尤里卡

We've been planning a trip to Shao Lin Si during the long May holiday, perhaps followed by a short visit to LuoYang. The reason why Shao Lin has been our choice is a little bit complicated: we're not going to staying at home for the holiday since that would be a waste, nor are we going to somewhere faraway, cos we'll have to save money and energy for a more wonderful trip to Tibet this summer, which has long been a dream and is right on the schedule now. After a few discussions, we decided to take the trip north. And we make it Henan province, which is not very hot as a tourist attraction, hopefully not boiled by thousands of tourists.

So today I spent some time visiting the official website of Shao Lin Si (www.shaolin.org.cn) and found something quite interesting.

How the Fangzhang managed to get the Qing dynasty emperor Kang Xi's calligraphy "少林寺"

The handwriting “少林寺”, which is still hanging over the temple gate today, is written by the famous emperor Kang Xi of Qing Dynasty. At the time when the emperor visited the temple, the Fangzhang (head monk in the temple, usu. an old, wise and respectful man) had a blank plaque hang over the gate and two monks writing the plaque: a very old monk writing with a shaky broom, and a young monk writing with a thin brush, both of which had made ugly handwriting. It might be too funny or miserable a scene that the emperor could not resist to write the plaque.

I couldn't help wondering why the Fangzhang make such a scene. Why didn't he ask directly? Is it in such beating-about-the-bush that lies the Chinese' wisdoms? Or perhaps it was too abrupt to ask an emperor to do something, even something honorable in the ancient times.


The story of "立雪亭"(standing snow pavilion, that might be a bad translation)

The monk HuiKe(慧可) was so eager to learn under master Damo (达摩）that he stood in the heavy snow and cut his left arm to show the great resolution. Hard to understand though, it's very impressive.


The stories of bamboos and Monk Yishan(宜山和尚）

Monk Yishan was crazy about planting, looking at and painting bamboos. His works were so real that two sparrows just flies towards and clashed into the painting.

I sometimes wonder whether the monks are still keeping their spirits, or, are they simply earning a liveing by being a monk at normal work time and be an ordinary man offwork. I guess few monks are living monks' life nowadays. Vegetarian habits, faraway from material desires or temptations, that might be difficult in a prosperous world nowadays.

Gonna find out myself.