Bön, or more precisely Yung Drung Bön, is the original religion and culture of Tibet. It arose with the ancient Tibetan kingdom called Zhang Zhung. The religion has its founder and uses the swastika counterclockwise. It has survived to this day in Nepal in the Dolpo region, which historians consider the last resort of the original Tibetan (animist) tradition preserved in the world. Here we can find the proto pre-Buddhist Tibetan culture, which the Buddhists suppressed in other areas of the Himalayas (Tibet). Bön is also known as Bonpo or Bon-po.
The culture (kingdom) of Zhang Zhung, Xang Xung or Shang Shung had its center right near Mount Kailash, and it expanded to the present-day area near Kashmir in India (Ladak). Its capital was Kyunglung, the silver Garuda. In about 800 AD the kingdom collapsed, although it had successfully dominated the region for centuries before Christ.
The founder of Bonpo (Yungdrung Bön) was Tonpa Shenrab mibo, who was born in this ancient kingdom – Zhang Zhung. Dolpo was also part of this kingdom. The founder is also known as Buddha Shenrab. Bonpo’s followers believe that its founder, the enlightened master as Buddha, was born in Shambhala and visited Tibet from there about 18,000 years ago. The mythical land of Shambhala, also known as Elm Lung Ring in the Bonpo religion, is difficult to physically trace and its origin remains a mystery. This mysterious land is also described as dominated by a pyramid of nine svastikas – the Nine Paths of Bön.
Bonpo (Yungdrung Bön) is different from Buddhism. It consists of “nine Bonpo roads” or “thegpa gu”. The religion believes in karma and reincarnation like Buddhism, but instead of the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha, the emphasis is on the gpa gu. Yum Chen Sherab Chamma is the goddess of Bonpo and Shenlha Wodkar is her counterpart.
Bonpo has three basic shapes:
1) shamanism,
2) Yungdrung Bön – the nine-way svastika dharma (a system elaborated to achieve Total Completeness or Dzogchen), and
3) its more modern form that drew many of its current teachings from historical Buddhism. As a consequence, this third Bonpo school is considered by many scholars to be part of Tibetan Buddhism.
In Yungdrung Bön, the Buddhas are not the Buddhists. The name “Buddha” simply implies that a person so titled was enlightened. However, in the modern Bonpo school, which is part of Tibetan Buddhism, the Yungdrung Bon Buddhas are considered the previous enlightened forms of the Buddha. Buddhists have a legend that before Buddha first appeared as Gautama Buddha around 563 BC. C., had manifested several times before. Yungdrung Bön has its lamas, its teachings, its literature and it also reached other countries.
Buddhism arrived in Tibet around the 7th century AD On the Yeru Bon Center website, you will learn that Buddhists destroyed much of the Bonpo culture in Tibet. They also persecuted followers of the Bonpo religion. This probably answers why following a religion alone is not enough if the most important thing is overlooked: “Don’t do things that make you a Buddhist, Hindu, or Bonpo, but do things that make you the best in whatever you choose. do. . “