Bön

Bön[1] (Tibetan: བོན་; Wylie: bon; Lhasa dialect IPA: [pʰø̃̀(n)]) is the oldest still-extant spiritual tradition of Tibet.

The history of Bön is difficult to clearly ascertain because the earliest surviving documents referring to the religion come from the 9th and 10th centuries, well after Buddhists began the suppression of indigenous beliefs and practices.[2] Moreover, historian Per Kværne[2] notes that "Bön" is used to describe three distinct traditions: (1) the pre-Buddhist religious practices of Tibetans that is "imperfectly reconstructed [yet] essentially different from Buddhism" and was focused on the personage of a divine king; (2) a syncretic religion that arose in Tibet during the 10th and 11th centuries, with strong shamanistic and animistic traditions, that is often regarded by scholars as "an unorthodox form of Buddhism;" (3) "a vast and amorphous body of popular beliefs" including fortune telling. However, other scholars do not accept the tradition that separates Bön from Buddhism; Christopher Beckwith calls Bön "one of the two types of Tibetan Buddhism"[3] and writes that "despite continuing popular belief in the existence of a non-Buddhist religion known as Bön during the Tibetan Empire period, there is not a shred of evidence to support the idea... Although different in some respects from the other sects, it was already very definitely a form of Buddhism."[4]

Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, recognizes the Bön tradition as the fifth principal spiritual school of Tibet[5], along with the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug schools of Buddhism, despite the long historical competition between the Bön tradition and Buddhism in Tibet.

The syllable -po or -pa is appended to a noun in Tibetan to designate a person who is from that place or performs that action; "Bönpo" thus means a follower of the Bön tradition, "Nyingmapa" a follower of the Nyingma tradition, and so on. (The feminine parallels are -mo and -ma, but these are not generally appended to the names of the Tibetan religious traditions.)[6]

Contents

History of Bön

Foundation

Traditionally, Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche is believed to have established the Bön religion. He is traditionally held to have been born in the land of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring, considered an axis mundi, which is traditionally identified as Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg ("Edifice of Nine Sauvastikas"), possibly Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring and the Mount Kailash, both the sauvastika and the number nine are of great significance and considered auspicious by the Bönpo as well as Hindus.

Competition with Buddhism

After the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet during the 7th century, there was often fierce competition between the two traditions, especially during the reign of Langdarma. Over time, Bön has been losing influence and has been marginalized by the Tibetan political elite.

'A Cavern of Treasures' (mdzod phug)

'A Cavern of Treasures' (Tibetan: མཛོད་ཕུག; Wylie: mdzod phug) is a Bonpo terma uncovered by 'Shenchen Luga' (Tibetan: གཤེན་ཆེན་ཀླུ་དགའ; Wylie: gshen chen klu dga') in the early 11th century.[7] Martin[8] identifies the importance of this scripture for studies of the Zhang-Zhung language:

For students of Tibetan culture in general, the mDzod phug is one of the most intriguing of all Bon scriptures, since it is the only lengthy bilingual work in Zhang-zhung and Tibetan. (Some of the shorter but still significant sources for Zhang-zhung are signalled in Orofino 1990.)[9]

1700s

The Dzungars invaded Tibet in 1717 and deposed and killed a pretender to the position of Dalai Lama who had been promoted by Lhabzang, the titular King of Tibet. This met with widespread approval. However, they soon began to loot the holy places of Lhasa which brought a swift response from Emperor Kangxi in 1718, but his military expedition was annihilated by the Dzungars not far from Lhasa.[10][11]

Many Nyingmapas and Bönpos were executed and Tibetans visiting Dzungar officials were forced to stick their tongues out so the Dzungars could tell if the person recited constant mantras, which was said to make the tongue black or brown. This allowed them to pick the Nyingmapas and Bönpos, who recited many magic-mantras.[12] A habit of sticking one's tongue out as a mark of respect on greeting someone has remained a Tibetan customs into modern times.

19th century

In the 19th century, Sharza Tashi Gyeltsen, a Bön master whose collected writings comprise eighteen volumes significantly rejuvenated the tradition. His disciple Kagya Khyungtrul Jigmey Namkha trained many practitioners to be learned in not only the Bön religion, but in all Tibetan schools. However, with the Chinese annexation of Tibet and the Himalayan diaspora, like the other schools, Bön has encountered significant cultural loss. Thankfully for the rejuvenation afforded by the terma tradition, this is not irreparable.

