Psychoactive Substances in Buddhist Practice in Premodern Tibet

Did premodern Buddhists use psychoactive substances in contemplative practice? Most scholars say no. This talk challenges that consensus. Drawing on early Great Perfection (Dzogchen) writings in Tibetan, it presents what appear to be the first unambiguous instances in premodern Buddhist literature where cultivating and consuming psychoactive fungi is prescribed as an integral part of the path, a means of hastening awakening. The talk argues that the prevailing scholarly view needs correction, and that the early Great Perfection tradition, along with other traditions joining medicine and meditation, offers a valuable resource for understanding how premodern Buddhists viewed psychoactive substances in developing contemplative experience. Through close reading of the key passages in their broader contexts, it considers what these might mean for practitioners and scholars today and suggests how text-historical research could inform contemporary scientific investigations of contemplation and psychoactive substances.

James Gentry received his PhD in Religious Studies from Harvard University in 2014. He went on to work at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute Centre for Buddhist Studies at Kathmandu University, University of Virginia, and 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, before landing at Stanford University in 2019, where he is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies. He is the author of the Bodhisattva’s Body in a Pill (University of Virginia Press, 2026); Power Objects in Tibetan Buddhism: The Life, Writings, and Legacy of Sokdokpa Lodrö Gyeltsen (Brill, 2017), and articles relating to the material culture, rituals, and texts of Tibetan Buddhism, particular its Nyingma tradition. His current projects include a history of Nyingma polemics and a study of the material and contemplative culture of the early Heart Essence tradition.