The most venerable Yi Chen, President of Buddhist Association of China,

Venerable Jue Xing, president of Shanghai Buddhist Association,

The most respected Jiang Jing Yong, duty director, the State Administration for Religious Affairs

Respected Officials, Venerables, Members of the Buddhist laity, and distinguished guests:

It is indeed my pleasure that I have the opportunity to sit on the Adjudicating Panel for the Seminar on Buddhist Studies in Foreign Languages 2008. I am deeply impressed by the performance of the presenters, in that, both the quality of their articles, and their commands of foreign languages are superb.

On behalf of the 14 panelists, I wish to make the following comments on the Seminar. The seminar has divided into two panels: English Panel with 60 presenters in 10 sections and Other Language panel with 28 presenters in 6 sections, covering 8 kinds of languages.

The contents of the articles presented are indeed multifarious and interesting. Centered on how Chinese Buddhism should interact with the world upon looking into the past and the future, our presenters touch on topics like Chinese Buddhism answering the call of the world, issues on translation, urban Buddhism, Buddhist education, challenges and opportunaty faced by Chinese Buddhism in modern world, etc.

I am deeply impressed by the performance of the presenters. There is no lack of well justified arguments and analysis.  Most remarkable of all is the calm composure of many who speak with a very peaceful tone.  While some of the presenters may still be green in presentation skills, their effort to give of their best has been well recognized.

I have also noticed that quite a number of our audiences are knowledgeable in foreign languages but not accustomed to their daily usage because of environmental factors.  I wish to encourage them to join us on stage soon.

While it is the first time that seminar of such kind is held, we see the beauty of organizing more similar events in the near future.  The Seminar has provided a good opportunity for local and oversea bilingual Buddhists to meet and share their experiences.  More importantly, it has kicked started the driving momentum to open a window for East - West exchange such that the rich resources of Chinese Buddhism would be accessible to the World.

As one of the serial preparatory events of the 2nd World Buddhist Forum, the Seminar has fully met its objective in pooling together Buddhist foreign language personnel to support the upcoming Forum’s work in translation and external liaison.  The full attention given to this event by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the Buddhist Association of China, Shanghai Buddhist Association, and Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple, is certainly instrumental to the success of the Seminar. I am thankful to the wonderful logistic support that has made our work much easier.

Like all of you, I am feeling excited about what have been achieved in the past three days.  While you have demonstrated your bi-lingual talents in the Seminar, I do hope that you will become the elite task force actively supporting the Second World Buddhist Forum in becoming the platform for international exchange.

Thank you all.