Email: Walter Liebenthal Enquiry (21.2.2021)

Dear Ben 
 
Walter Liebenthal - Chinese Source 
https://read01.com/zh-cn/K457R5.html#.YDJpWKsYA2w 
 
According to this, it says that: 
 
'1937年记载“德国柏林大学哲学博士李华德，拟译《肇论》， 
以疑义来访（太虚）大师.' 
 
'In 1937, it was recorded that "Walter Liebenthal (Li Huade - 李华德), a Ph.D originally from the University of Berlin, Germany, intended to translate the "Zhao Lun". However, as he had 'doubts' about its content and meaning, he visited the Great Master Taixu (太虚) to ask for his advice.'

Master Taixu (1890-1947) was a forward-thinking Buddhist modernist - although his views do not always 'agree' with those held by the more traditional Chinese Buddhist Masters alive in China today. It is interesting that Walter Liebenthal never thought to approach Master Xu Yun (1840-1959). Walter Liebenthal preferred Chinese Buddhism and developed the idea that the Chinese cultural system 'purged' Buddhism of all its 'Indianness' and imported Confucian and Daoist influences into its place. This seems overly simplistic to me - particularly as so much of the rhetoric of Ch'an, for instance, insists upon an Indian origin (imagined or actual). Buddhism is definitely viewed as 'foreign' within Chinese culture, and certainly not 'Chinese' in origin. 

It is similar to how Buddhism in the West is often viewed through the lens of the Judeo-Christian tradition simply because this tradition was already here and thoroughly familiar when Buddhism arrived. The use of Judeo-Christian paradigms to interpret Buddhism does not necessarily mean that a 'deliberate' sanitisation of 'Asian' Buddhism occurred in the West - even if the effect may have appeared similar in certain aspects. Just so, the early transmission of Buddhism into China was 'filtered' through the apparatus of an existing State Confucianism and the popular Daoism (practiced amongst the ordinary people)!

With Metta 
 
Adrian