The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (77 page)

Another degye is Therang, who is thought to be embodied in boulders and ashes as well as in dice. He brings success in games, particularly dice, but also any board games. In ancient warfare, he was thought to guide the trajectories of catapulted boulders. Fever and dizziness are associated with Therang. The appropriate offering to him is popped barley with milk. He is the patron god of children and blacksmiths and is also somewhat associated with rain. Therang rides a goat and wears a goatskin over his black per. He carries a bellows and a hammer.

Dü is associated with darkness. He brings bad luck unless propitiated with offerings of leftovers. He is connected with crows and black pigs. Dü rides a black horse with a white blaze. He wears iron armor and helmet and a black per. He holds a sword and a spear with a black banner. Fastened to his saddle are a waterbag filled with poison; a long black board with a handle inscribed with his victim’s names; and a ball of multicolored thread which has a life of its own and can leap from its place and bind up a victim in an excruciating matter.

Chuglha is the god of wealth. He rewards thrift with prosperity and punishes waste with poverty. He can also bring rheumatism, ulcer, and swelling diseases. He is the patron deity of merchants and of the household and is offered butter and grain. He is associated with the earth, as well as with sheep, yaks, and horses. Chuglha rides a yellow horse or a lion. He wears a golden per over golden armor, and a golden hat with four sides in the stylized form of flower petals. He carries a multicolored, cylinder-shaped victory banner in his right hand and a scroll in the left. He vomits gems.

Nyen is the god of the Tibetan folk culture and the patron of rulers and all patriots. He is associated with the mountains. He is offered cheese, the three whites, the three sweets, and spikelets of grain plants. He is infringed against by chopping down any trees that may be held sacred locally and by digging up sacred ground; he is also offended by the smell of burnt food and by the beams of torches or lamps cast on the tops of hills or mountains consecrated to him. He punishes by magnifying physical weaknesses and causing domestic chaos. The horse and deer (especially the musk deer) are his sacred animals, as well as quadrupeds in general and also birds. His female counterpart is associated with storms and weather. The color of Nyen’s armor and per vary locally, but are most often white. He carries a white pennant banner. He also carries either a platter or vase of jewels. The color of his horse also varies with locale.

Za is the god of psychological energy, lightning, hailstorms, and, more recently, electricity. Disturbed, he can addle the senses or cause epileptic fits and madness. He can be offended by interrupting anything continuous—for example, by cutting rope or by ruining paint or ink. He is mollified by offerings of goat’s meat and goat’s blood. He is the patron of magicians and is associated with dragons. Za rides an angry crocodile. Each of his eighteen faces—he has one for each kind of mythical lightning dragon—is topped by a raven’s head that shoots out lightning bolts. He is six-armed and holds a victory banner, a snake lasso, a bag of poisonous water, a bow, and a bundle of arrows. Za has a large mouth in his belly, and his body is covered with eyes.

Drala is the god of war and patron of warlords and warriors. He is somewhat identified with storms and storm clouds. He is offended by the mistreatment of weapons. Drala punishes by humiliation and scandal, insomnia and nightmare, and even by loss of one’s
la,
or “soul.” He is offered barley beer, tea, and the three whites and three sweets. The white yak, horse, eagle, and raven are sacred to him. Drala rides a horse, usually reddish brown. He wears armor and helmet of lacquered metal and a red per. Eighteen pennants fly from his helmet. He holds a long-hoisted flag with eighteen ribbons flying at its edge and wears a belt which holds a bow and arrows, a lasso, an axe, a spear, a dagger, a sword, and other instruments of war. Drala emanates a tiger from his body, a black bear with a white heart from one of his legs, a jackal from each eye, and a hawk and eagle from his head.

