Hong’s Stories: Amituofu Sifu! More chi! Train harder!
Amituofu friends! I was studying Shaolin history this morning on our USA Shaolin Temple website and came to my Sifu’s beautifully inspiring and sad telling of his experience growing up at Shaolin temple.
Founded in 495 AD at the foot of the Shaoshi mountain in the Song mountain range in the Henan province of China, Shaolin is the birthplace of Chan Buddhism as practiced through martial arts training. Sifu Shi Yan Ming was brought to the temple in 1969 as a starving five-year-old child during the Cultural Revolution.
Despite being malnourished and weak, Sifu was immediately recognized and accepted as a student by the temple elders. He grew up at the temple, achieved enlightenment as a teenager and became a 34th generation monk (Yan).
The temple increasingly came under the control of the government, and in the early 1990’s Sifu defected during a government-sponsored Kung Fu tour of the US. He made his way to NYC and eventually founded the USA Shaolin temple in lower Manhattan.
And the rest you can say is history!
Sifu now presides over hundreds of disciples worldwide including most famously the RZA from Wu-Tang Clan. He has temples in South America and Europe and is building a new global training center for Shaolin at our eighty-acre temple in the Catskills.
I chose to become a disciple two years ago after three months of training under Sifu. But actually, I knew after my first session that he was my teacher. As they say, when the student is ready the teacher appears. I have had many teachers in my life. Many were demons who taught me to that I needed to be strong. Now Sifu has shown me how to make myself strong. I train under him and get steadily stronger physically, mentally and spiritually. As I sharpen my blade in temple, so I use it every day in my life as a Shaolin monk and warrior in training.
I knew when I met Sifu I had found my teacher for the next leg of my journey but had no idea where that path would take me. And I still don’t. I had tried to run from this uncertainty my entire adult life. I wanted to be safe from the demons that plagued me. Yet the harder and faster I ran, the more obviously futile this approach became until my life fell apart.
Under Sifu’s guidance, I have learned to welcome my demons as teachers. I don’t need to be afraid of them. I spar with them until I know all of their moves. I sharpen my blade in and out of temple every day.
As the demons experience my increasing strength, they eventually stop trying to fight. Instead, I invite them to come and play.
How can I possibly thank Sifu for all that he gives me, for his complete devotion to helping others?
I know the answer to that question.
More chi! Train harder!
Hong of $aint Benjamins
Hong’s Stories are reflections of a Shaolin monk in training
