I sit down with Dominic Steavu, a historian of Chinese religion and healing from UC Santa Barbara. We discuss the central role of the body in medieval Daoist practices, and talk about the Daoist use of psychedelics to facilitate mystical experiences. Along the way, we touch on talismanic tattoos, internal alchemy, and embodied nonduality. Plus, Dominic reveals what he thinks about aliens and the Wu-Tang Clan.  

Remember, to hear from more experts on Buddhism, Asian medicine, and embodied spirituality, subscribe to Blue Beryl. Please enjoy!

Resources related to this episode:

• Christine Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face (2009)
• Pierce’s blog “In defense of a little romanticism… or, how Mr Miyagi inspired me to become a professor”
• Pierce Salguero, Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical (2022)
• Dominic Steavu, The Writ of the Three Sovereigns: From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism (2020)
• Dominic Steavu, Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions (2015)
• Dominic’s Academia.edu page

 In this debut episode of Blue Beryl's second season on embodied spirituality, I sit down with Paul C. Wang, a healer and teacher of Chinese medicine and Daoism, and host of the Daology Podcast. We talk about Paul’s practices of “memetic healing” and “clinical cosmology,” and how he works with Chinese medicine, martial arts, neigong, and spirit healing. Along the way, we discover how to communicate with deceased spirits, and how to embody the Dao through everyday practices. 
 
 Please enjoy! And if you want to hear from more experts on Buddhism, Asian medicine, and embodied spirituality, subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Daology Podcast
• Daocenter.com
• Dao Center’s Facebook page

Welcome to the Blue Beryl, a podcast with intelligent conversations about Buddhism, Asian Medicine, and embodied spirituality.  In this episode, host Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with BBP producer Dr Lan Li to reflect on Season 1 and look ahead to Season 2. We discuss showing up for scholarly work as a whole person, how studying Buddhist medicine challenges the academic status quo, and what do I mean by calling Season 2 “embodied spirituality”? Along the way, we touch on talismanic chants, poisonous centipedes,  dissolving bodies, and the unfolding mystery that this podcast is pursuing.

Enjoy! And subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “Human•ities,” Pierce’s blog series on building a more humane culture in the humanities (see also this Facebook group)
• Pierce’s publications and blogs about pedagogy
• Pierce Salguero, "The Monk and the Centipede" Tricycle (2022)
• Pierce Salguero, Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical (2022)

Dr Pierce Salguero is interviewed by James Bae on the Buddhist Medicine & Yoga Podcast. In this extensive and in-depth conversation, we talk about differentiating religion from medicine, what Buddhist medicine can teach contemporary clinicians,  current trends in the field of Buddhist studies, and hybridity versus tradition. We also explore Buddhist medicine in America, different kinds of Buddhist healers in the US, and how Buddhist medicine circulates in the contemporary era. Along the way, we dig into the promise of “metadisciplinary” collaborations, and what it means to engage in “pedagogy of the soul.” This episode combines two interviews, abridged and edited together.

Enjoy, and please subscribe to Blue Beryl so that you do not miss any episodes in the future!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Link to the original (non-abridged) interview, part 1
• Link to the original (non-abridged) interview, part 2 
• Michael Stanley-Baker, Situating Religion and Medicine in Asia (2023)
• Pierce Salguero, Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China (2014)
• Pierce’s “Pedagogy of the Soul” blog series
• Pierce Salguero, “Beyond Mindfulness: Buddhism & Health in the US” (2022) 
• Pierce Salguero, “Varieties of Buddhist Healing in Multiethnic Philadelphia” (2019)
• Pierce Salguero, “The Role of Buddhist Studies in Fostering Metadisciplinary Conversations and Improving Pedagogical Collaborations” (2021)
• Pierce’s “Meta Approaches to Asian Medicine” blog series

Dr. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

Today I sit down with Amy Langenberg, a scholar of South Asian Buddhism, gender, sexuality, and the body. We focus on Amy’s work on misogyny in Buddhist texts, her book on Buddhist embryology, and her current project on sexual abuse in contemporary Buddhist communities. Along the way we discuss miscarriage, menstruation, and the importance of feminist scholarship . . . and also, what does the Buddha have in common with Michael Phelps? 

Remember, if you want to hear from more experts on Buddhism, Asian medicine, and embodied spirituality, subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes. Please enjoy!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Amy Langenberg, Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom (2017)
• Pierce Salguero,  "'This Fathom-Long Body': Bodily Materiality and Ascetic Ideology in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Scriptures" (2018)
• Amy’s academic papers, free to download on Academia.edu
• Pierce Salguero (ed.), Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources (2017)
• Amy Langenberg, "The Buddha Didn’t Teach Consent" (2021)
• The Buddhist Bodies Collective 
•  Ann  Gleig and Amy Langenberg, “Survivor-Centered Solutions: #MeToo and Spiritual Abuse” (CBC Radio)
• Ann Gleig and Amy Langenberg, "Abuse, Sex and the Sangha: A Series of Healing Conversations” (video playlist)
• Ann Gleig and Amy Langenberg, “Sexual Ethics and Healthy Boundaries in the Wake of Teacher Abuse” (2023) 
• Ann Gleig and Amy Langenberg, “Supporting Survivors of Abuse” (video)
• Amy Langenberg and Ann Gleig, "Sexual Misconduct And Buddhism - Centering Survivors" (2020)
• Amy Langenberg, “Late Night Phone Alerts And Other Intrusions: What To Expect When You Write About Sexual Violation In Religion” (2021)

