Shredding Monks and the Shao Lin Theme Park

So I clicked on this link because I hoped there would be a video of the skating monk and that, honestly, sounded funny.

And while there's a lot of discussion about the skating monk I really don't care. Anyone that's getting worked up over a monk on a skateboard needs to get their head out of their hiney. See who the fuck are all these Buddhist for some info on why.* But what did freak me out however was THIS link to a NY Post article about Shi Yongxin's plans to _sell stock_ in the Henan Shaolin temple. While I personally love the idea of scantily clad martial arts hotties I also wouldn't really appreciate them in my Zendo.**

I understand the need to raise some capital and I certainly don't think that they should have any reason not to supplement their income by allowing film companies to film on their grounds or other actions that could be considered questionable by some. The whole sale conversion of the temple into a huge caricature of itself however is just too much for me.

Shi Yongxin claims that his interest is in promoting the shaolin temple and Zen throughout the world. However all this is going to promote is the idea that Zen is a consumable commodity. We already have enough of that. You can' hardly pass gas without hitting some form of consumerised Buddha. While this happens to some extent for Christians it's not nearly as prevalent. I think this is due to a couple of reasons. One is probably because there's a whole lot more Christians in this country to get offended by the Jesus representations than there are Buddhists to get offended by Buddha representations. What's probably even a larger impact however is the fact that it's a whole lot easier to put the Buddha's face on a t-shirt than Jesus. Just imagine a big blood dripping Jesus on a t-shirt over the caption 'Smile!' or 'Shit Happens.'

*Well, not during service.