Kung fu Buddhist monks FIGHT (video)

Fight Light 1/19; Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Kung fu monks vs. other masters

This is a motivational video for those who train in kung fu. It contains various fights between Shaolin Buddhist monks practicing kung fu and other martial arts.

Kung fu Buddhist monks
Wiki edited by Wisdom Quarterly

The umbrella term kung fu (功夫) or wushu (武術) refers to Chinese martial arts. There are several hundred fighting styles that developed over the centuries.

These styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as martial arts "families" (家/jiā), "sects" (派/pài), or "schools" (門/mén).

Examples of these traits include Shaolin-quan (少林拳), physical exercises involving mimicry of the Five Animals (五形), and training methods inspired by old Chinese philosophies, religions (animism, Buddhism, Confucianism, shamanism, Taoism), and legends.

Styles that focus on chi (qi, kyi, prana, spiritus) manipulation are called internal (内家拳/nèijiāquán), while others that concentrate on improving muscle and cardio fitness are called "external" (外家拳/wàijiāquán)....

Fighting Shaolin Temple monks

Shaolin Temple was built in 495 AD on Song Mountain, and the first Buddhist monk who taught Buddhism there was the Indian monk Ven. Buddhabhadra (佛陀跋陀罗/Fótuóbátuóluó), called Batuo (跋陀).

His first two Chinese disciples, Huiguang and Sengchou, had exceptional martial abilities. Sengchou's skill with a tin staff is documented in the Chinese Buddhist canon.

After Ven. Buddhabadra, there came a western South Indian Buddhist monk named Ven. Bodhidharma (菩提达摩/Pútídámó), called Damo (达摩). It was 527 AD. His Chinese disciple, Huike, was also a skilled martial arts expert.

The implication is that these first three Chinese Shaolin monks -- Huiguang, Sengchou, and Huike -- may have been military men before entering the Buddhist monastic life.

The Shaolin style of kung fu is regarded as one of the first institutionalized Chinese martial arts.

The oldest evidence of Shaolin participation in combat is a stele from 728 CE. It attests to two occasions, a defense of Shaolin Monastery from bandits around 610 CE, and their subsequent role in the defeat of Wang Shichong at the Battle of Hulao in 621 CE.

However, from the 8th to the 15th centuries, there are no existing documents that provide evidence of Shaolin participation in any combat. More

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Buddhist Island deploys troops on protesters

Wisdom Quarterly; ColomboPage News (Dec. 14, 2011); Buddhanet.net

Emerging anti-government protests in Dambulla, Cave Temple, Sri Lanka (hellotravel.com)

There is trouble in paradise. The Buddhist island nation and former British colony of Sri Lanka ("sacred land"), the teardrop on the tip of India, is still recovering from the longest civil war in Asia when it fought Hindu rebels.

It recently settled that decades-old Sinhalese-Tamil dispute with drastic measures and widespread abuses by its democratically-elected government in spite of the president dressing like a king.

Now that same nominally-Buddhist government is deploying troops against its own farmers who are protesting new governmental regulations.

The capital of Colombo has deployed troops to two towns to control farmers' agitations, explains military spokesman Brigadier Nihal Hapuarachchi.

The military spokesman has told Sri Lanka's national news agency Lankapuvath that a contingent consisting 200 soldiers have been sent to Dambulla (pictured above) and 100 soldiers to Bandarawela.

The troops have been deployed to support the local police to maintain "law and order" in areas where farmers have launched protests against a law that went into effect last month requiring them to transport their fresh produce in plastic or wooden crates.

Occupy the Island?

Meanwhile, thousands of traders protested the government regulation to transport fruit and vegetables in plastic crates for a third day in downtown Colombo paralyzing business.

The traders sat in the middle of the road blocking traffic and creating huge traffic jams. They demanded the government withdraw the new regulation.

The Minister of Internal Trade, however, vowed to uphold it. According to the government, the improper transport of fresh produce has resulted in wastage amounting to billions of rupees. Source

(Image: Travel-to-Sri-Lanka blog)

What's so special about SRI LANKA?
Sri Lanka, once known as Serendip, is a land of many surprises. Its majority Sinhalese trace their roots and their Buddhism to the "Aryan" Buddhist region of Afghanistan.