Having given an impression of the divinities and their powers, according to Bön belief, an account of some of the customs and practices relating to the life situations of the Bön believer will give further insight into the world of Bön. According to Bön tradition, when a house is to be built, the site should be chosen by a person known for his wisdom and understanding. There are four main elements to be looked for. The building must be situated so that a mountain of Nyen is in the back, that is, to the west. This mountain is called the lhari, the “mountain of god.” This should be a rocky mountain, preferably covered with red lichen, the whole resembling a great red bird. The house is thus protected, like a child in its mother’s lap.

There should also be a mountain on the front side, but not so high as the one in back. It should be somewhat chalky in composition, ideally resembling a white tiger. On the right there should be a river running in an open valley, which, by the shape of its course, should resemble a dragon. On the left should be a screen of mountains resembling a tortoise’s back. The tops and ridges of this northern range should not be jagged but should present a solid mass, since spaces sharply gapping its silhouette are said to represent the teeth of death. This could bring death to the family. Any decayed or dead trees around the site portend accident and are cut down, if not found to be the haunt of some local god.

The traditional first step in approaching the site is to build a tower, or sekhar, on top of the lhari. The tower is intended as a shrine to Se, the local Nyen, or any other degye that is thought to be powerful in the area. The tower invites their blessing on the site. In the ceremony for consecrating the tower, a wool cord is extended in the four directions. This acts as a conductor for Se when he descends from heaven. Certain areas around the tower are designated as sacrosanct; no one goes there unless to make an offering.

The follower of Bön considers birth to be extremely sacred. Nevertheless, women were considered impure, since they represent the temptation of passion. Thus, a mother-to-be is required to lie in and remain in the barn until the accomplishment of the birth. Bön also fosters tremendous reverence for the holiness and the wisdom of the old. Thus it is the grandmother who, at the first appearance of the morning star, fetches water from the brook and brings it to the mother and infant. (The morning star is believed to be the star of the forehead, which represents wisdom and learnedness. The Bön notion of the morning star also contains the idea of newness. In the Bön calendar, the change of date takes place when the morning star appears, inviting the dawn.) Once the child is born, it is identified with its family heritage—including its family mountain, family lake, and family tree. It is also assigned a turquoise stone, as the family possesses one for each of its members.

The rite associated with birth is called
lalu,
which means “ransoming the la.” The word
la
is similar in meaning to the word “soul.” All human beings possess a la; consciousness, or sem; and life, or sok. In the Bön tradition, animals do not possess a la. The la is an entity which is part of one’s being but is unintelligent. Therefore it can be stolen, confiscated, or regained, as well as reinforced by spiritual power. It can be magnetized by any form of warmth or invitation. A child’s la is born when the child leaves the womb and the umbilicus is cut. Butter and milk are associated with the la because of their white color, which, as already mentioned, represents goodness or divinity. In the lalu ceremony, which is still practiced, an image of a sheep is made from butter, and the infant is washed in milk, to invite the la to stay.

The lalu ceremony is also used to combat sickness. Sickness is thought by Bön believers to be caused directly or indirectly by the degyes or by certain evil forces. It begins through the weakening of a person’s vitality. This might be caused by what is called a dön. Döns lurk furtively outside the dominion of Yeshen and have something of a hungry-ghost or thieving-dog quality—timid, but once gaining a hold, not letting go. A dön enters the system of a person who has abused the divine order, or perhaps it enters at a moment of depression or of some other weakness. Once a person is possessed by a dön, there is an opening for a minion of one of the degyes to steal his la. If this happens, then the sok (life) is subject to attack and capture by means of all kinds of sicknesses. If this attack is successful the person dies. In the case of an illness caused by the direct punishment of one of the eight degyes, life can be taken without going through the above stages; a degye can take control of the sok directly. A dön or a minion of a degye takes a la or sok because he can use it to add to his own presence and vitality.

Healing takes different forms, depending on the cause determined for the sickness. In some cases, a ceremony against a dön can be performed. This is done by making an effigy of the sick person and offering it, along with some meat and the hair or clothes of the sick person, to the dön as a replacement. Or, if a highly accomplished priest is available, he may perform a rite to gather all the döns in the area and frighten them off by manifesting as the wrathful Se. If this succeeds, the illness ends. If it fails, the lalu ceremony, mentioned above, is performed.

