My own opinion about Shoalin temples and money is that the revenue generating methods--especially leaning on the popularity of the classical wu shu--is necessary due to the fact that it is an orginization with overhead. It's a win-win situation between martial art enthusiasts and religious promoters.

For me, the line is crossed with the activity of for-profit martial arts businesses in dealing with the non-profit temple activity. Hypothetical situation: overseas instructors make donations to a temple (Northern or Southern) and they get an inscribed stone or they get lineage authorization.

Case in point: I know of two such instances where the overseas instructor either got an inscription stone set up at the temple or that an instructor got a lineage without much instruction. I do not know if there was any large donations behind them--and I hope there wasn't--but the fact that both parties are now using those actions as part of their marketing for their for-profit business makes me wonder.

I don't know the business practices of the temple organizations, so I hope I'm being paranoid and over-reacting. If anybody knows first hand, I'm interested in learning more.

Gene, I know you've been to the Shaolin Temple (and I have thoroughly enjoyed your informative articles). Do you see any of this kind of activity?

Keith