According to the Bönpo, eighteen enlightened entities will manifest in this æon and Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche, the founder of Bön, is considered the enlightened Buddha of this age (compare yuga and kalpa). The 33rd lineage holder of Menri Monastery, HH the Menri Trizin Lungtog Tenpei Nyima Rinpoche, and Lopön Tenzin Namdak are important current lineage holders of Bön.

More than three hundred Bön monasteries had been established in Tibet prior to Chinese annexation. Of these, Menri Monastery and Yungdrung Monastery were the two principal monastic universities for the study and practice of the Bön knowledge and science-arts.

Bön today

A complex appreciation of Bön is emerging by scholars. Bön, prior to the Tibetan diaspora, existed within a web of ancient indigenous animism, Hinduism, sympathetic magic, Buddhism, folk religion, shamanism, Vajrayana, asceticism and mysticism; complexes prevalent throughout the Himalaya and intermingling throughout the Inner Asian region. Pegg (2006) relates that these

"[c]omplexes include mosaics of performing practices and discourses rather than discrete or fixed sets of practices or beliefs. They are syncretic and overlapping. The power of sound to communicate with spirits is recognized…" and a recurrent motif throughout the region.

Leading Bön scholar Per Kvearne writes[13]:

Both Buddhists and Bönpos agree that when Buddhism succeeded in gaining royal patronage in Tibet in the eighth and ninth centuries, Bön suffered a serious setback. By the eleventh century, however, an organized religious tradition, styling itself Bön and claiming continuity with the earlier, pre-Buddhist religion, appeared in central Tibet. It is this religion of Bön that has persisted to our own times, absorbing doctrines from the dominant Buddhist religion but always adapting what it learned to its own needs and perspectives. This is ...not just plagiarism, but a dynamic and flexible strategy that has ensured the survival, indeed the vitality, of a religious minority.

The purpose of Bön

Among the important aims of Bön are cultivating heartmind. This is to purify and silence the noise of the mindstream within the bodymind, and so reveal rigpa — a transcendent natural bodymind. In rigpa, the obscurations of dualism and dukkha no longer entrance the Bönpo and sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya are aligned in a sympathetic resonance.

Geography and Bön

The Bönpa monastery of Narshi Gonpa at Ngawa, Sichuan Province, China.

Ethnic Tibet is not confined culturally to modern political Tibet. The broader area of ethnic Tibet also includes to the east, parts of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan; to the west, the Indian regions of Ladakh, Lahul and Spiti and the Baltistan region of Pakistan; to the south, Bhutan, Sikkim, parts of northern Nepal, the Mustang, Dolpo, Sherpa and Tamang regions of eastern Nepal and the extreme north-west of Assam.

The altitude and vastness of the Tibetan Region is striking landscape uncompromisingly dominated by mountains and sky, where the starkness of the human condition relentlessly tests the mettle of its peoples. The lofty Tibetan Plateau and Geography of Tibet has had a profound effect on the Bönpo and the shaping of Vajrayana in general. Many of the local deities (jiktenpa) pre-dating the arrival of Buddhism, were co-opted and made 'protectors' of the Vajrayana and various teachings.

Gods of home and hearth

Bönpos cultivate household gods in addition to other deities:

Traditionally in Tibet divine presences or deities would be incorporated into the very construction of the house making it in effect a castle (dzongka) against the malevolent forces outside it. The average Tibetan house would have a number of houses or seats (poe-khang) for the male god (pho-lha) that protects the house. Everyday [sic?] the man of the house would invoke this god and burn juniper wood and leaves to placate him. In addition the woman of the house would also have a protecting deity (phuk-lha) whose seat could be found within the kitchen usually at the top of the pole that supported the roof.[14]

Historical phases of Bön

According to the Bönpos themselves,[15] the Bön religion has actually gone through three distinct phases: Animistic Bön, Yungdrung or Eternal Bön, and New Bön.

Animistic Bön

The first phase of Bön was grounded in animistic and shamanistic practices and corresponds to the general characterization of Bön as described by western scholars.

