Cultural Revolution

[jpmaus]

Does anybody know of any books or articles that explain, in detail, the events, as they unfolded, when the Red Guard reached the Shaolin Temple during the Cultural Revolution? I've looked all over the internet, and all I can seem to turn up is the same three or four sentences. There is plenty of stuff about the Cultural Revolution, and plenty of stuff about the Shaolin Temple, but in all of this there is ever only very brief mention of what happened when the two collided.

[John the Monkey mind]

There is a bit of detail in the book "The Shaolin Grandmasters text". I am not shore what to make of this lots claims in general as they say they were founded by the old abbot of Shaolin or some senior monk (I forget) and that they escaped to the USA were they continued their teachings in secret.

Any how there doesn't seem much to say about the red guard marching on the temple. Most monks had already left and the temple was burnt down with the loss of manuscripts and a few monks.

This seems plausible, most made it out of the country and settled all over Asia and the West. I am not shore what to make of there claims about being true inheritors of Shaolin although I agree its unlikely what is practices in Shaolin today is the real deal. They say it is a form of village long fist ect not Shaolin as was practised at the time it was burnt down. Interestingly they say there were several Shaolin temples at the time and all were destroy although some by the nationalists.

What is interesting is the refunding of the temple, apparently there were a couple of monks who returned the burnt out temple but they had poor skill and its them that the communists used to rebuild the temple along with a comity for finding masters. It seems most masters were not willing to come foreword. Since then there has been a split within the temple when the current abbot was appointed by the state, he has turned the temple into a business and some of the monks most connected to the old Shaolin left and founded smaller temples up in the mountains.

I have got this last bit from a variate of sources. You should watch the BBC program extreme pilgrim, the Church of England man go's to Shaolin but finds it not overly spiritual so leaves and finds this monk on a mountain and gets an introduction into zen.

I don't know how accurate this all is, its very hard to know as there is little official from the time that is public domain. I am afraid that much like other events in Shaolin this will remain mostly myth.

Don't know if this helps