彭博 | 少林CEO沉浮录（下）
I’d heard a lot about the commercialization of the Shaolin Temple, but nothing could prepare me for my first encounter with Buddhism Inc. I paid the steep $16 entrance fee and walked the long, tree-lined path from the front gate of the Songshan Shaolin Scenic Area to the temple.
我听闻不少少林寺商业化的故事，可直到第一次走进这家佛教公司才深有体会。我买了宰人的16美元门票，走过长长的林荫道来到少林寺景区的正门。
The lilting theme song from Shaolin Temple, the movie, played from speakers in the trees. Tour groups congregated in front of the temple, snapping photos of its front steps, sloping tile roofs, and, despite a rule against it, the occasional monk.
树丛间的喇叭播放着电影《少林寺》婉转悦耳的主题歌，旅行团云集在寺门口拍摄寺院的前阶、斜檐和供人留影的和尚，尽管后者不合规矩。
A man in a puffy jacket offered to sell me a Photoshopped picture of myself with Yongxin and Vladimir Putin flanking me like bodyguards.
一个男人身着鼓蓬蓬的夹克，他上前兜售我与释永信和普京的PS照片，两人分居两侧，好似保镖。
I shelled out $30 to see the 400-person nighttime Shaolin Zen Music Ritual, and caught a kung fu performance where the stage was emblazoned with the name of a tire company. In the mall-like gift shop, I bought a toy gun.
我掏了30美元，看了一场四百人参演的夜场少林禅乐式，还看了一场功夫表演，舞台由一家轮胎公司冠名。在大型礼品购物中心，我买了一把玩具枪。
Shell out: to pay some amount of money, often reluctantly
One evening I was sitting in a nearby guesthouse, reading a copy of Yongxin’s memoir, when an old man with a long white beard shuffled over. His son accompanied him and said his father had studied at the temple long ago.
一天晚上，我坐在附近的宾馆里，读释永信的回忆录，一个白须飘飘的老头踱过来。他儿子和他一起，说他父亲很久以前在寺里学习。
The old man stepped to the center of the room and performed an elegant kung fu routine, striking and kicking invisible enemies. Here it was, I thought: living heritage, unsullied by crass commercialism.
老头走到屋子中央，表演了一套精湛的功夫套路，腿脚并用击打假想敌。我当时想，这才是未被粗鄙的商业主义玷污的活的传统。
When the man finished, I applauded and went to shake his hand. “Now give me some money,” he said.
老头打完了，我鼓掌致意并上前握手。“给点钱吧。”他说。
In his book, Yongxin describes his goal for the temple not as commercialization, but rather the preservation and spread of authentic Shaolin culture. To do that, he argues, requires that monks be engaged in the secular world.
在释永信的哲学中，少林寺的目标非但不是商业化，反倒是保存和传播真正的少林文化。为达到这个目的，和尚们就要与世俗世界接触。
“It seems that in people’s minds, monks worthy of respect should do nothing but chant prayers,” he writes. “I do not think that way.”
“在人们的脑子里，令人尊重的僧人就只该诵经，我可不这么认为。”他在回忆录中写道。
He rejects the CEO Monk nickname, but based on past statements, his aim isn’t radically different from that of a Fortune 500 company: growth. Yet growth requires efficiency, rational management, and creative destruction, which don’t always suit religious leaders.
他不接受CEO僧人的名号，可按照他过去的言论，其宗旨和一家财富500强公司没什么显著差别，都追求增长。增长就需要效率、合理的管理和破坏性创新——这些往往和宗教领袖的形象格格不入。
If Shaolin is commercial now, it used to be worse—or at least tackier. In the mid-1990s, the area surrounding the temple was filled with souvenir shops selling prayer beads, figurines, swords, and Tasers.
要说少林寺现在商业化的话，以前则更甚，或者至少说更低端。在九十年代中期，寺庙周围全是纪念品商店，销售佛珠、塑像、宝剑和泰瑟枪。
There was a roller coaster simulator and a house of horrors with a petrified cadaver. One of Mao’s private planes stood on display.
当时还有一个过山车游乐器和一家有僵尸的鬼屋，还展出一架毛泽东的私人飞机。
The dirt road to the temple was lined with competing martial arts schools, where students trained to become, typically, kung fu coaches or military personnel, and occasionally Shaolin warrior monks.
