Selections from the Bonpo Book of the Dead
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SELECTIONS FROM THE BONPO BOOK OF THE DEAD Collected and translated by John Myrdhin Reynolds Bonpo Translation Project Vidyadhara Institute for Studies in Comparative Religion San Diego and Copenhagen c by John Myrdhin Reynolds, San Diego 1997 SELECTIONS FROM THE BONPO BOOK OF THE DEAD Collected and Translated by John Myrdhin Reynolds Bonpo Translation Project Vidyadhara Institute for Studies in Comparative Religion PREFACE The selected translations from the Bonpo tradition of Dzogchen presented here are part of my work in progress for translating all the relevant Tibetan texts from the Zhang-zhung Nyan-gyud collection. These translations are being published in two forthcoming volumes, Space, Awareness, and Energy: 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 years in collaboration with Lopon Tenzin Namdak, the leading Bonpo scholar and master of this tradition of Dzogchen outside of Tibet, to whom the translator extends his deep appreciation and grateful thanks. The commentaries that follow the translations are entirely my own. In these commentaries which I provide to the translations, I elaborate upon the view of Dzogchen in relation to the Bardo experience, not only from the traditional Tibetan perspective found in the Tibetan commentaries, but also from the perspectives of Transpersonal Psychology and Comparative Religion. In terms of depth psychology, as well as the relationship between individual consciousness and the collective unconscious, I have found the writings of C.G. Jung and his followers, such as Erich Neumann, to be especially informative and stimulating in terms of unraveling the meaning of the various symbolizations that are employed in relation to consciousness. In terms of Comparative Religion, I have found the writings of Mircea Eliade to be especially insightful with regard to the distinction between the sacred and the profane, the symbolism of the center and of sacred space, and on the structure of time in ancient cultures. Moreover, in discussing the Dzogchen understanding of Shunyata or emptiness as being the Kunzhi, the basis of everything, which represents the ultimate source and matrix of all the possible manifestations appearing in time and space, I have found David Bohm's elucidation of the holographic model of reality and the implicate order to be especially suggestive. The Dzogchen texts present Shunyata, not merely as emptiness or the void, but as a state of pure potentiality, which gives it a more positive perspective than is found in the Madhyamaka philosopy of Mahayana Buddhism. Shunyata, like the great cosmic ocean of myth that preceeded the creation of the world, is not only chaos and non-being (Skt. asat), but equally pure being (Skt. sat), the source of all possible manifestations of being. Not only individual lives, but entire universes 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 fullness and pure awareness, pregnant with infinite possibilities for knowledge and existence. In many ways, this more positive notion of Shunyata resemles the Upanishadic Brahman, but as the ground of being, Shunyata is not a substance or an entity. In terms of the Buddhist formulation, it can neither be said to exist nor not exist. It lacks any inherent existence and transcends the categories of the finite intellect. Especially in my footnotes to the commentaries I have composed to the translations of the Tibetan texts, I have drawn on these perspectives to compare the Tibetan Books of the Dead with other spiritual traditions and mythologies elsewhere in the world. I believe that this comparative methodology can help elicit a whole range of meanings from the texts in question, which may not at first be obvious if one proceeds on purely philological grounds. Here I am primarily concerned with the hermeneutics of 2 consciousness and I have found the Dzogchen perspective on mind and consciousness to assist brilliantly in this endeavor. Both Jung and Eliade believed in the psychic unity of humankind, despite a 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 Dzogchen into 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 contemporary experiences. Despite all our advancement in technology and scientific theory in 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 and Bonpo, 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 and translator, but even more as a participant and a practitioner. In a sense, Tibetan society only recently emerged from the Middle Ages into the modern world, in 1959 with the completion of the Chinese Communist 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 a museum of Buddhist relics inherited from Medieval India. Before the coming of Indian Buddhism to Central Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, Tibet had its own flourishing native religious culture known as Bon, which was not simply a primitive shamanism and animism, but a higher culture. In Western Tibet or Zhang-zhung, this culture was literate and in close contact with the Buddhist and Zoroastrian civilizations of Central Asia to the west. Even after the revival of Indian Buddhism in Tibet in the eleventh century, the Tibetan Lamas did not just slavishly imitate their Indian predecessors, but worked creatively with this inherited material from Buddhist India and expanded upon it. In the field of philosophy alone, developments were made over the inherited Indian models in logic and epistemology. But it was with Dzogchen and its particular ontological concerns that the Tibetan intellect, like the great Garuda itself, took flight and soared upward to unprecedented heights. Over the centuries Tibetan intellectual and spiritual culture evolved two over-arching philosophical syntheses. The first was the Gelugpa, which was founded on the writings of the illustrious master and scholar Je Tsongkhapa (14 cen.) and was centered in the great monastic universities of Central Tibet, such as Gendan, Drepung, Sera, and Tashilhungpo. This mighty intellectual edifice was built on foundations laid earlier by the Sakyapas and the Kadampas. The second great synthesis was that of the Rimed Movement of the last two centuries, centered largely in Kham or Eastern Tibet. Inspired by the 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-sectarian movement. 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 Lamas as Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul, Chogyur Lingpa, Jamgon Mipham, and even the Bonpo master Shardza Tashi Gyaltsan. And at the heart of this second synthesis or integration of all Buddhist and Bonpo thought, we find Dzogchen, universally regarded as the highest, most quintessential teaching of the Buddhas. Because this material is still part of several works in progress, there may occur some repetitions in the commentaries I have appended to the translations and for this I request the reader's indulgence. The psychological and comparative religious aspects of this Tibetan material I will expand upon in a future study of the Tibetan Books of the Dead. Thus, much of this discussion is here relegated to the footnotes and to brief references. The translator also wishes to extend his thanks to Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche who first introduced him to this particular tradition of Dzogchen some years ago. And also thanks are 3 extended for their help in the many practical areas of this world of Samsara to Benny Friis Gunnoe. John Myrdhin Reynolds Holte, Denmark December 1997 4 INTRODUCTION There exist in Tibet two authentic lineage's of transmission of the Dzogchen teachings preserved among the oldest schools of Tibetan spirituality, the Nyingmapa and the Bonpo. In both of these schools of traditional wisdom, Dzogchen, the teachings of the Great Perfection, is ranked as the highest vehicle among the Nine Successive Vehicles to Enlightenment (theg-pa rim dgu) into which the transmissions of the Dharma are divided. There exist a number of Bonpo Dzogchen traditions, but all of them are Terma (gter-ma) or rediscovered treasure texts, except for the Dzogpa Chenpo Zhang-zhung Nyan-gyud (rDzogs-pa chen-poi zhang-zhung snyan-rgyud), "The Oral Transmission from Zhang- zhung for the Great Perfection Teachings," [1] which represents a continuous oral transmission (snyan-rgyud) asserted to descend from the eighth century to our own time. For this reason, the tradition is of particular interest for the study of the historical development of Dzogchen thinking. The core of these teachings are the Upadeshas (man- ngag), or the brief secret oral instructions, given by the Dzogchen master Tapihritsa to his disciple Gyerpung Nangzher Lodpo (Gyer-spungs snang-bzher lod-po). [2] Both of these masters lived in the Mount Kailas region of Western Tibet, then known as Zhang-zhung. Up until the eighth century of our era, Zhang-zhung had been an independent kingdom with its own culture and language and which had close cultural connections with Central Asia and Afghanistan, both centers for a flourishing Buddhistic civilization.