Yesteday, I said goodbye to Dr. Meir Shahar, who just completed his stay at Stanford University as a visiting scholar and is now returning to Tel Aviv. It’s amazing how fast that year flew by. I remember when we first met at the Shaolin Academic Symposium last year, and when he asked me if I lived close to Stanford. That was a moment of Shaolin fate - the two of us were in the same area by strange coincidence, and we could share research a lot of research. It was a great year from the moment I picked him up at the airport, to the moment we parted with the promise to meet again, perhaps in China next year. His research accelerated my own exponentially and will greatly elevate Shaolin and CMA in the world of scholarly research where it is frowned upon. I have a draft of his book, shy the last chapter, and it’s groundbreaking. I cannot wait until it gets published and that research is shared by both the martial community and the scholarly community. It will be like what CTHD did at the Oscars, only for the universities, setting a precedent for future researchers to follow.
Shaolin is an amazing family, one we should all be very honored to be part of.
vajra - Several publishers are courting his work. I have a strong suspicion that it will be one of the publishers that have publishedd one of his previous efforts, but I can’t say which it will be exactly. Speaking as a publisher myself, that would be foolish.
lotus - Changing Shaolin? Shaolin changes everytime I look at it. I you think it is some venerated fixated rigid orthodoxy, I fear you’ve missed the point.
All things are impermanent. That’s the ‘horse stance’ of Zen.
Originally posted by GeneChing
[B]vajra - Several publishers are courting his work. I have a strong suspicion that it will be one of the publishers that have publishedd one of his previous efforts, but I can’t say which it will be exactly. Speaking as a publisher myself, that would be foolish.
lotus - Changing Shaolin? Shaolin changes everytime I look at it. I you think it is some venerated fixated rigid orthodoxy, I fear you’ve missed the point.
All things are impermanent. That’s the ‘horse stance’ of Zen. [/B]
My point is that, and it becomes more noticable and pronounced while a westerner in China, in the differences in interpretation of both dharma and doctrine. For this reason ( to trade interperetations , if none else, I’d like to take some vows) Westerners previously were not previously privvy to such philosophic views on the scale they are today, and while I smoke cigarettes and drink the occasssion neccessary jiu, local chinese buddhists can’t fathom how I even remotely resemble a buddhist , let alone a ch’an one!! I can guarantee you Gene, and you know yourself from our email / pm btws that If I am NOTHING else in this life, a firm and committed ch’an buddhist at min is what I am and will be until the milli -moment I die!!!
Chinese / western interpertation iand progression to is what my paper and research is targeted at??
Any clearer??? Genuinely intested oin your take on this?? Or I’ll soldier on . either way, my work is invaluable and in true BL style, original and thought worthy. Back me or not, I’m just going to publish my observations regardless…
I will certainly keep you all abreast of Dr. Shahar’s work, as with all else Shaolin. It’s my job.
Lately, and mostly thanks to Dr. Shahar, I’ve been getting into more scholarly work on Chinese religion. What a crazy field. It’s absolutely fascinating and there is so much work out there already - in English even! I’m really getting into the University presses again and toying with the idea of subscribing to some scholarly journals. I feel as if my reading list exploded exponentially. My only reservation is that it might effect my ability to write in the common tongue anymore, something I had trouble doing, given that I was trained to write in APA format, which is completely incomprehensible to the average CMA reader.