通往寺庙的土路两侧是林林总总的武术学校，这里的学员被训练成功夫教练或军人，也有个别的会成为少林武僧。
“They were dazzling, in a weird way,” says Gene Ching, a Shaolin disciple and associate publisher of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine who first visited in 1995.
“目不暇接，光怪陆离。”这是少林弟子、《功夫太极》杂志的副总编辑Gene Ching1995年是来少林寺的感受。
“My favorite was watching two kids assigned to clean up the street. They got in a fight over a dustpan. At first it was typical push-pull, then one kid trapped the other kid’s hand on the dustpan and put him in an armlock, and the other kid did a tornado kick to disarm him.”
“我最喜欢的是看到两个被派去扫路的小孩儿，因为一个簸箕打了起来。一开始推推搡搡，然后其中一个人钳住另一个拿着簸箕的手，后者一个旋风腿踢开对手。”
Upon becoming abbot in 1999, Yongxin decided to clear out the dreck. “Who would want to visit this filthy and chaotic place?” he wrote. He lobbied the local government to approve demolition in the area and helped pay for it with what he said was the majority of the temple’s savings.
1999年成为方丈后，释永信决定清理假货。“谁想来这个肮脏混乱的地方呢？”他游说地方政府批准对这一地区进行拆迁，据他所说用寺院里的绝大部分积蓄支付了拆迁费用。
Villagers, whose livelihoods were jeopardized, picketed and held banners denouncing the abbot, but in 2002 the forced relocation proceeded. Yongxin was pleased. “Now it possesses a little bit of the poetic charm that I have long cherished for the Shaolin Temple,” he wrote.
生计受到危害的村民组织起来打标语抗议。但2002年，强制搬迁继续推行。释永信很高兴。“现在有点我心目中少林寺的诗意了。”
The project dovetailed with his trademark-protection litigation, as he sought to control the temple’s image locally and abroad. When Yongxin first tried to lay exclusive claim to the name Shaolin, he found that 57 other parties had already registered the trademark in China, as well as 18 in the U.S. and 228 in Japan.
这一工程与商标保护诉讼初衷一致，他寻求掌控寺院在国内外的形象。释永信最初想要独家声索“少林”一名时，他发现中国有57家注册了少林，美国有18家，日本228家。
After numerous lawsuits, all rights to the name were transferred to the temple in 2009. Yongxin was instilling the modern tenets of brand discipline on a 1,500-year-old faith. But he was also creating a long list of enemies who had been cut out of the Shaolin economy.
打了多次官司后，这一名称的所有权利终于在2009年归于少林寺。释永信将打造品牌的现代信条注入到一个1500年的古老信仰中，可他也创造了一大批被少林经济抛弃的敌人。
As Yongxin’s fame grew, his critics accused him of living an increasingly extravagant lifestyle—especially for a monk. In 2006 the government of Dengfeng gave him a Volkswagen SUV worth $125,000 as thanks for his contributions to tourism. “I dream of getting a bigger prize next year,” he said at the time.
随着释永信声名日隆，批评者指责他生活奢侈，尤其作为一个和尚。2006年，登封市政府赠予他价值12.5万美元的大众SUV一台，以感谢他对旅游业的贡献。“我梦想明年能获更大的奖。”他当时说。
Three years later, he was again denounced for showing off a cloak with gold thread worth $25,000. He said it was a gift from a brocade company in Nanjing as an example of their shared “intangible cultural heritage.”
三年后，他因身着价值25000美元的金边斗篷再次受到指责。他说这是南京一家绸缎公司的礼物，是非物质文化遗产。
Allegations of more serious misbehavior began to appear in 2011, when someone claimed online that Yongxin had been caught visiting prostitutes during a police raid.
2011年，更严重的指控开始出现，有人在网上说释永信在扫黄期间嫖妓被捉。
The State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a statement saying the report was only a malicious rumor. Whatever controversies surrounded Yongxin, they never stuck. When he addressed them, it was only in koan-like utterances.
国家宗教事务管理局发声明表示报道系恶意传谣。无论有什么争议都难不倒释永信，他的回答都像佛教中的一句偈语。
“If these things are problems,” he once told a reporter, “they would have become problems by now.”
“如果这是问题，现在就该成为问题。”他对一个记者说。
In November, I visited Qian Daliang, the general manager of Shaolin Intangible Assets Management Co. Ltd., which Yongxin had established to oversee the temple’s many subsidiaries.
