Shaolin Temple Opening 40 Centers

The famed Shaolin temple in China, where Zen Buddhism had originated, has decided to open 40 centres to meet the rising demand for kung fu and, by a stretch, for Zen Buddhism. The man who is spearheading the expansion programme is the abbot of the temple. Interestingly, in the ostensibly atheistic communist China, there is outrage that Zen Buddhism is being commercialised. The abbot has rebutted the criticism saying that there was no profit motive, and it was just a design to meet the kung fu desires of people spread across the world.

There is plenty of irony embedded in all this, but this could be turned into a delightful Zen koan, the pithy riddle that carries contradiction as the kernel of its truth. Business is good as long as it is not meant to generate profits, which is indeed crass. At a more mundane level, all that it means is that even as China is under the deluge of change, the esoteric Buddhist temple is also being swept by it. And it also meets with the essential Buddhist tenet that change is the only permanent thing. The Shaolin cult’s market success is then no anomaly.