O caminho do dzogchen na tradição bön: uma análise histórica e filosófica

Abstract

This study aims from a hermeneutic point of analysis, a comprehensive aproach about the development of the Bön religion, its interaction with Buddhism through Tibet, and from this meeting, its historical and philosophical developments, centered on the practice of Dzogchen as a possible bridge between Bön and the Nyingma tradition. A survey on the first studies focusing on the Bön religion in the Western academies shows a particular importance, in order to understand the nature of the first historical and philosophical conceptions regarding Bön. The classification of the historical development of Bön in three phases aims at a more pedagogical approach to the understanding of its history. A study of the first centuries from the spreading of Buddhism to Tibet, between VIII and XI centuries A.D., is thought to be particularly important for the understanding of the characteristics that Buddhism would acquire in Tibetan soil, due to the particular nature in which this process was taken. A synthesis of the teachings of the philosophical schools of Mahayana, together with a series of tantric practices, brought from India and Central Asia formed the basis of Tibetan Buddhism. During the first two centuries of the transmission of Buddhism in Tibet, two great masters had a decisive importance in this process, the monk Shantaraksita would be responsible for philosophical synthesis that would be adopted during this period as the basis for the monastic teachings and ordination of monks in Tibet. Next to this philosophical basis, tantric practices were brought, developed and disseminated by the master Padmasambhava, which formed the religious and philosophical basis of Tibetan Buddhism. During this process, the practice of Dzogchen appears as a bridge between the two traditions, Nyingma and Bön, and through a study of its central elements as the mind-base concepts, rigpa and nature-of-mind, we seek to understand the possible similarities and differences between the two traditions.