The PhD program of Buddhist studies at Tran Nhan Tong Institute under VNU (TNTI) is the first Buddhist doctoral training program in Vietnam national education system. The program has widely consulted many Buddhist doctoral programs around the world in order to assure the international benchmark and international level of training, which enables to both focally exploit intellectual and cultural achievements of Buddhist studies in nationwide and worldwide level, especially the core and cross-cutting content from the thought system of Buddha-King Tran Nhan Tong and Truc Lam Zen school - Vietnamese Zen Buddhism to ensure ethnic characteristics of the program.