Initiation rituals and rites closely correlate to the indigenous shamanic traditions of Siberia. Many Bönpo shamans were members of a clan-guild. Shamans were of either gender. A shamanic aspirant was often visited and possessed by an ancestral shaman and/or one or more of any number of entities such as gods, elementals, dæmons, and spirits. The possession typically resulted in a divine madness and a temporary retreat into the wilderness, where the shaman lived like an animal and experienced visions of his own death at the hands of spirits.

After the newly possessed shaman returned, they were taught by senior practitioners and members of the clan-guild how to exert power over the spirits that visited them, as well as incantation of mantra.[16]

Yungdrung Bön

The religion's second era is a contentious phase. It rests on the assertions of the Bönpo texts and traditions, which are extensive and only now being analyzed in the West.

These texts assert that Yungdrung Bön was founded by the Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche. He discovered the methods of attaining enlightenment and is considered to be a figure analogous to Gautama Buddha. He was said to have lived 18,000 years ago in the land of Olmo Lung Ring, part of the land of Tagzig (see Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring), to the west of present day Tibet (which some scholars identify with the Persian Tajik).

According to Buddhist legend, prior to the manifestation of Shakyamuni Buddha there were numerous other historical Buddhas. Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche transmitted the lore, which was similar in many regards to Buddhism, to the people of Zhangzhung of western Tibet. They had previously been practicing animistic Bön, thus establishing Yungdrung ("eternal") Bön.

Abbot of a Bön Monastery in Nepal - Lopön Tenzin Namdak

One interesting proposition, countered by most Himalayan scholars[17], is that Buddhism may have arrived in Tibet by a path other than directly from northwest India. A transmission through Persia prior to the 7th century is not improbable as Alexander the Great had connected Greece with India almost a millennium earlier, resulting in a flourishing Greco-Buddhist culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Additionally, the 6th century Khosrau I of Persia is known to have ordered the translation of the Buddhist jataka tales into the Persian language. The Silk Road, the path by which Buddhism traveled to China in 67 CE., lies entirely to the west of Tibet and passed through the Persian city of Hamadan. Buddhist structures discovered in far western Tibet have been dated to the 3rd century CE. Bönpo stupas have also been discovered as far west as Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, no scholars have yet identified a major center of Buddhist learning in Persia which corresponds to the Bönpos' land of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring. Alternative proposed sites have included the ancient cities of Merv, Khotan or Balkh, all of which had thriving Buddhist communities active in the correct timeframe and are located to the west of Tibet.

The existence of the Zhangzhung culture is supported by many lines of evidence, including the existence of a remnant of living Zhangzhung speakers still found in Himachal Pradesh. The claim that Lord Shenrab was born 180 centuries ago is generally not taken literally[17], but is rather understood as an allusion to a master born in the very distant past.

One interesting question relating to the history of Bön is: when did Bön really enter the yungdrung phase, that is, when did elements strongly resembling Buddhism become important? These elements became apparent with the codification of the yungdrung Bön canon by the first abbot of Menri Monastery, Nyame Sherab Gyaltsen in the 14th century, but a trend towards this probably began earlier. At the same time, the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Sakya orders of Buddhism were also reorganizing themselves in order to be able to compete effectively with the dominant Gelug order.

If we do not accept the Bön claim that Bön's Buddhist elements are older than the historical Buddha, we may consider some other milestones in Tibetan history which may mark points at which Buddhist ideas became integrated into Bön.

New Bön

The "New Bön" phase began in the 14th century, when some Bön teachers discovered termas related to Padmasambhava. New Bön is primarily practiced in the eastern regions of Amdo and Kham. Although the practices of New Bön vary to some extent from Yungdrung Bön, the practitioners of New Bön still honor the Abbot of Menri Monastery as the leader of their tradition.

The present situation of Bön

According to a recent Chinese census, an estimated 10 percent of Tibetans follow Bön. At the time of the communist takeover in Tibet, there were approximately 300 Bön monasteries in Tibet and western China. According to a recent survey, there are 264 active Bön monasteries, convents, and hermitages.

The present spiritual head of the Bön is Lungtok Tenpa'i Nyima (b. 1929), the thirty-third Abbot of Menri Monastery (destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, but now being rebuilt), who now presides over Pal Shen-ten Menri Ling in Dolanji in Himachal Pradesh, India, for the abbacy of which monastery he was selected in 1969.

A number of Bön establishments also exist in Nepal, probably the most physically accessible[18] being Triten Norbutse Bönpo Monastery on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Bön's leading monastery is the Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India (Himachal Pradesh).

