Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Sunday, February 27, 2011

Shaolin Kung Fu in Contemporary China

This month's National Geographic Magazine has an article about the current state of the Shaolin Temple and it's place in contemporary China.The article may be read online here.

While written for a general audience, there are still some interesting insights. Take a look.

2 comments:

walt said...

A great read on a rainy Sunday morning. Despite all the commercial hype, the "atmosphere" surrounding that Temple beckons many folks; lately, even me: I find myself practicing a Qigong that claims to have originated there. Your article makes for nice background.

In the article:
"His master had admonished him to remain humble..." and that students were taught to "eat bitterness."

Reminded me of a quote from a book by Anthony Bloom:
The word 'humility' comes from the Latin word 'humus' which means fertile ground. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don't need. It's there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed.

Rick Matz said...

Walt's blog, A Plainly Hidden View is simply beautiful. Please take a look:

http://aplainlyhiddenview.blogspot.com/