When Robert Hung Ngai Ho passed away on 30 November 2025 at the age of 93, the global Buddhist community lost not only a benefactor of rare generosity, but a quiet architect of ideas—ideas about culture, ethics, and public responsibility that continue to shape Buddhist discourse today. Among his most enduring legacies is Buddhistdoor Global (BDG), a platform that embodies many of the ideals Ho spent a lifetime nurturing: ethical communication, cross-cultural understanding, and a belief that media can serve not merely to inform, but to elevate.

To speak of Ho’s legacy through BDG is not to reduce his life to a single institution. Rather, it is to recognize how this platform functions as a living expression of his values, carrying on his family lineage, Buddhist ethics, and deep concern for the moral health of modern societies.

Ho’s ideals did not arise in a vacuum. Born into a family renowned for philanthropy and public service, he inherited not only material means but also a moral orientation steeped in Buddhism. His grandmother, Lady Clara Ho Tung, was a devout lay Buddhist who dedicated her life to supporting Buddhist institutions and practice. From her, Ho absorbed a vision of generosity as spiritual cultivation: giving as an expression of wisdom and compassion.

This inheritance was refined through Ho’s education and professional life in journalism. Trained at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and seasoned through work in international media, Ho understood the power of narratives to shape societies. Yet he also witnessed journalism’s vulnerabilities, including commercial pressures, ideological distortions, and the slow erosion of public trust. These tensions would later inform his support for alternative media grounded in Buddhist tradition and ethical reflection.

Founded in the early days of the internet, BDG (then simply “Buddhistdoor”) emerged as one of the world’s first major digital platforms dedicated to Buddhism. From the outset, it rejected sensationalism in favor of depth, dialogue, and global inclusivity. This was not accidental. BDG reflects Ho’s conviction that communication itself is a moral act.

This conviction has become increasingly relevant as media environments grow more polarized. In an age of “fake news,” algorithmic outrage, and declining trust in institutions, BDG’s editorial ethos offers a counterpoint. Rather than claiming a false neutrality, it embraces a goal of developing ethical clarity through reporting grounded in fact and interpreted through progressive Buddhist values such as non-harm, interdependence, and compassion.

Several BDG essays over the years have directly confronted the failures of mainstream media. One critique traces the roots of fake news not to fringe actors alone, but to decades of sensationalist, conflict-driven reporting by established outlets.* Another challenges journalism’s pretense to objectivity, arguing instead for “informed conviction”—a stance in which facts are rigorously gathered, but openly interpreted in light of ethical commitments.** These arguments echo Ho’s own sensibility: that truth divorced from wisdom is insufficient.

What distinguishes BDG’s approach is its insistence that journalism, like Buddhist practice, involves inner cultivation. This perspective was vividly articulated at the 2018 Asian Buddhist Media Conclave, where BDG was cited as a model for values-based media.*** Participants from across Asia explored how Buddhist principles—mindfulness, the Middle Way, compassion—could inform journalism in societies grappling with inequality, conflict, and media distrust.

Speakers at the conclave emphasized that Buddhism-inspired journalism cannot rely on content alone. It must be rooted in practice. Meditation, ethical reflection, and awareness of intention were described as methodological foundations, not private hobbies. This mirrors Ho’s lifelong emphasis on holistic development: social change that begins with transformed minds.

In this sense, BDG functions as more than a news site; it is part of an emerging sangha of communication—editors, writers, scholars, and readers linked by shared ethical aspirations. Ho understood that institutions matter, but networks matter more. His philanthropy consistently sought to connect people across borders, fostering ecosystems rather than monuments.

Another thread running through BDG’s work—and through Ho’s legacy—is resistance to the culture of negativity that dominates modern news. Research cited in one BDG feature has shown how relentless exposure to negative news contributes to anxiety, apathy, and disengagement.* Movements such as public journalism, good-news journalism, and solutions journalism have emerged in response, each offering partial correctives that can aid us in our movement forward.

Buddhist journalism, as articulated by BDG’s writers, draws from these currents while adding a distinctive dimension. It asks not only “what happened?” or even “what can be done?” but also “what conditions gave rise to this suffering?” and “what mental states are being cultivated in the telling of this story?” This approach aligns closely with the Buddhist analysis of causality and the threefold path of ethics (Skt. sila), meditation (Skt. samadhi), and wisdom (Skt. prajna).*

BDG editorials have framed this explicitly through the Noble Eightfold Path.**** Journalism grounded in Right View seeks narrative arcs that move away from ignorance and toward insight. Right Speech cautions against exaggeration, vilification, and dehumanization. Right Intention demands that coverage be motivated not by clicks or outrage, but by the alleviation of suffering. These are demanding standards, but they are precisely the kind Ho believed were worth striving for.

Ho’s commitment to cross-cultural understanding is also deeply embedded in BDG’s spirit. The platform has consistently featured voices from across Buddhist traditions, regions, and languages, resisting the parochialism that often afflicts religious media. This reflects Ho’s broader philanthropic work as he promoted Chinese culture and Buddhist art around the world, funding ventures ranging from major museum exhibitions to academic exchanges.

In a fractured world, BDG offers a rare space in which cultural particularity and global dialogue coexist. It neither flattens differences nor paints them as insurmountable. Instead, it treats diversity as a resource for insight—a principle equally at home in Buddhist philosophy and in ethical journalism.

To speak of Ho’s legacy in the present tense is deliberate. He did not seek final answers nor fixed blueprints. He supported conditions for inquiry, dialogue, and ethical experimentation. BDG remains one such condition—a platform still evolving, still imperfect, but animated by a moral and ethical seriousness increasingly rare in digital media.

What might we hope to see of Ho’s ideals moving forward? First, a deepening of Buddhist media networks—not merely in scale, but in practice and collaboration. Second, continued courage to challenge dominant paradigms of journalism, even when doing so might be unfashionable or commercially risky. Third, an expansion of BDG’s role as a bridge across divides in scholarship and practice, Asia and the West, critique and compassion.

Above all, Ho’s life reminds us that generosity is not only about resources, but about trust—trust in people, in ideas, and in the possibility that media can serve awakening rather than confusion. In supporting BDG, Robert H. N. Ho placed such trust in the future. The task now is to be worthy of it.

* Buddhist Journalism in an Age of Global Distrust (BDG)

** Buddhistdoor View: “Re-dignifying” Journalism, the Buddhist Way (BDG)

*** Asian Buddhist Media Conclave Seeks Dharma-inspired Paradigms for Buddhist and Secular Journalism (BDG)

**** Buddhistdoor View: Revisiting Resolutions for Buddhist Media in 2018 (BDG)

See more

The legacy of Robert H.N. Ho ’56, H’11 at Colgate builds scientific and cultural understanding, as well as community.

Related features from BDG

A Life of Giving and Compassion: The Philanthropy of Mr. Robert H. N. Ho
In Loving Memory of Mr. Robert H. N. Ho (1932–2025): Philanthropist, Buddhist Benefactor, and Founder of Buddhistdoor Global
Buddhistdoor View: A Buddhist Vision of Media and Journalism
Buddhistdoor View: Buddhistdoor as a Dharma-sharing Platform Three Decades on, and into the Future
The Spiritual Vision of Robert Hung Ngai Ho: “There are Many Ways to be a Good Buddhist”

Related news reports from BDG

In Loving Memory of Mr. Robert H. N. Ho (1932–2025): Philanthropist, Buddhist Benefactor, and Founder of Buddhistdoor Global