46 Origins of a Military Tradition
As to Buddhist dietary laws, they are kept by the first type of Shaolin-
residing clerics only. Meat is not provided in today’s Shaolin Temple, and
Buddhist monks who live inside the monastery adhere to a vegetarian diet.
By contrast, most other Shaolin disciples are openly carnivorous. Lay practi-
tioners of the Shaolin martial arts for the most part consume meat. Even
more striking, Shaolin-ordained monks do so as well. Among the fighting
monks who have left the monastery to open private schools, many—though
not all—do eat meat. These tough martial artists continue to present them-
selves as monks, donning Buddhist uniforms, all the while consuming ani-
mal flesh. Indeed they give the impression that carnivorousness is an integral
element of the martial monk’s (wu seng) ethos. When interviewed about their
dietary habits, they explain that Shaolin fighting monks have always con-
sumed meat, sometimes citing the legend celebrated in the film Shaolin Temple,
according to which it was Emperor Li Shimin who absolved the monks from
the rule of vegetarianism. Indeed, it is hard to know whether this novel apol-
ogy for carnivorousness preceded the movie or originated with it.
As the Shaolin community internationalized, its dietary customs spread
overseas. In recent years several Shaolin fighting monks emigrated to the
United States, where they opened martial arts schools. Nowadays, “Shaolin
Temples” can be found in places as diverse as Cupertino, California; Houston,
Texas; and New York. At least some are headed by Shaolin-ordained fighting
monks who are openly carnivorous. Yanming, founder of the Manhattan Shao-
lin Temple, for example, eats meat, drinks wine, and is married to boot, all the
while presenting himself as a Buddhist monk and donning monastic robes. In-
deed, Yanming’s Shaolin identity is important not only for religious reasons
but also for business ones. It is by virtue of his being an authentic “Shaolin
monk” that Yanming has been able to attract martial students, among them
such celebrities as the rap music superstar RZA of the band “Wu-Tang Clan,”
named after the Chinese Wudang martial arts school.^80
Living as he does in the remote United States, Yanming’s dietary trans-
gressions do not threaten his fellow monks who stayed at the monastery. How-
ever, other carnivorous “Shaolin monks” reside in the monastery’s vicinity,
where they come into daily contact with its vegetarian inhabitants. The major-
ity of ordained monks who have left the monastery are making a living in
Dengfeng County. Their martial schools are situated around the temple, where
they regularly compete with resident monks. Similarly, when they are not tour-
ing faraway countries, Shaolin “performing monks” reside at the temple, from
which they sneak out for meat snacks in nearby restaurants. Finally, lay disci-
ples come and go to the temple to meet and train with their old masters. Thus,
Shaolin-residing vegetarian monks come into close contact with other types of
Shaolin practitioners who do eat meat.
The proximity of Shaolin Buddhist monks to what could be described as
“semi-monks,” “half monks,” or “fake monks” has been one reason for Abbot
Yongxin’s (b. 1965) decision to physically remove the latter’s residences from