© 2020 Ti: Rebuilding the North Shaolin Monastery Subtitle: 2010 to 2020 By: Gregory Brundage ISBN: 9798661286116 Softcover Print First Edition July 2, 2020 The Chinese characters at the beginning of chapters, along with Pinyin and English definitions came from: https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary which were very useful for translations, along with https://fanyi.baidu.com. The views and opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the Shaolin Temple or other spiritual/religious organizations. i Dedication This book is dedicated to the spirits and memories of all those who have had the discipline and courage to fight for truth, justice and the greater good, as well as those who have toiled in the fields of inequity while living by and preserving the wisdom of those before us. This includes but is not limited to the good Shaolin monks, those of Wudangshan and millions of other people around the world – past and present. May their spirits be remembered in reverence and preserved as a light for humanity especially at times when all may seem lost. ii INTRODUCTION TO REBUILDING THE NORTH SHAOLIN MONASTERY ARTICLE SERIES ................................................................ IV PILGRIMAGE TO THE TRUE NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART I REBIRTH ............... 1 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART II DISCOVERY...............................10 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART III PROFESSOR GAO .....................28 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART IV WATER DRAGON ....................38 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART V GRANDMOTHER WANG AND THE BUDDHA ...........................................................................................................46 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART VI INSIDE .....................................59 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART VII RELEASE .................................87 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART VIII SPIRIT OF THE MASTERS ..... 101 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART IX SUJIA DIZI AND WUSENG ...... 119 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART X SPIRIT OF YUN ZHAO MONASTERY ................................................................................................... 132 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XI VIEW FROM QIAN XIANG MONASTERY ................................................................................................... 150 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XII FAN YI HUI CHAN HOUSE ..... 166 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XIII MEDITATION HALL AND MOUNTAIN SPIRITS......................................................................................... 178 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XIV GUAN YIN HALL .................. 197 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XV ORIGINS ............................... 215 REBUILDING NORTH SHAOLIN TEMPLE PART XVI EXPANSION PLANS ............. 221 EPILOGUE ........................................................................................................ 226 iii Introduction to Rebuilding the North Shaolin Monastery Article Series 苦尽甘来 Kǔjìngānlái - Hardship finishes, sweetness begins (idiom) Architect’s design for North Shaolin Monastery (2009) June 2020 - North Shaolin Monastery is northeast China’s premier mountain retreat for those in search of the twin lures of enlightenment and transcendent martial arts. It was supported throughout history by the headquarter Songshan Shaolin and a long line of China’s most notable Emperors before being destroyed in May 1942 during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. iv Work to restore the ancient monastery began in 2009 and is expected to be completed in about 2025. The reconstructed monastery will be considerably larger than the original while incorporating Tang and Song Dynasty architectural features and ecologically friendly energy systems. This collection of articles was published in Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine (USA) and chronicle regular visits by the author to the reconstruction site of the North Shaolin Monastery and surrounding mountain towns and villages over a 10-year period from 2010 to 2020. Much has changed since the first story was published in 2010. North Shaolin Monastery was and is now again the major branch Shaolin Temple of the headquarter monastery on Song Mountain in Denfeng city, Henan Province in central China. North Shaolin Monastery, August 2013 Sutra Hall on the left, Great Buddha Hall on the right. The ancient white tower is center v October 28, 2019 – Meditation Hall (Cang Tang) left, Monk Domicile center, and Great Buddha Hall, right September 2014 – Young lay disciples practicing Taolu vi These articles explore the current conditions and distant histories of the North Shaolin Monastery as well as the local mountain people’s folklore and other stories from the intersections of their personal and families’ lives, the mountain and monastery. A few of the people interviewed in this series of articles have since passed away and what was published in these articles may be the only lasting record of their stories about the mountain and the monastery. Background The Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist North Shaolin Temple currently being reconstructed on Pan Mountain (Panshan) in Ji County (Jixian), 105 kilometers north of Tianjin and 95 kilometers east of Beijing is in the imperial heartland of China and thus exposed to much more direct, mostly foreign aggression than the headquarter Songshan Shaolin which is much further inland and closer to central China. Located on Pan Mountain (Panshan) the North Shaolin Monastery has a strategic location in Jixian, and Jixian in China due to its location in a critical mountain pass from the sea inland and from North to South not far inland from the eastern coast. This unique strategic location gave it a role in history most people – even in China – don’t know about. The North Shaolin Monastery - originally called “Faxing Temple” was built in the Wei Jin Dynasty (220 - 317 AD). It is the oldest temple in the very large mostly rural Jixian area. According to the official Shaolin Temple history it became part of the Shaolin family under the auspices of Abbot Fuyu near the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) in China. vii Despite its long noble history, ask most people in China today where the “North Shaolin Temple” is and surprisingly they say “Zai Songshan,” (at Song Mountain) in Central China. In other words, even in China today most people don’t know the noble legacy of the North Shaolin Monastery as the large, ancient and very special east- coast branch of the famed headquarter Songshan Shaolin in Henan Province. This suggests that events leading to and resulting from the destruction of the North Shaolin Temple in 1942 during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression erased even the memory of this noble temple from most Chinese people due to the chaos and destruction of that and subsequent wars. It wasn’t just North Shaolin that burned that Spring day of May in 1942. The entire mountain along with seventy-one other Buddhist temples was burned as well. This isn’t to say or suggest that the North Shaolin monks went out in a blaze of glory fighting the Japanese at the temple as it didn’t happen exactly that way. Instead hearing the Japanese Imperial Forces were coming the monks on North Shaolin were ordered to abandon the ancient monastery to save them and the monastery. Had the monks been locked within a closed fortification like a stone monastery they would have been easy targets for superior Japanese artillery. Songshan Shaolin had been burned down 14 years earlier during the Warlord Era in 1928. The elder monks did not want a repetition of that tragedy. World War II was a much longer and more devastating war for Chinese than for Europe and the USA, as it started much earlier in 1937. viii The North Shaolin monks left the monastery and consequently North Shaolin Kung Fu disseminated widely prior to the final destruction of the Temple especially in the Beijing/Tianjin/Pingu areas specifically and Hebei Province in general. Thus, a suicidal battle was avoided, and maximum use of their unique skills was used rather than obliterated along with the ancient monastery. Reading the articles in this series one learns that Panshan was a major center of resistance against the Japanese army. Munitions were manufactured, militias were trained and there was even a bank hidden in caves with gold collected to fund the resistance movement. The headquarter Songshan Shaolin was not part of this war of resistance as it had been destroyed 14 years earlier, though it is widely believed some or many monks survived the final battle against the warlords and joined the resistance movement on Panshan and elsewhere in China. Though North Shaolin Monastery was generally abandoned by the monks prior to the Japanese final assault on the mountain in an attempt to protect the monastery, it was none-the-less still used by the resistance as a defensive fortification and destroyed when the Japanese burned the entire mountain. ix Following the destruction and looting of the North Shaolin Temple in subsequent years and decades few remains existed of the original temple except for the foundations of a few buildings, a few parts of the old walls and one battered 13-tiered ancient pagoda from the early-mid Qing Dynasty. Part of the old wall at North Shaolin (February 28, 2010) When I first saw the white tower (bái tǎ) pagoda in 2010 it was in serious need of repair with crumbling foundations, scores of bullet holes and foliage growing on the tiers