Thorsten Pattberg with Tampalawela Dhammaratana, UNESCO Consultant, Division for Philosophy and Ethics

Dr. Tampalawela Dhammaratana, a Buddhist grandmaster and Frenchand Sri Lankan national, lives in Paris and embarked on a life-long journey for the promotion of Buddhism in the world. He is currently the Director of Buddhist Links at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Thorsten Pattberg 裴德思 and XU Dasi 徐达斯, August 2013

Thorsten Pattberg 裴德思 and Xu Dasi 徐达斯, August 2013

Meeting Master XU Dasi, Sanskritist, Taoist, and scholar of religions, graduated from Tianjin University and went to Cambridge University to pursue his career in Comparative Religious Studies. He combines his knowledge of ancient Indian culture and Sanskrit language with in-depth understanding of the three great Chinese traditions Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. XU Dasi is the author of ‘Everywhere is Zen,’ ‘God gene,’ and other socio-spiritual monographs. He is currently teaching at Zhejiang University and also works as professor for Yoga Studies in Hong Kong.

Michael Witzel with Thorsten Pattberg, Tokyo 2013

Professor Michael Witzel invited me to Harvard University back in 2010 so that I could use collections and library resources of the earliest European missionaries in China dating back to 1649. Although there was little funding for such an original project, it nevertheless proved to be very successful, cumulating into my works on translation history and, ultimately, the re-emergence of the shengren. See China Daily, Japan Times. The list goes on. [photo: Tokyo, May 24, 2013].