In this case, the lalu ceremony is performed partly to give a ransom to the confiscator of the la, but in addition to remagnetize the la to the sick person. In order to do this, certain objects are reconsecrated: the person’s turquoise stone; his la cup (a cup owned by each individual specifically for this purpose); and the thigh bone of a sheep, inscribed with the person’s name and astrological chart, and wrapped with colored threads representing the five elements, with the element of the person’s birth year in the center. If this is effective, the illness is cured.

If this process also fails, it is a question of a very serious illness—a matter of life and death. Then an accomplished priest must be summoned. The priest would perform the
to
rite, which invokes the power of Se and calls for the eight degyes. The priest offers them small structures, resembling little houses fashioned out of thread, as dwelling places.

Another still weightier ceremony is called dö. This ceremony is often used by Buddhists in order to invoke the gönpos (or
mahakalas
in Sanskrit)—the protectors. The Bön ceremony invokes the degye thought to be involved in the illness. In this ceremony the degye is offered a new castle, a very elaborate miniature construction called a dö. The intent of the rite is to lure the degye not only out of the sick person but also out of his own dwelling place. Daily offerings are made, and at the end of a certain period there is a special session in which the dö is finally and completely offered to the degye if he will quit the sick person.

There are further ceremonies of this nature which can be performed only by priests of the highest accomplishment. In one of these, the priest threatens to destroy the dö if the degye refuses to release the sick person. In a still more dire rite, the priest identifies with Se and thus with the degyes, and, calling them, he imprisons them in certain appropriate sacred objects which he then buries. If the priest fails in the execution of this ceremony, it is considered a catastrophe since the attempt would enrage the degyes and they would take revenge. Quite possibly the priest himself might become sick or die.

Another important Bön practice seems to be the counterclockwise circumambulation of a mountain sacred to Se and the degyes, while performing the lhasang ritual at various points along the way.

As well, we have evidence of some incantations in the ancient Shangshung language, which there is reason to believe may have been the ancestor of the Tibetan language. These incantations are thought to develop spiritual power, especially when accompanied by certain physical movements in the form of a dance. There were also supposedly some visualizations of Bön deities meant to be combined with the incantation and dance practice, but of these we know nothing. When the practitioner has completed intensive training in these practices he demonstrates his achievement of power by throwing butter sculptures into boiling water and pulling them out again intact, or by licking heated iron.

Many aspects of the Bön religion remain to be described, but unfortunately the task greatly exceeds the scope of this short presentation. Nevertheless we hope that the outlines for an accurate picture of this religion have been sketched and some sense given of its basic nature.

1
. The svastika (or
swastika
as it is often pronounced) in Bön represents an unchanging and indestructible quality. In this, it is like the Buddhist vajra, but it differs in that it also connotes richness and plenty. It is often used as a symbol of wealth, appearing as a decoration on an individual’s Chuglha bag—a bag containing objects sacred to the god of wealth.

The Vajrayogini Shrine

S
OME UNDERSTANDING
of coemergent wisdom is necessary in order to appreciate the significance of the Vajrayogini shrine and the ritual objects that are part of it. When we begin to realize the coemergent quality of reality, we recognize that even a simple object, like a vase or a chair or a table, contains the potential power to spark wakefulness. The same is true for any sense perception or any emotion we may experience. We find ourselves in a world of self-existing messages. Because we are able to “read” the messages of the phenomenal world as statements of sacred outlook, we can properly appreciate the shrine of Vajrayogini, for the shrine embodies these self-existing messages and communicates them to others. The shrine is not set up for the worship of an external god or force; rather it is designed to focus the messages of sanity and wakefulness that exist in the world, to bring them down into the experience of the practitioner, and, in some sense, to amplify their brilliance and power.