Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

B ON
a means of political protest. They attracted considerable
attention to their cause by performing public selfimmolations
in protest against the Diem regime,
which had imposed restrictive measures on the practice
of Buddhism and the activities of Buddhist monks
and nuns.
When its sacrifice for the sake of others is advocated,
the body is clearly an essential element of religious
practice. However, even putting such heroic measures
aside, one cannot embark on the bodhisattva path
without regarding the body as an essential means of
fulfilling one’s bodhisattva vows. One of the central
vows of the bodhisattva is a statement that one is eager
to undergo billions of repeated embodiments in
the cycle of REBIRTH (sam sara) in order to help others
achieve awakening.
In contrast to the Mahayanist emphasis on postponing
final awakening for eons and eons, Buddhist
tantra (VAJRAYA NA) stresses speed of attainment,
promising the achievement of buddhahood in one
lifetime. The body is said to contain the seeds of buddhahood,
the prerequisites for achieving full awakening
in this lifetime. Hence the human body as a focus
of practice is central to Vajrayana Buddhism. Practitioners
regard the body as a microcosm of the universe,
with all its gods, goddesses, and other powerful beings.
Such beings are invoked and their powers harnessed
for the goal of full awakening by touching various parts
of the body using special hand gestures and by chanting
MANTRAs or sacred utterances.
See also: Anatman/Atman (No-Self/Self); Buddhahood
and Buddha Bodies; Gender; Sexuality
Bibliography
Collins, Steven. “The Body in Theravada Buddhist Monasticism.”
In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Das, Veena. “Paradigms of Body Symbolism: An Analysis of Selected
Themes in Hindu Culture.” In Indian Religion, ed.
Richard Burghart and Audrey Canthe. London: Curzon,
1985.
Dissanayake, Wimal. “Self and Body in Theravada Buddhism.”
In Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, ed. Thomas P.
Kasulis with Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1993.
Faure, Bernard. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Pye, Michael. “Perceptions of the Body in Japanese Religion.”
In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997.
Trainor, Kevin. Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism:
Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Wijayaratna, Mohan. Buddhist Monastic Life According to the
Texts of the Theravada Tradition, tr. Claude Grangier and
Steven Collins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Williams, Paul. “Some Mahayana Buddhist Perspectives on the
Body.” In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Zysk, Kenneth. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine
in the Buddhist Monastery. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991.
BON
LIZ WILSON
Bon (pronounced pön) is often characterized as the indigenous,
pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. While not
entirely untrue, such a description is misleading. There
are clearly indigenous Tibetan elements in historical
Bon, and some of these elements likely predate the arrival
of Buddhism in Tibet. But because there was no
effective Tibetan literary language before the introduction
of Buddhism, there is scant evidence from
which to reconstruct pre-Buddhist Bon. Moreover, because
the Bon that is known from later sources (and
exists to this day alongside Tibetan Buddhism) is a
highly syncretic religious complex, deeply conditioned
by its encounter with Indian (and probably other)
forms of Buddhism, it cannot rightly be considered either
indigenous or pre-Buddhist.
Historical Bon itself claims to be a direct descendant
of—indeed identical with—a religion known as
Bon that existed during the centuries before the introduction
of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century.
The few extant sources from the royal dynastic period
in Tibet do suggest the existence during this period of
a religious formation that may have been known as
Bon, whose priests were called bon po, and perhaps also
gshen. As reconstructed from these sources, this earlyor
proto-Bon seems to have included a strong belief in
an afterlife and to have involved a system of funerary
rites, animal sacrifices, and royal consecration ceremonies
as primary foci. It thus bears little resemblance
to later Bon.
There seems to have been some friction between
proto-Bon and Buddhism in the dynastic period. Later
sources from both traditions tell of Buddhist PERSE-
CUTIONS of Bon, which the Buddhist king Khri srong
66 E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM