Tradition

Bon

Overview

Bon or Bön (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon, ZWPY: Pön, Lhasa dialect: [pʰø̃̀]), also known as Yungdrung Bon (Tibetan: གཡུང་དྲུང་བོན་, Wylie: gyung drung bon, ZWPY: Yungchung Pön, lit. 'eternal Bon'), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism but retains elements from earlier Tibetan religious traditions. Bon is a significant minority religion in Tibet, especially in the east, as well as in the surrounding Himalayan regions.

The relationship between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism has been a subject of debate. According to the modern scholar Geoffrey Samuel, while Bon is "essentially a variant of Tibetan Buddhism" with many resemblances to Nyingma, it also preserves some genuinely ancient pre-Buddhist elements. David Snellgrove likewise sees Bon as a form of Buddhism, albeit a heterodox kind. Similarly, John Powers writes that "historical evidence indicates that Bön only developed as a self-conscious religious system under the influence of Buddhism".

Followers of Bon, known as "Bonpos" (Wylie: bon po), believe that the religion originated in a kingdom called Zhangzhung, located around Mount Kailash in the Himalayas. Bonpos hold that Bon was brought first to Zhangzhung, and then to Tibet. Bonpos identify the Buddha Shenrab Miwo (Wylie: gshen rab mi bo) as Bon's founder, although no available sources establish this figure's historicity.

Western scholars have posited several origins for Bon, and have used the term "Bon" in many ways. A distinction is sometimes made between an ancient Bon (Wylie: bon rnying), dating back to the pre-dynastic era before 618 CE; a classical Bon tradition (also called Yungdrung Bon – Wylie: g.yung drung bon) which emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries;

and "New Bon" or Bon Sar (Wylie: bon gsar), a late syncretic movement dating back to the 14th century and active in eastern Tibet.

Tibetan Buddhist scholarship tends to cast Bon in a negative, adversarial light, with derogatory stories about Bon appearing in a number of Buddhist histories. The Rimé movement within Tibetan Buddhism encouraged more ecumenical attitudes between Bonpos and Buddhists. Western scholars began to take Bon seriously as a religious tradition worthy of study in the 1960s, in large part inspired by the work of English scholar David Snellgrove. Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, Bonpo scholars began to arrive in Europe and North America, encouraging interest in Bon in the West. Today, a portion of Tibetans – both in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora – practise Bon, and there are Bonpo centres in cities around the world.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Bon is discussed.

For us it would be enough to say that in a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions of his unconscious instincts. The apparently new characteristics which he then displays are in fact the manifestations of this unconscious, in which all that is evil in the human mind is contained as a predisposition. We can find no difficulty in understanding the disappearance of…
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
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Seven or eight li to the west of the city there is what is called the King's new monastery, the building of which took eighty years, and extended over three reigns. It may be two hundred and fifty cubits in height, rich in elegant carving and inlaid work, covered above with gold and silver, and finished throughout with a combination of all the precious substances. Behind the tope there has been built a Hall of…
Confucius, Chinese literature
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Might he be called philanthropic?" The Master exclaimed, "What a work for philanthropy! He would require indeed to be a sage! He would put into shade even Yau and Shun!--Well, a philanthropic person, desiring for himself a firm footing, is led on to give one to others; desiring for himself an enlightened perception of things, he is led on to help others to be similarly enlightened. If one could take an illustration…
Confucius, The Wisdom of Confucius with Critical and Biographical Sketches
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Sois bon fils, frère juste, époux tendre et bon père. Choisis pour ton ami, l’ami de la vertu; Cède à ses doux conseils, instruis-toi par sa vie, Et pour un tort léger ne le quitter jamais; Si tu le peux du moins: car une loi sévère Attache la Puissance à la Nécessité. Il t’est donné pourtant de combattre et se vaincre Tes folles passions: apprends à les dompter. Sois sobre, actif et chaste; évite la colère. En…
Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, The golden verses of Pythagoras
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He is the realised ideal of every one of them; the thing they are all wanting to be; of all Frenchmen the most French. _He_ is properly their god,--such god as they are fit for. Accordingly all persons, from the Queen Antoinette to the Douanier at the Porte St. Denis, do they not worship him? People of quality disguise themselves as tavern-waiters. The Maître de Poste, with a broad oath, orders his Postillion, "_Va…
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, and
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Bon

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Bon

Related ideas

Place in the tradition