Shaolin
Two weeks before I left school I went for a Sunday day-trip to Shaolin where it all began with Jon and Laurient.
It was a mission to get there. We got a taxi to the city and then a bus from the station all without hitch and in very good time. It was only after the 2nd stop off that we realised that we had got the tourist bust that stopped off at every possible tourist destination on the way. What should have taken 1 and a half hours in fact took almost 4. Oh dear, we were worried we wouldn’t get ack in time for the 6.40 meeting at school. Big trouble ahead, we did think!
Passes some interesting landscapes on the way… I think it was a quarry for brick clay that has is now farmland. What do you think?…
We stopped first at a temple complex. The 3 of us decided not to go in as we were all on a budget. Instead we took a liesurely stroll up the side of the mountain. The weather was very pleasant and the scenery splendid. Nice to be out of a busy place and somewhere a lot calmer.
After we got going again, the bus stopped a 2nd time at a nunnery. Another money extracting opportunity. We instead opted for a lunch break. Some delectable street food was in order… yummy!
Final stop, almost 4 hours later was the Shaolin complex. We were not timerich unfortunately so we got our skates on.
The complex itself was massive, and in the ,mountains it was nice to have clean air. Must be nice to do Kung fu here.
We hot footed it first to the Pagoda forest. It was very nice. Lots and lots of pagodas surprisingly. All with the ashes of important monks inside them. There was also a man selling an array of interesting mushrooms. None of them magic I hope!
Bodidharma was a Buddist monk from India who made a pilgrimage here. He wasn’t impressed with the attention spans of the monks here so got them doing yoga. This was the start of Kung fu… studying animals and doing physical excercise made their minds more disciplined and therefore better for meditation. That’s how a version of the story goes though
Bodidharma gave example by spending 9 years, in a cave in the mountain here.
In fact, there is an excellent website that has a more accurate telling of the story, go to the My links on the right-hand side of the page and click on the Bodidharma story.
They built a giant statue in honour of him on the top of the mountain. There are about 1000 steps to get there. The monks run it every morning apparently. The students have to do it in 15 minutes or else they have to do it again! Blimey. We took our time, as we had training the next day. Well, that’s our excuse and we’re sticking with it!
Hover the mouse cursor over the picture before clicking on it and you should get a photo title.
We rushed through the rest and the main temple. Would have been nice to spend more time there. Got into a big conversation with one of the monks about who is who in Buddhism but had to cut it short to catch the bus back. Hold that thought, my monk friend, I ‘ll be back again one day.\
In the end we were a lucky lot, we got a non-tourist bus back and made it with 30 minutes to spare before the meeting… phewie.
And that was my experience of the real Shaolin. Well, if you do kung fu in China it would be a bit silly not to visit the birth place. It was whistle-stop, but well worth the visit.
Tags: Shaolin Temple, Zhengzhou Yo!
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