11月，我拜访了少林无形资产管理有限公司总经理钱大梁，释永信创建了这家公司管理寺庙的众多子公司。
In his spare office inside the temple walls, Qian—the surname means “money”—turned on a small, ineffectual space heater and made tea while he told tales of the Shaolin monks’ greatest financial battles.
在寺院内的备用办公室内，钱大梁打开一台不怎么管用的小电暖气，一边沏茶一边讲述少林和尚最伟大的金融战争。
“Religions should be independent, and economic independence is the most important part,” he said.
“宗教应该独立，经济独立是最重要的部分。”
One of Yongxin’s most significant stands had been with the local government over the issue of allowing the temple to sell tickets—the campaign Abbot Xingzheng had started.
释永信最重要的一战士和政府争取售票权，这是前任方丈释行正开启的。
Eventually, Qian said, the government agreed that the temple would receive 30 percent of the revenue from ticket sales to the Songshan Shaolin Scenic Area, in which the temple is the main attraction.
钱大梁最后说，政府同意寺院从嵩山少林景区的票价收入中抽取30%，少林寺是这一景区的主要卖点。
Temple insiders suspect the local government is trying to reduce its financial dependence on Shaolin. In 2010 the city of Dengfeng started developing plans for a competing temple, to be called Tianzhong. Construction began but was soon delayed.
寺院内部人怀疑当地政府试图降低对少林寺的财政依赖。2010年登封市启动修建另一所寺院天中寺的计划，建设开始后不久就搁浅了。
According to a report in Caixin magazine, although Yongxin expressed outward support for the project, many locals believe he played a role in stalling it by raising objections that the construction would damage old relics.
财新报道，尽管释永信表面对这一项目表示支持，许多当地人还是认为他在抗议这一建筑毁坏古迹从而使之搁浅中发挥作用。
Work was halted in May, two months before Shi Zhengyi launched the public crusade against Yongxin.
工程5月份被叫停，两个月后释正义开始向释永信发动进攻。
The highway connecting Dengfeng to the Shaolin Temple passes a dozen martial arts schools—tall, gray buildings crowned with almost identical red lettering, most containing the name Shaolin and many run by former monks.
登封和少林寺间的公路上有十多家武术学校，灰色的高楼几乎都有着相同的红字，多数有“少林”二字，许多是少林旧僧开办的。
Some relocated there after Yongxin’s demolition; others have been erected since, sometimes with temple funds. The schools, which bring in tens of thousands of students every year, including wealthy foreigners, have over the years turned into gold mines for their owners.
一些是释永信拆迁后搬过来的，也有后来建的，有的还是寺庙资助的。学校每年招收数万名学生，其中不乏富有的外国人。多年来，学校成了赚钱的金矿。
In 1997, Yongxin reportedly dispatched his disciple Shi Yanlu to found the Shaolin Warrior Monks Training Base and invested 15 million yuan ($2.3 million) in the school.
1997年，据说释永信派释延鲁组建少林武僧训练基地，并投资1500万元，约合230万美元。
Yanlu, a sinewy specimen, especially compared with Yongxin’s melted-candle figure, had grown up poor in Shandong province and came to Shaolin in 1987.
与身材松懈走样的释永信相比， 释延鲁身形健硕，他来自山东省，出身贫寒，1987年来到少林。
He eventually became a respected warrior monk and one of Yongxin’s loyal aides. During the abbot’s 1999 induction ceremony, Yanlu stood behind Yongxin, holding his umbrella.
他后来成为一名受人尊敬的武僧和释永信忠诚的助手。1999年方丈就职典礼上，释延鲁站在释永信旁撑伞。
Yanlu’s school became one of the most successful in the region. It maintained close ties with Shaolin: Yanlu would send his best students to perform in the temple’s kung fu shows, as well as in the lucrative Shaolin Zen Music Ritual song and dance show. Yongxin allowed Yanlu alone to maintain a recruitment office inside the temple.
释延鲁的学校成为这一地区最成功的一家。他保持着和少林寺的关系：释延鲁派最好的学生参加寺院的功夫表演，演唱少林禅乐式，表演舞蹈秀。释永信只批准释延鲁在寺内建招生办公室。
Over time, the relationship frayed. Yanlu began to receive his own high-profile visitors, including the prime minister of Hungary and the king of Cambodia.
可二人渐生嫌隙。释延鲁开始自己接待高端访问者，包括匈牙利总理和柬埔寨国王。
Temple leaders suspected that Yanlu was no longer sending his best pupils to participate in Shaolin performances, keeping them instead for his own school’s shows.
