain that it was Shaolin Temple?