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It was sometime after our first trip to Shaolin, in 1995....
Gene thought it would be nice for our little group of fourteen or so, who had first traveled to Shaolin with Matt Polly in '95, to get together some money and donate a stone tablet to the Shaolin temple. It would be a commemorative stone, with devotions to Shaolin, and, all of our names on it, much like had been done by some other American and European groups. Gene had looked into it.
As I remember, Gene had told me that the idea had been looked upon favorably by Yongxin, who, at that time, was not abbot, but was in charge of temple affairs. The price for erecting the stone had been in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars. It wasn't going to be a big one. But, it was going to be respectful. Gene got busy, and started talking to members of our little group.
The next time Gene got in touch with the abbot to be, again, as I remember, the price had changed. Drastically. To something like ten grand. We backed out.
It was a good decision. For, ultimately, had we put together the money and had a stella built, no doubt, from looking at the location of the "westerner" stone tablets now, we would have been in the back. Far in the back. In fact, all the "westerner" donated stellae from years ago, have been moved to the back.
And, just like the original, twenty plus year old "westerner" donated stone tablets, all moved to the back I might add again, ours would have been over shadowed by what is, no doubt, the newest, shiniest, and largest monument, er, stella, to be placed in the initial stone tablet area.
It's an interesting read....
(The other side is written in Chinese. How thoughtful.)
Gene thought it would be nice for our little group of fourteen or so, who had first traveled to Shaolin with Matt Polly in '95, to get together some money and donate a stone tablet to the Shaolin temple. It would be a commemorative stone, with devotions to Shaolin, and, all of our names on it, much like had been done by some other American and European groups. Gene had looked into it.
As I remember, Gene had told me that the idea had been looked upon favorably by Yongxin, who, at that time, was not abbot, but was in charge of temple affairs. The price for erecting the stone had been in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars. It wasn't going to be a big one. But, it was going to be respectful. Gene got busy, and started talking to members of our little group.
The next time Gene got in touch with the abbot to be, again, as I remember, the price had changed. Drastically. To something like ten grand. We backed out.
It was a good decision. For, ultimately, had we put together the money and had a stella built, no doubt, from looking at the location of the "westerner" stone tablets now, we would have been in the back. Far in the back. In fact, all the "westerner" donated stellae from years ago, have been moved to the back.
And, just like the original, twenty plus year old "westerner" donated stone tablets, all moved to the back I might add again, ours would have been over shadowed by what is, no doubt, the newest, shiniest, and largest monument, er, stella, to be placed in the initial stone tablet area.
It's an interesting read....
(The other side is written in Chinese. How thoughtful.)
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