寺院里的领导疑心释延鲁不再把最好的学生送到少林表演中来了，而把他们留给自己学校的表演。
Yanlu further distanced himself from Yongxin when he bought a piece of land and began advertising an ambitious new program called Shaolin Soccer, without involving the temple.
释延鲁买了一块地，开始宣传雄心勃勃的新项目“少林足球"后——项目与少林寺无关——他与释永信更加疏远了。
Yanlu and Yongxin would squabble over money. According to Yanlu’s report to the government, starting in 2005, Yongxin began asking Yanlu for money. “He was insatiable,” Yanlu’s spokesman told Caixin. Yongxin denied this, saying he “never asked for a cent.”
释延鲁和释永信因为钱大吵。释延鲁提供给政府的报告显示，从2005年开始，释永信开始向释延鲁要钱。“他贪得无厌”，释延鲁的发言人对财新说。释永信拒绝承认指控，称他“没要一分钱”。
Yanlu also claimed that Yongxin forced him to pay 2 million yuan to the Shenzhen businesswoman with whom the abbot allegedly had sex. “He was the abbot, so I had to do what he said,” Yanlu wrote. “After that, he warned me not to raise the issue of the money or else I’d be kicked out of the temple.”
释延鲁称释永信强迫他给深圳女商人200万，后者据称与方丈有染。“他是方航，我必须照做。此后她警告我不要提钱的事，后来我被踢出寺院了。”
Yanlu has faced his own charges of sacrilege. Several years ago, a photo reportedly circulated in the Shaolin community of Yanlu with his month-old son. As Qian Daliang explained it to one news outlet, Yongxin confronted Yanlu and told him to stop wearing the monastic robes.
可释延鲁自己也有亵渎之嫌。几年前，一张释延鲁和满月儿子的照片在少林寺传播。钱大梁和一家新闻媒体解释说，释永信和释延鲁发生冲突，告诉他别再穿僧袍了。
From then on, when they met in person, Yanlu would dress in everyday clothes, but he still wore the robes at school events. His role as headmaster depended on his image as a pious Shaolin warrior monk—without that, he could lose everything.
此后，二人私下会面是，释延鲁着便装，可在学校参加活动时仍旧着僧袍。他的校长地位依赖于虔诚的少林武僧形象，脱去僧袍，他就什么都没有了。
Tensions exploded one day in 2013, when a group of Yanlu’s students tried to enter the Shaolin Temple without tickets.
2013年的一天，冲突爆发了，释延鲁的学生试图无票进入少林寺。
A fight broke out between the students and the Shaolin monks guarding the gate, and the police arrested two of the guards. After that, Yongxin closed Yanlu’s student recruitment office and, according to reports, officially expelled him from the temple.
学生与守护寺门的少林和尚发生打斗，警察逮捕了两名门卫。此后，释永信关闭了释延鲁的招生办公室，据报道，释永信将释延鲁正式将其逐出寺门。
In November, the year’s first snowfall blanketed the monastery. Nearly four months had passed since the charges against Yongxin went viral, and the results of the state investigation still hadn’t been announced.
11月，当年的第一场大雪覆盖了少林寺，对释永信的指控疯传了近四个月了，国家调查结果仍未公布。
The initial blast of chatter about his fate had quieted to a low hum. No one wanted to talk on the record: Those who had already voiced support for Yongxin had nothing to add, while those who had denounced him didn’t want to say more in case he kept his job after all.
起初坊间对他命运的议论平静了下来，没人想再说什么了：已经对释永信表示支持的人们没有更多的话，那些谴责他的人也不想再多说了，毕竟他还在位。
As time went on and nothing changed, the locals were beginning to consider the possibility that the abbot, as he had survived past crises, would weather this one.
时间过去这么久，什么都没变，当地人开始认为方丈可能度过难关，正像在以往那些危机中生存下来一样。
That would be an astonishing anticlimax, given the dynamite nature of the charges, but one that they had to consider—knowing the extent of Yongxin’s power, the thinness of the evidence, the bias of the accusers, and the capriciousness of the Chinese legal system.
爆炸性的指控不了了之，实在算是令人吃惊的反高潮，他们知道释永信的道行，不得不去想想证据是否不实，是否存有偏见以及中国法制的变幻莫测。
Then, on Nov. 28, the Henan government released partial results of its investigation. The authorities had split their probe into two parts, one focusing on “disciplinary” charges and the other on “economic” ones. Yongxin was cleared of the former.
