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1 As you stroll through the Shaolin Monastery complex, you are apt to be startled when a teenage boy in a sweatsuit suddenly thrusts a foot into the sky, or another practices the fine art of hanging from a tree by his toes.
2 This cluster of wooden buildings at the foot of Song Mountain in central China is the home of Zen Buddhism and of Asian martial arts. The unexpected movements represent typical horseplay of students from the school on the hill behind the monastery. The students might be practicing from among the thousands of special martial moves taught here - one called “flowers hidden among the leaves,” in which a leg seems to come out of nowhere or “sweeping an army of thousands,” a powerful swipe with a staff intended to mow down multiple attackers.
3 If you think that gentle Buddhism seems incompatible with the violent dispatch of opponents by kicking, slugging, or slashing with a sword, then you do not really understand meditation, De Yang says.
4 At 32, De Yang is an acclaimed master of the monastery’s stylized and sometimes bizarre routines of strength and self-defense. He is also one of the senior monks, practicing the form of meditation known in China as Chan and in Japan and the West as Zen.
5 “Chan and martial arts are one,” he says. The practice of martial routines is simply a physical expression of Chan, the meditation exercises used in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.
6 Visitors who search for easy truths here, whether about the meaning of Chan or of a monastery that has become a
Adapted from The New York Times.
major tourist attraction, are bound to be disappointed. What is indisputably true is that the monastery is thriving, benefiting from a kung-fu-movie-driven fascination with martial arts and a surge in domestic tourism.
7 Two to three million people visit the Shaolin Monastery each year, enjoying the elegant grounds and buildings filled with old inscriptions, fading murals, and reputed artifacts of the monastery’s fabled history. They also watch exhibitions of martial arts routines and see monks break bricks or other hard objects with their heads.
8 The crowds and shows destroy the serenity and have led to charges of commercialism, but they also bring in money for restoring buildings that were repeatedly vandalized through the centuries. In the valley surrounding Shaolin, a whole town of shops and dozens of competing martial arts schools has sprung up.
9 The monastery itself houses 78 monks, not all of them martial arts
masters. Its school has 400 students, from elementary through high school. Only about 20 are girls. The younger students learn reading and math, but their main purpose is to become accomplished in martial arts. Some dream of becoming fighting monks themselves.
10 The romance of Shaolin rests on legends that are too good to question. It is said that in the sixth century A.D. an Indian Buddhist missionary called Bodhidharma arrived. He climbed into a cave and sat in intense meditation for nine years. He was so persevering that his shadow became permanently imprinted on the cave wall, and today that piece of rock, chipped out, is a prime sight in the monastery.
11 Bodhidharma founded the Chan sect and also, while trying to limber up his cramped limbs during those years of sitting, practiced exercises that would develop into Shaolin martial arts.
Writers often use appositives to give a definition or explanation, especially when the word has a foreign origin. For example, the writer explains Chan (par. 5) as the meditation exercises used in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.
Predicting
Look at the picture on the opposite page and the words and phrases below. Then check (✓) those you think you will read in the text.
1. home of Zen Buddhism _ 4. sports psychologist
2. soccer, basketball, and baseball _ 5. break bricks
3. spiritual enlightenment 6. commercialism
Scanning
Scan the text to check your predictions. Then read the whole text.
Guessing meaning from context
Find the words in italics in the reading. Then match each word with its
c _ 1. startled (par. 1)
2. horseplay (par. 2)
3. incompatible (par. 3)
4. dispatch (par. 3)
5. murals (par. 7)
6. vandalized (par. 8)
a. unable to exist together
b. paintings on a wall
c. surprised
d. intentionally damaged
e. rough, noisy behavior
f. sending away
meaning.
Understanding
details
B
Answer the questions.
1. Why are both martial arts and meditation practiced at Shaolin Monastery?
2. Why do tourists visit the monastery?
3. Why do children come to stay there?
4. Why do people visit the cave wall nearby?
Understanding
text
organization
The following paragraphs appeared in the original article. Write the number of the paragraph they should follow.
a. Bai Long, 16, from Inner Mongolia, grew up idolizing the Shaolin fighters. He moved here two years ago and hopes to become a disciple of De Yang, then eventually to take vows as a monk. “It’s my ideal,” he said, blushing.
b. Just how stretching was transformed into warrior routines seems to be in some dispute. By some accounts, the monks honed their skills to rob from the rich and give to the poor. By others, the monks, as some of the richest people around, had to learn to defend themselves from bandits.
Relating reading to personal experience
Answer these questions.
1. Do you think of martial arts as an art, a sport, a method of self-defense, or a way of life? Why?
2. Do you think tourism is good for the monastery? Why or why not?
3. Do you believe physical exercise can enlighten you? Why or why not?
Unit 12 • Martial arts