The Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford

Miles Osgood talks to James Gentry about the thousand-year history of the Tibetan maṇi pill, back to its medieval origins in an age of Mongol invasions and epidemics, through an infusion of psychoactive fungi for experimental meditation in the 13th century, and as a shared token for today’s global Tibetan Buddhist diaspora.James Gentryis Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford. He specializes in Tibetan Buddhism, with particular focus on the literature and history of its Tantric

Miles Osgood talks to Ralph H. Craig III about crafting constructive analogies between Christian and Buddhist liturgies, characterizing the ideal preachers (dharmabhāṇakas) described in Mahāyāna sūtras, and Tina Turner’s contributions to Buddhist pedagogy.Ralph H. Craig III is an interdisciplinary scholar of religion, whose research focuses on South Asian Buddhism and American Buddhism. He received his B.A. in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at

Miles Osgood talks to Allan Ding about why the Chan monk Moheyan lost the 8th-century “Samyé Debate” over the future of Tibetan Buddhism, how medieval Chinese Buddhists shifted from “antiritualism” to accepting the “zhāi” feast, and what forms of religious imagination scholars can adopt from liturgical practices.Yi (Allan) Ding received his bachelor's degree from Fudan University (2008) and his PhDin Religious Studies from Stanford University (2020). As a scholar of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, he

Miles Osgood talks to Marcus Bingenheimer about why new tools in the Digital Humanities demand new genres of scholarship, what network analysis reveals about the transmission of religious ideas in medieval China, and how AI’s large language models will help arcane texts reach a new global readership.Marcus Bingenheimer is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion atTemple Universityin Philadelphia. He taught Buddhism and Digital Humanities in Taiwan at Dharma Drum (2005 to 2011) and held

Miles Osgood talks to Julian Butterfield about the winding path to a dissertation topic, overcoming exegetical resistance to emotional affect in religious literature, and the central role of joyful anumodanā (隨喜 suixi) in the Lotus Sūtra.Julian Butterfield holds a BA in Comparative Literature and Religious Studies (2016) and an MA in Religious Studies (2018), both from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from Stanford University (2025). Generally interested in the dissemination and development of

Miles Osgood talks to Pia Brancaccio about the Buddhist cave monasteries of Western Deccan, the inter-continental exchange of "Maritime Buddhism" along the "Cotton Road," and the competition between Buddhism and Shaivism at the end of the first millennium C.E.

Miles Osgood talks to Professor Stephen Bokenkamp about his fieldwork in China after the Cultural Revolution, how to better understand the original encounter between Daoism and Buddhism in the 2nd to 6th centuries C.E., and what Daoist and Buddhist Studies can learn from one another today.Stephen R. Bokenkamp (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1986) specializes in the study of medieval Chinese Daoism, with a special emphasis on its literatures and its relations with Buddhism. He is author