11月28日，河南政府发布部分调查结果。主管部门将调查分为两部分，一是纪律问题，一是经济问题。释永信被澄清没犯纪律问题。
The claims that he fathered two children were false, according to the report: One of them was in fact adopted by the nun with whom Yongxin had allegedly fathered the child, and anyway the woman had become infertile after an operation; a paternity test revealed that the other was the child of Yongxin’s younger brother.
报告称，他是两个孩子的父亲，这是虚假的。其中一个事实上是一个尼姑收养的，释永信据称是孩子的养父，这个女人因手术而不育。亲子鉴定显示另一个孩子是释永信弟弟家的。
The state’s report also rejected the claim that Yongxin had been expelled from the monastery in the 1980s. In an interview with a Henan newspaper, a member of the investigation team said the expulsion had been “a personal matter” and was “invalid” because it was not approved by the proper government authorities.
报告还驳斥了释永信在八十年代被逐出寺院。在接受河南一家报纸采访时，一调查组成员称所谓驱逐是“个人行为”，“没有效力”，因为没有经过有关政府部门批准。
The results of the “economic” investigation haven’t yet been released. (Nor have investigators explained their unusual choice to publish in thematic installments.) But the findings so far suggest that Yongxin may be headed for exoneration, or at the most a slap on the wrist.
经济问题的调查结果还未出炉，调查人员也没有解释为何不同寻常地公布了部分调查结果。可到现在为止，调查结果显示释永信将被赦免，最多被轻罚。
The “disciplinary” results are conspicuously incomplete: They fail to address the rape accusation, as well as the charge that Yongxin slept with the Shenzhen businesswoman. Verdicts on these charges don’t appear to be forthcoming.
纪律调查结果显然并不完整：没有回应性侵指控以及释永信和深圳女商人有染。对这些指控的裁决也不会问世了。
The public response has been predictably cynical. One Chinese netizen spoke for many when he wrote, “He’s a good Party monk, of course he can’t have problems.”
公众的反应一如既往地玩世不恭。一个中国网民说：“他当然不能有问题了。”
The point being, whether he’s guilty or not, Yongxin is too big to fail. If he did, given the gravity of the charges, he would take countless others down with him.
问题在于，无论释永信是否有罪，他都大而不倒。既然指控这么严重，如果他真倒了，一大批人都要遭殃。
It’s true that many party leaders have lost their jobs in recent years because of the anticorruption campaign, and those who fight their accusers rarely win. But those officials have been targeted by the upper rungs of the party.
近年来的反腐行动让不少党政官员落马，负隅顽抗的鲜有胜者，可这些官员都大咖。
The small group that fingered Yongxin included rogue disciples who had axes to grind. From a stability perspective, his ousting would cause more problems than it would solve.
指责释永信的流氓小僧则不同。从稳定角度看，罢黜释永信导致的问题会更多。
Moreover, he’s a powerful symbol for the Chinese government. His success showcases not only China’s tolerance for organized religion but also the country’s soft power.
何况他的成功是宗教宽容的鲜明象征，还体现了这个国家的软实力。
Shaolin has reached new audiences through every manner of pop culture, from Stephen Chow movies to The Simpsons to the Wu-Tang Clan, whose latest album is titled Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
通过各种大众文化，从周星驰电影、辛普森一家到美国乐队武当派——后者的专辑被冠名为《曾经在少林》，少林寺不断拓展其影响力。
At a time when China can’t seem to win an Oscar or produce literature that travels well, the fact that American teenagers know the name Shaolin is a source of pride.
中国获不了奥斯卡奖，其文学作品传播不佳，可美国年轻人都知道少林寺，这足以令人骄傲。
During my visit to the temple, I went by the office of Wang Yumin, the head of foreign affairs, and told him I wanted to write about how the temple had become so successful under Yongxin.
我到少林寺时，造访了外事办主任王玉民（音），表示我想写一篇少林寺在释永信带领下何以成功的稿子。
“Successful?” Wang said. He laughed bitterly and gestured around him as if the allegations dogging Yongxin were physical objects in the room. “We don’t think it’s very successful.”
“成功？”王问道。他苦笑着连连挥手，好像对释永信的指控是屋子里的某样具体的东西。“我们不认为非常成功。”