Selections From the Bonpo Book of Death

SELECTIONS FROMTHE BONPO BOOK OF THE DEAD

Collected and translated by John Myrdhin ReynoldsBonpo Translation ProjectVidyadhara Institute for Studies in Comparative ReligionSan Diego and Copenhagenc by John Myrdhin Reynolds, San Diego 1997

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SELECTIONS FROM THE BONPO BOOK OF THE DEAD

Collected and Translated by John Myrdhin ReynoldsBonpo Translation ProjectVidyadhara Institute for Studies in Comparative ReligionPREFACEThe selected translations from the Bonpo tradition of Dzogchenpresented here are part of my work in progress for translating all the relevantTibetan texts from the Zhang-zhung Nyan-gyud collection. These translationsare being published in two forthcoming volumes, Space, Awareness, andEnergy: An Introduction to the Bonpo Dzogchen Teachings from Zhang-zhung,and The Six Lamps of the Heart of Enlightenment (Snow Lion Publications,Ithaca NY, 1998 and 1999). All of these translations were done over the yearsin collaboration with Lopon Tenzin Namdak, the leading Bonpo scholar andmaster of this tradition of Dzogchen outside of Tibet, to whom the translatorextends his deep appreciation and grateful thanks. The commentaries thatfollow the translations are entirely my own.In these commentaries which I provide to the translations, I elaborateupon the view of Dzogchen in relation to the Bardo experience, not only fromthe traditional Tibetan perspective found in the Tibetan commentaries, butalso from the perspectives of Transpersonal Psychology and ComparativeReligion. In terms of depth psychology, as well as the relationship betweenindividual consciousness and the collective unconscious, I have found thewritings of C.G. Jung and his followers, such as Erich Neumann, to beespecially informative and stimulating in terms of unraveling the meaning of the various symbolizations that are employed in relation to consciousness. Interms of Comparative Religion, I have found the writings of Mircea Eliade tobe especially insightful with regard to the distinction between the sacred andthe profane, the symbolism of the center and of sacred space, and on thestructure of time in ancient cultures.Moreover, in discussing the Dzogchen understanding of Shunyata oremptiness as being the Kunzhi, the basis of everything, which represents theultimate source and matrix of all the possible manifestations appearing in timeand space, I have found David Bohm's elucidation of the holographic model of reality and the implicate order to be especially suggestive. The Dzogchen textspresent Shunyata, not merely as emptiness or the void, but as a state of purepotentiality, which gives it a more positive perspective than is found in theMadhyamaka philosopy of Mahayana Buddhism. Shunyata, like the greatcosmic ocean of myth that preceeded the creation of the world, is not onlychaos and non-being (Skt. asat), but equally pure being (Skt. sat), the sourceof all possible manifestations of being. Not only individual lives, but entireuniverses emerge out of it and dissolve again into the state of Shunyata. It is,therefore, not just a state of emptiness or non-being, but a state of fullnessand pure awareness, pregnant with infinite possibilities for knowledge andexistence. In many ways, this more positive notion of Shunyata resemles theUpanishadic Brahman, but as the ground of being, Shunyata is not a substanceor an entity. In terms of the Buddhist formulation, it can neither be said toexist nor not exist. It lacks any inherent existence and transcends thecategories of the finite intellect.Especially in my footnotes to the commentaries I have composed to thetranslations of the Tibetan texts, I have drawn on these perspectives tocompare the Tibetan Books of the Dead with other spiritual traditions andmythologies elsewhere in the world. I believe that this comparativemethodology can help elicit a whole range of meanings from the texts inquestion, which may not at first be obvious if one proceeds on purelyphilological grounds. Here I am primarily concerned with the hermeneutics of

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consciousness and I have found the Dzogchen perspective on mind andconsciousness to assist brilliantly in this endeavor.Both Jung and Eliade believed in the psychic unity of humankind, despitea diversity of cultures. The same assumption is found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and so it is suggested here that the profound insights of Dzogcheninto the nature of the psyche and the mind, as well as into the processes of death and rebirth, can be applied elsewhere than in Tibetan culture.Moreover, this traditional wisdom may be applied even to our contemporaryexperiences. Despite all our advancement in technology and scientific theoryin the West, we modern people still suffer death and the terror of death. That,indeed, is the bottom line. Perhaps the Tibetan Lamas, both Buddhist andBonpo, do have something to teach us after all. I had thought so at least,which is what led me into these studies originally, not only as a scholar andtranslator, but even more as a participant and a practitioner.In a sense, Tibetan society only recently emerged from the Middle Agesinto the modern world, in 1959 with the completion of the ChineseCommunist conquest of that ancient land. But we in the West should not think of Tibet as having been a static society over the centuries, or as merely amuseum of Buddhist relics inherited from Medieval India. Before the comingof Indian Buddhism to Central Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries of ourera, Tibet had its own flourishing native religious culture known as Bon, whichwas not simply a primitive shamanism and animism, but a higher culture. InWestern Tibet or Zhang-zhung, this culture was literate and in close contactwith the Buddhist and Zoroastrian civilizations of Central Asia to the west.Even after the revival of Indian Buddhism in Tibet in the eleventh century, theTibetan Lamas did not just slavishly imitate their Indian predecessors, butworked creatively with this inherited material from Buddhist India andexpanded upon it. In the field of philosophy alone, developments were madeover the inherited Indian models in logic and epistemology. But it was withDzogchen and its particular ontological concerns that the Tibetan intellect,like the great Garuda itself, took flight and soared upward to unprecedentedheights. Over the centuries Tibetan intellectual and spiritual culture evolvedtwo over-arching philosophical syntheses. The first was the Gelugpa, whichwas founded on the writings of the illustrious master and scholar JeTsongkhapa (14 cen.) and was centered in the great monastic universities of Central Tibet, such as Gendan, Drepung, Sera, and Tashilhungpo. This mightyintellectual edifice was built on foundations laid earlier by the Sakyapas andthe Kadampas. The second great synthesis was that of the Rimed Movement of the last two centuries, centered largely in Kham or Eastern Tibet. Inspired bythe works of the brilliant eighteenth century Dzogchen master Jigmed Lingpa,leading Lama scholars of the red hat schools of the Nyingmapas, the Sakyapas,and the Kagyudpas all contributed to the formation of this non-sectarianmovement. In fact, the very terms Rimed (ris-med) and Rimedpa (ris-med-pa)mean "non-sectarian." And here we find the names of such illustrious Lamasas Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul, Chogyur Lingpa, JamgonMipham, and even the Bonpo master Shardza Tashi Gyaltsan. And at the heartof this second synthesis or integration of all Buddhist and Bonpo thought, wefind Dzogchen, universally regarded as the highest, most quintessentialteaching of the Buddhas.Because this material is still part of several works in progress, there mayoccur some repetitions in the commentaries I have appended to thetranslations and for this I request the reader's indulgence. The psychologicaland comparative religious aspects of this Tibetan material I will expand uponin a future study of the Tibetan Books of the Dead. Thus, much of thisdiscussion is here relegated to the footnotes and to brief references.The translator also wishes to extend his thanks to Chogyal NamkhaiNorbu and to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche who first introduced him to thisparticular tradition of Dzogchen some years ago. And also thanks are