Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche

Founder of Yungdrung Bön: The Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche

The founder of the Yungdrung Bön tradition, the ancient spiritual tradition of Tibet, was the Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche. According to the Bön canon, he was born more than 18 000 years ago into a royal family in Olmo Lungring, a pure land that was part of the larger kingdom of Tazig to the west of Tibet.
Tonpa Shenrab is also recognized as having a profound historical influence on the Zhang Zhung and Tibetan cultural-spiritual beliefs.

The teachings of Buddha Tönpa Shenrab are classified according to three different schemes: the “Nine Ways of Bön”, covering the full range of secular and spiritual knowledge, the “Four portals and the Fitfth, the treasury”, and the “Outer, Inner and Secret precepts”.

The essence of the teachings reveals the nature of all phenomenal existence and shows the path to enlightenment, the self-realization of the Buddha nature, that all sentient beings are born with.
Since the time of the Buddha Tönpa Shenrab, the doctrines of Yungdrung Bön have been continuously transmitted up until today from master to disciple, keeping the stream of teachings alive in an unbroken lineage.

The Buddha´s earthly manifestation

Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche was the emanation body (nirmanakaya) of Kuntu Zangpo, the primordial Buddha. Out of his limitless compassion, he appeared as a human being to show humanity through his example and the manifestation of twelve great deeds, the path of liberation, and the way out of the cyclic order of earthly life experienced as suffering – samsara.

Born as Prince Künle Namgyal, he married at a young age and had several children. As the Buddha, he was given the name Tönpa for being the Supreme Teacher (Tönpa literally means “the one who reveals”); Shen because he was born into the Shen clan and was the highest, rab; Miwoche, “great man”, because he had taken human form.

At the age of 31, Tönpa Shenrab renounced worldly activities and became a monk. In nine years, he attained Buddhahood through practices of purification and accumulating merit and afterwards began spreading the teachings of Yungdrung Bön until the age of 82, when he entered nirvana.

Introducing the teachings in Tibet

During his lifetime, events brought Tönpa Shenrab to the Zhang Zhung kingdom in Southern Tibet. This was his first and only visit to Tibet. During this time, he transmitted to local people parts of the teachings from the first four of the “Nine Ways of Bön” on how to eliminate negativities, strengthen the relationship with the natural environment and its guardian spirits and to pacify negative forces. He also introduced prayer flags as a way of raising the positive energy, and taught the practices of water offering and fumigation with medicinal plants.This was the first time the teachings of Casual Bön (the first four of the nine ways) were spread.

Tönpa Shenrab found the people at that time unprepared for the teachings of the Bön of Result, but he prophesied that his emanation would come when the time was right, and that all his teachings would flourish in Tibet.

Tönpa Shenrab’s hagiographies

The hagiography of Tönpa Shenrab is preserved in three versions:

Short – Dodü, medium – Zermig, and extensive – Ziji.

These volumes also contain the teachings that Tönpa Shenrab gave during his lifetime and the doctrine of Bön.

Dodü, which is contained in a single volume, is the earliest source translated from Zhang Zhung language into Tibetan by the sage Lishu Tagring.

Zermig, in two volumes, is mainly focused on Tönpa Shenrab´s 12 deeds.

The Twelve Deeds of Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche were:

1. The Deed of Birth; 2. The Deed of Spreading the Teachings; 3. The Deed of Taming Sentient Beings; 4. The Deed of Guiding Sentient Beings; 5. The Deed of Marriage; 6.  The Deed of Manifesting Progeny; 7.  The Deed of Conquering; 8. The Deed of Victory; 9. The Deed of Awareness; 10. The Deed of Solitude; 11. The Deed of Liberation; 12. The Deed of Complete Accomplishment.

Ziji, a text of 12 volumes, contains the Nine Ways of Bön in the form of a conversation between Tönpa Shenrab and a disciple.

The “Nine Ways of Bön” are divided into two main sections. The first four are known as Casual Bön and the remaining five as the Bön of Result. They cover the full range of secular and spiritual knowledge, and are the living expression of Tibetan culture.

The Casual Bön introduces the ways for attaining worldly benefits and happiness. These teachings are divided into four vehicles: methods of healthcare, ways to maintain harmony between species, mechanisms which protect the community and rites for the welfare of the deceased.

The Bön of Result contains teachings for the realization of Buddhahood through the path of renunciation, transformation and liberation (from the source of suffering). It is divided into five vehicles: religious observances for lay people, religious observances for monks, tantra, higher wisdom tantric teachings and supreme realizations – Dzogchen.

Dzogchen, the direct path of self-liberation

The Dzogchen way, the way of Great Perfection, neither renounces (as in the sutra way) nor transforms (the tantra way) samsara but provides insight into the original empty nature of one’s mind as the path towards self-liberation. This teaching emphasizes the exploration and stabilizing of the experience of the natural state of the mind to liberate delusions, miseries, and suffering.