Recognition

Lobsang Yeshe, recognised as the fifth Panchen Lama by the fifth Dalai Lama Lozang Gyatso, was a member of the Dru family, an important family of the Bön religion. Under Lozang Gyatso Bön became respected both philosophically and politically.[19] However, the Bönpo remained stigmatised and marginalised until 1977, when they sent representatives to Dharamsala and Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who advised the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies, to accept Bön members.

Since then, Bön has had official recognition of its status as a religious group, with the same rights as the Buddhist schools. This was re-stated in 1987 by the Dalai Lama, who also forbade discrimination against the Bönpos, stating that it was both undemocratic and self-defeating. He even donned Bön ritual paraphernalia, emphasizing "the religious equality of the Bön faith."[20]

However, Tibetans still differentiate between Bön and Buddhism, referring to members of the Nyingma, Shakya, Kagyu and Gelug schools as nangpa, meaning "insiders," but to practitioners of Bön as "Bönpo," or even chipa ("outsiders").[21][22][23]

Bönpo spiritual practices

Bön, while now very similar to schools of Tibetan Buddhism, may be distinguished by certain characteristics:

  1. The origin of the Bönpo lineage is traced to Buddha Tönpa Shenrab (sTon-pa gShen-rab), rather than to Buddha Shakyamuni.
  2. Bönpos circumambulate chortens or other venerated structures counter-clockwise (i.e., with the left shoulder toward the object), rather than clockwise (as Buddhists do).
  3. Bönpos use the yungdrung (g.yung-drung or sauvastika instead of the dorje (rdo-rje, vajra) as a symbol and ritual implement.
  4. Instead of a bell, in their rituals Bönpos use the shang, a cymbal-like instrument with a "clapper" usually made of animal horn.
  5. A nine-way path is described in Bön. It is distinct from the nine-yana (-vehicle) system of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Bönpos consider Bön to be a superset of Buddhist paths. (The Bönpos divide their teachings in a mostly familiar way: a Causal Vehicle, Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen).
  6. The Bönpo textual canon includes rites to pacify spirits, influence the weather, heal people through spiritual means and other shamanic practices. While many of these practices are also common in some form to Tibetan Buddhism (and mark a distinction between Tibetan and other forms of Buddhism), they are actually included within the recognized Bön canon (under the causal vehicle), rather than in Buddhist texts.
  7. Bönpos have some sacred texts, of neither Sanskrit nor Tibetan origin, which include some sections written in the ancient Zhangzhung language.
  8. The Bönpo mythic universe includes the Mountain of Nine sauvastikas and the Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring paradise.

The Bönpo school is said by some to now resemble most closely the Nyingma school, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism, which traces its lineage to the first transmission of Buddhism into Tibet, while other researchers say many practices of Bönpos resemble folk Taoism. Svabhava (Sanskrit; Wylie: rang bzhin) is very important in the nontheistic theology of the Bonpo Dzogchen 'Great Perfection' tradition where it is part of a technical language to render macrocosm and microcosm into nonduality.[24]

Elements in Bön

In Bön, the five elemental processes of earth, water, fire, air and space are the essential elements of all existent phenomena or skandhas (aggregates) the most subtle enumeration of which are known as the five pure lights. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche states:[25]

[P]hysical properties are assigned to the elements: earth is solidity; water is cohesion; fire is temperature; air is motion; and space is the spatial dimension that accommodates the other four active elements. In addition, the elements are correlated to different emotions, temperaments, directions, colors, tastes, body types, illnesses, thinking styles, and character. From the five elements arise the five senses and the five fields of sensual experience; the five negative emotions and the five wisdoms; and the five extensions of the body. They are the five primary pranas or vital energies. They are the constituents of every physical, sensual, mental, and spiritual phenomenon.

The names of the elements are analogous to categorised experiential sensations of the natural world. The names are symbolic and key to their inherent qualities and/or modes of action by analogy. In Bön, the elemental processes are fundamental metaphors for working with external, internal and secret energetic forces. All five elemental processes in their essential purity are inherent in the mindstream and link the trikaya and are aspects of primordial energy.

Reality and chakras in Bön

Chakras, as pranic centers of the body, according to the Tibetan Bön tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of prana can not be separated from experience. Each of the six major chakras is linked to experiential qualities of one of the six realms of existence.

