Читать книгу Zen Shaolin Karate. The complete Practice, Philosophy and History онлайн

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In the early Ch'ing dynasty, the empty-hand arts became divorced from their original, underlying philosophy. Shaolin Temple guests, rebels, and refugees from the Manchu armies tried to adapt Shaolin empty-hand arts to mundane utility in warfare. Tales about fighting monks and Buddhist warriors are highly suspicious. A warrior monk, referring to a fighter ordained as a Buddhist cleric, is a contradiction in terms and a violation of office. Any monk bearing arms would be immediately disgracing his vows of ordination and violating the Buddha's noble precepts. Most stories of warrior monks are found in popular Chinese fiction, dealing with the late Ming through the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911). They are, in general, tales about marauding rebels dressed as monks. This helps to explain why the Manchus found it necessary to burn the Shaolin Temple, a supposed religious place, to the ground. From a military point of view, the confusion of the times left them with no option.

Later still, corrupted versions of the Shaolin fighting arts filtered down to the common people of China through organizations with political purposes, the forerunners of the triads. By that time, they were inexorably linked with fighting and the formal ties with Zen were all but severed as popular ignorance threw away the wheat and kept the chaff. Street peddler kung fu (a Cantonese name for theatrical empty-hand fighting) became popular as crowds were drawn by its display of elaborate kung fu forms and mock combat. These forms even found their way into Chinese opera and touring theatrical groups. Even so, some of the true forms were passed down. A good guide to these original forms is the previously mentioned Zen hallmark of simplicity. The central philosophy behind these forms is still Zen.