Shaolin Temple's fifth noble truth: build a brand
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Re: "Got a black belt in Twitter?" Soopsip, September 15.
In another step in the ongoing commercialisation of religion, we are informed that the Shaolin Temple, the Chinese Buddhist monastery famous for its high-kicking kung fu monks, is looking for a media director to “build it a brand”.
So far as I am aware, it was never part of the Buddha’s programme to “build a brand”. Neither did he feel it necessary to hire a media director.
We are also informed that part of the media director’s job will be to crack down on anybody who makes the temple look bad.
In recent decades the Shaolin Temple has degenerated from being a centre of Chan (Zen) Buddhist practice into a money-worshipping tourism circus filled with posturing hooligans intent on perfecting techniques of physical aggression.
It’s hard to imagine how anybody could possibly make it look worse than this.
Pao Yi