Indeed, their tall Buddha statues echo those found in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, possibly in the vicinity of the original Kapilavastu, on the northwestern Indian frontier where Siddhartha grew up.

The island was the source of a strange spice the British could neither get enough nor find the source of -- cinnamon. It has singing fish, massive tea plantations, aborigines (Nagas), surfing, and UFO visitors from Indian mythology, having been the home of child-friendly sci-fi master Arthur C. Clarke.

Most importantly, it is the storehouse of ancient Indian Buddhism preserved in writing on ola palm leaves stored in massive white mound reliquaries. Buddhaghosa, the ultimate Buddhist scholar, commentator, and author of The Path of Purification, came to Sri Lanka from India to recover Buddhist teachings from sources only preserved on the island in ancient times.

In the island's self-serving chronicles (poetic histories), Sri Lankans believe that the Buddha meant for the island to serve as an enduring repository of the Dharma, and their mission as Buddhists continues to be to spread that message. Sinhalese Buddhists in America from Washington DC to Los Angeles are fully enlisted in this belief.

Amazing Buddhist History!
Buddhanet.net

Sri Lanka is the oldest continually Buddhist country. Theravada Buddhism is the major island tradition since its official introduction in the 2nd Century BC by the enlightened missionary mon Ven. Mahinda, son of the great Indian Buddhist Emperor Ashoka. This took place during the reign of King Devanampiya- Tissa.

Asoka's daughter, the Indian Buddhist nun Sanghamitta, brought a branch of the original Bodhi Tree and planted it in Anuradhapura. From that time on, Buddhists in Sri Lanka have revered it. The original Indian tree was destroyed by Muslim fanatics but replanted in India from a cutting taken from Sri Lanka. So one can still go to either land and sit under a descendant of the original tree Siddhartha used to reach supreme enlightenment.

Monks from Sri Lanka have had an important role in spreading both Theravada and Mahayana throughout Southeast Asia. In the 1st century AD, during the reign of King Vatta Gamini, Buddhist monastics assembled in Aloka Monastery and wrote down the Tripitaka, the three divisions (baskets) of the Buddha's Teachings, now known as the Pali Canon, for the first time.

Sri Lankan nuns introduced the Sangha of Buddhist nuns to China in 433 AD. In the 16th Century the Catholic Portuguese conquered Sri Lanka and savagely persecuted Buddhism as did the Christian Dutch who followed them. When the British Empire took over at the beginning of the 19th century, Buddhism was on the decline. This encouraged British missionaries that then began to flood the island. More

Empire and the Spread of Buddhism
Wisdom Quarterly
An unintended consequence of invasion and colonization is that invaders take the spiritual traditions they find out into the world:

• the American Empire and Japanese Buddhism (Zen),
• Chinese Empire and Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana),
  
• British Empire and Indian Buddhism,
• Roman Empire and Judeo-Christianity...

We have Buddhism in excellent English thanks largely to the work of early British and European scholars who translated the ancient texts they found as their empires plundered new lands.

This may be how history is meant to be. A famous German Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka, Ayya Khema, wrote a book with an interesting title (When the Iron Eagle Flies: Buddhism for the West). Its title derives from an ancient Tibetan prophesy that Buddhism would reach the outside world when there were planes in the sky ("iron eagles" that could fly).

Burma Rebels Vow to Fight

SLORC, the military dictatorship in Burma, faces resistance from Karen rebels.

MAE SOT, Thailand (Reuters) - Burma's biggest rebel group will soon abandon a stronghold on the Thai-Burma border after weeks of fierce fighting with government and rival Karen forces, a rebel commander said on Thursday.

The Karen National Union (KNU) will adopt guerrilla tactics rather than waste lives trying to defend the base in eastern Burma, KNU Commander Kyaw Ny told reporters by telephone.

"The withdrawal from our 7th Division base does not mean we are defeated. It is a tactical redeployment. We also do not want to kill our fellow Karens in this battle," he said.

Myanmar troops and their allies from the breakaway Karen Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) launched a new offensive against the KNU on June 3, driving some 3,000 Karen refugees into Thailand, the Thai army says.

The KNU has been fighting for independence in the hills of eastern Burma for the last 60 years. The conflict is one of the world's longest running insurgencies. More>>