Casey Estep - The Shaolin Monastery

The Shaolin Temple has been a point of intrigue of mine for the past few months due to the growing popularity of Shaolin Kung Fu, a set of Kung Fu styles specific to the Shaolin Temple. The Temple resides in the Shaoshi forests in eastern China, and was established as a monastery in 495 AD as the center of Chan Buddhism. A large part of Chan Buddhism is the focus of physical and mental health through training; this was the purpose of the temple. Over time however, the focus at Shaolin has shifted from the Buddhist religion, to the Shaolin Kung Fu, and because of this has become a large tourist attraction. This peaked my interest as it seems difficult to maintain a place as being sacred while there are a large number of tourists everywhere. As I looked more into the subject of religious focus at Shaolin, I found that there is a large number of monks who are fairly uninterested in the religious aspect of Chan Buddhism, and are only monks in order to perfect their Kung Fu. This makes me wonder, are sacred places made sacred by people, or by the divine? It seems that this Monastery would have been a very prominent sacred place when it was originated, but now is a training ground and tourist attraction. I'd like to discover how such a sacred place can make such a change over time.

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