A modern teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche uses a computer analogy: main chakras are like hard drives. Each hard drive has many files. One of the files is always open in each of the chakras, no matter how "closed" that particular chakra may be. What is displayed by the file shapes experience.

The tsa lung practices such as those embodied in Trul Khor lineages open channels so that lung (prana or qi) may move without obstruction. A yogi opens chakras and evokes positive qualities associated with a particular chakra. In the computer analogy, the screen is cleared and a file is called up that contains positive, supportive qualities. A seed syllable (Sanskrit: bija) is used both as a password that evokes the positive quality and the armor that sustains the quality.[26]

Tantric practice eventually transforms all experience into bliss. The practice liberates from negative conditioning and leads to control over perception and cognition.[26]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Although the Wylie transcription of the Tibetan spelling is just "bon", the umlaut is conventionally added above the "o" to suggest more nearly the Tibetan pronunciation of the vowel.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kværne, Per. (1995) The Bon religion of Tibet: the iconography of a Living Tradition, Part 2. London: Serindia, ISBN 0906026350
  3. ↑ Christopher I. Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power Among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese During the Early Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, new ed. 1993: ISBN 0-691-02469-3), p. 20.
  4. ↑ Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton University Press, 2009: ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2), p. 414.
  5. ↑ "In 1978 the Dalai Lama acknowledged the Bon religion as a school with its own practices after visiting the newly built Bon monastery in Dolanji." Tapriza Projects Switzerland [1]
  6. ↑ "Introductory History of the Five Tibetan Traditions of Buddhism and Bön." Alexander Berzin. Berlin, Germany, January 10, 2000. [2]
  7. ↑ Berzin, Alexander (2005). The Four Immeasurable Attitudes in Hinayana, Mahayana, and Bon. Berzin Archives. Source: [3] (accessed: Monday March 1, 2010)
  8. ↑ n.d.: p.21
  9. ↑ Martin, Dan (n.d.). "Comparing Treasuries: Mental states and other mdzod phug lists and passages with parallels in Abhidharma works of Vasubandhu and Asanga, or in Prajnaparamita Sutras: A progess report." University of Jerusalem. Source: [4] (accessed: Monday March 1, 2010)
  10. ↑ Richardson, Hugh E. (1984). Tibet and its History. Second Edition, Revised and Updated, pp. 48-9. Shambhala. Boston & London. ISBN 0-87773-376-7 (pbk)
  11. ↑ Stein, R. A. Tibetan Civilization. (1972), p. 85. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1 (cloth); ISBN 0-8047-0901-7.(paper)
  12. ↑ Norbu, Namkhai. (1980). "Bön and Bonpos". Tibetan Review, December, 1980, p. 8.
  13. ↑ quoted in Powers (2007): 504
  14. ↑ Source: http://www.sharpham-trust.org/centre/Tibetan_unit_01.pdf; Thursday January 18, 2007
  15. ↑ Baumer, C. (2002). Bon: Tibet's Ancient Religion. Orchid Press, Thailand. ISBN 974-524-011-7
  16. ↑ Kernaghan, Eileen. The Nameless Religion: An Overview of Bon Shamanism
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Rossi, Donatella (1999). The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion. 
  18. ↑ accessible from the bus stop on the Ring Road nearest Swayambhu (downhill just behind the great stupa).
  19. ↑ Karmay, Samten G. (2005), International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter, pp. 12–13, http://www.iias.nl/nl/39/IIAS_NL39_1213.pdf .
  20. ↑ Kværne, Per and Rinzin Thargyal. (1993). Bon, Buddhism and Democracy: The Building of a Tibetan National Identity, pp. 45-46. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. ISBN 978-87-87062-25-1.
  21. ↑ ["History of Buddhism: Countries, sects and politics." Amalia Rubin. http://www.helium.com/tm/456714/authors-following-basic-history]
  22. ↑ "Bon Children's Home In Dolanji and Polish Aid Foundation For Children of Tibet – NYATRI."[5]
  23. ↑ "About the Bon: Bon Culture."
  24. ↑ Rossi, Donatella (1999). The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion. ISBN 1-55939-129-4, p.58
  25. ↑ 2002: p. 1
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Healing with Form, Energy, and Light. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2002. ISBN 1-55939-176-6, pp. 84-85

References

Further reading

External links