Today I sit down with Pamela Boyce Simms, a Buddhist practitioner, herbalist, and cultural healer. We talk about how Pamela’s Buddhist practice enables her to facilitate self-care sovereignty for impoverished rural and urban communities. We also discuss how she uses deep meditation states to navigate the stark racial and political divides facing contemporary America. Along the way, we talk about the multidimensional nature of reality, plant spirits, and how the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa inspired her to get involved in environmental activism.  

Enjoy, and don’t forget to subscribe to Blue Beryl to ensure that you don’t miss an episode!

Resources mentioned:

• https://singularitybotanicals.net/
• https://communitysupportedenlightenment.com/

In this episode, I sit down with Kin Cheung, a scholar of contemporary Buddhism at Moravian University. We talk about his research on a Chinese American community healer who happens to be his father. We discuss how his father’s practice raises challenging questions for scholars, and reveals gaping holes in current academic approaches to Buddhism. Along the way, we talk about how code-switching between different ontologies is a feature of life for Asian Americans, and hear Kin’s father conduct a blessing ritual.

Enjoy, and please subscribe so that you do not miss any episodes in the future!

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• First installment of Pierce's blog series on Meta Approaches to Asian Medicine
• Chenxing Han, Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021)
• Duncan Ryūken Williams, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War (2019)
• Pierce Salguero, Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (2020)
• Jivaka Project Philadelphia (documentary films on Asian American Buddhism in Philadelphia, by Pierce and Lan)
• Pierce Salguero, Kin Cheung, and Susannah Deane, Buddhism and Healing in the Modern World (2024) 
• Pierce Salguero and Andrew Macomber, Buddhist Healing in Medieval China and Japan (2020)

Today I sit down with Rev. Nathan Jishin Michon, a postdoctoral fellow at Ryukoku University and an ordained priest in the Shingon Buddhist tradition. Our conversation touches on diverse Buddhist healing rituals and the role of light in Shingon practice and cosmology. We discuss the playfulness and innovation in modern Japanese Buddhism, and the rise of chaplaincy after the 3.11 tsunami and nuclear disaster. We also talk about Nathan’s ethnographic work in Japan, as well as their experiences volunteering in a “listening cafe.”

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Pierce Salguero, Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (2019)
• Jivaka Project
• Nathan’s dissertation: “Awakening to Care: Formation of Japanese Buddhist Chaplaincy” (2020) 
• Nathan Michon, A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community (2016)
• Nathan Michon, Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Voices in Crisis Care (2023) 

Today I sit down for an in-depth conversation with my good friend, Michael Stanley-Baker, a scholar of Chinese religion and medicine. We talk about Mike’s international childhood and how his family history influenced his intellectual life, his training as a Chinese medical practitioner, and his book co-edited with Vivienne Lo, the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, which is groundbreaking... and open access! We also talk about Mike’s new book with Manchester University Press, Situating Religion and Medicine in Asia, which opens up a critical conversation about how we understand Asian medicine. Then, we look ahead to Mike’s digital humanities project, called Polyglot Asian Medicines. Along the way we talk rabbit-ducks and how fish know that they're underwater. 

I hope that you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And if you want to hear from more experts on Buddhist medicine and related topics, subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Michael Stanley-Baker and Vivienne Lo (eds), Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine (2022).
• Michael Stanley-Baker, Situating Religion and Medicine in Asia: Methodological Insights and Innovations (2023).
• The Rabbit-Duck (image)
• Polyglot Asian Medicines project website 
• Polyglot Asian Medicines intro video
• Mike's publications

Today I sit down with two guests, Ounkham Souksavanh and Elizabeth Elliott, to talk about community engagement and community health in Laos. We discuss how Elizabeth as a medical anthropologist, and Ounkham as a physician, work together to build trust and improve healthcare access across an ethnically and religiously diverse landscape. Along the way, we learn about Elizabeth’s experience of foraging for herbs and Ounkham’s memories of growing up with traditional medicine in his family. If you want to learn about the landscape of Lao traditional healers and medicinal plants — with a few snake bites and plant talismans thrown in — then this episode is for you!

Enjoy! And, if you want to hear from more experts on Buddhist medicine and related topics, subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes here. 

Resources mentioned in the podcast: 

• Elizabeth's dissertation: "Potent Plants, Cool Hearts" (2021) 
• Pierce Salguero, Traditional Thai Medicine: Buddhism, Animism, Yoga, Ayurveda (2016)
• Richard Poitier, Yû dî mî hèng "être bien, avoir de la force" (2007)
• Elizabeth's documentary: Traditional Medicine in Southern Laos (2023) 
• Brand new book released after the interview was recorded: Djaja Djendoel Soejarto et al, Medicinal Plants of Laos (2023)