Sex and lies in Shaolin

Before the scandal: Jackie Chan holding a giant incense stick with Shi, while actor Andy Lau (centre) looks on, at the Shaolin Temple in 2009 where Chan and Lau were filming their movie ‘New Shaolin Temple’. 

Beijing: Shi Yongxin has been embroiled in controversies since his name was first heard.

The very famous, or infamous, abbot of the legendary Shaolin Temple has long been accused of over-commercialising a major religious institution.

But now he faces more serious charges: Late last month someone named Shi Zhengyi, came forward with allegations of “10 sins” the abbot has supposedly committed.

Other than “taking over Shaolin assets”, the bigger allegations are “playing with women and fathering children outside wedlock”. Specifically, the abbot was accused of “rape” and “keeping mistresses”.

These figureheads of religious piety are supposed to be voluntarily celibate, aren’t they?

It’s an open secret that Shaolin Temple operates more like a business than a religious entity under Shi’s stewardship. Is this wrong?

Many who trek to the renowned temple in Dengfeng, are tourists rather than pilgrims. In fact, you must pay to enter nearly all China’s religious venues that also function as tourist attractions. There is one aspect to commercialisation that seems to be unique to Shaolin.

The temple has reportedly set up dozens, if not hundreds, of corporations all around the world. Abbot Shi espouses this as a means to promote Shaolin-style Buddhism.

It is totally conceivable that religious institutions have ancillary businesses.

Now, it is up to regulators who should determine, in advance preferably, whether this should be allowed... and to what extent.

Theoretically, whatever isn’t forbidden should be regarded as legal.

It still falls within the realm of differing points of view to see Shi either as a smart businessman whose suit is a bright red-and-yellow robe and who happens to be in the faith business or as a hypocrite who wants to capitalise on the faith and tourism boom with little regard for the sanctity of religion.

The early litany of “wrongdoings” includes Shi taking up as much as 80% of the temple’s equities, which has since been explained by the temple as a mere technicality.

However, a group of seven senior members from the temple travelled to Beijing on Aug 8 and filed a formal report with the State Administration of Religious Affairs, presenting what they claimed to be evidence of Shi’s appropriation of millions of yuan from the temple.

That includes the 2006 purchase of a motor vehicle Shi allegedly got after borrowing 190,000 yuan (RM124,740) from Shi Yanlu, one of the filers. The abbot then allegedly claimed it as a temple expense without repaying the amount borrowed.

Shi “got a free vehicle and 190,000 yuan in cash, which should both be the temple’s assets”, according to Shi Yanlu.

The abbot would probably explain the free vehicle as a business expense, but the cash he allegedly kept is trickier to clarify. The public could probably care less about the intricacies of bookkeeping and number crunching.

It’s usually sex that pulls someone off the pedestal. Of course, one can argue that someone in his position might have used wealth he did not own to bait the women, who in this case did not even dream of becoming his official wife.

But these are separate issues.

One may commit a sin without committing a crime or vice versa. A financially clean person of power may have a secret lover, and the relationship may not necessarily be based on money and power.

But for those growing up on a heavy dose of melodrama, funneling public money into one’s personal boudoir makes the perfectly titillating story with a morally black-and-white message.

The truth, unfortunately, may be more opaque and complicated.

First of all, we should refrain from trying anyone, celebrity or not, only in the court of public opinion.

Now it is the prosecutor’s job to conduct a thorough investigation and sift through the rumours and mud before zeroing in on the facts.

Anyway, both for the abbot’s reputation and for the public’s right to know, authorities should find out whether he overstepped the line... legally, ethically, religiously or otherwise.