World Beyond the Mountain by Mike Kay

Cover: Lord and Lady of the Cemetery (late 19th–early 20th century) in Nechung Chapel. Photograph: Thomas Laird

The initiate was already chosen, whom the God of the Mountain would ride. It was all in accord with the sacred observance, held for 18,000 years, from the land beyond the pillar of the world, to the great Tibetan plateau. It was never just anyone, who would perform the transformation, but one gifted as a medium, with the strength to withstand the power of Deity made present.

The trials of purification, and all the secret rituals had been followed exactly as the Treasure Revealers directed. At last the final day had arrived, to the roaring of horns and the thunder of drums. The Terrible Mountain God would arrive and dance with his people, as he had done since time immemorial.

Some say he was transparent, nothing to disturb the flow, others that he was a corded rope, set to fly under the union with the God. The medium was ready. In the special place the Blessed Ones began the ceremony that would invoke the Protector of the World amidst the clouds of incense, ancient chants and mediumship, where the spirits rose to the call surrounding the entire gathering.

Sacred time was now resonating, as the attendants honed their focus. The subtle change took hold as the sounds became distant, the lights slowed into orbs both tiny and gigantic. Intense colours flashed and lingered, the bottom disappeared and the entire reality hovered in vast space, red afterglows from blue streaks stretching to every horizon.

The driving of the drum, the voice singing. There is no body, no limitation, eternity yawns wide open.

Fully dressed in flowing robes and ribbons, flaming eyebrows and triple eyes glaring, the attendants handed the God his mighty sword. This was the most dangerous moment, for if an attendant was a victim of possession, or if the god rejected his vessel, violence would ensue. Deity would strike the possessed to drive out the infection, or disembowel a vessel that through impurity could not contain him.

The purifications had been correctly followed, and the vessel was acceptable, and in a procession made their way out to the open terrace and the waiting people. The sound of the horns and the flying of streamers greeted the god with elemental colours while those who had returned after many lives welcomed him.

The Terrible Mountain God danced with the faithful, his mighty sword flashing in the sun. The communion between people and spirits was strengthened anew. Protector of the World, mighty power of nature, the ritual reestablished the relationship with the sacred which is at the heart of all traditional cultures amongst humankind.

Many people assume that Tibet has but one tradition, and that tradition is Buddhist. This thinking is incorrect, as Tibet has an ancient tradition that defies any simple explanation as to its age, yet was old before Sakyamuni was born. In local vernacular the name for this ancient way is Bon.

Bon is recognized by the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama as the true indigenous culture and religion of the Tibetan people, and even the ruling Chinese have allowed for Bon to continue in a fashion at the top of the world, which we might take as an admission that they can’t stop it.

There are two distinct forms of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana in the world today. Theravada is the narrow path, the science of mind and perception, a no nonsense pairing down of everything to the essential task of enlightenment. Theravada is less a religion than a discipline, it has little interest in anything that doesn’t directly feed into the task at hand.

Mahayana is the great wheel, the assimilator of culture and festival, the welcomer of Tantra. Mahayana dovetails into ancient traditions, the artistry of Bali, Gamelan, Shamanism, Trancing and Monkey Chanting. Mahayana dovetails into native traditions, it brings them into its science of the mind study, and through this assimilation it maintains itself.

Mahayana is the Buddhism of Tibet. Buddhism, most agree, came to Tibet around the 8^th century from India. It arrived to a world of extant tradition, and that tradition is referred to as Bon. Indian Buddhism built its center from which it could perform its conversions, but quickly retreated due to heavy lightning strikes and floods. The prevailing opinion was that the outlanders had angered the Gods, and they bid a hasty retreat before something more terrible happened. Its return is storied, and we will cover it shortly, but first an introduction to Bon.

Bon follows the primordial human condition, it relates to a world that is alive. In ancient times it is thought by experts that most people lived inside an experience of a living world full of meaning, where people were but one of many life forms that populated reality, and the invisible spirits ruled over it all. Today the term for this experience is called Animism. Animism simply is the experience that everything is infused with life. Thus the Rivers are Goddesses, and the clouds rejoice with dancing, and those you must kill to eat require ceremonies and observations to maintain the cosmic harmony. The Harmony, She whom the ancient Egyptians referred to as Maat.

Animism is served by a kind of spiritual specialist, Mircea Eliade’s “technician of the sacred”, the shaman. Shaman, and shamanism are Siberian words that have entered the standard vernacular because the current language has no concept or term that has survived its abrahamic dalliance to describe just who they are and what they do. The adopted term today has romantic connotations, a kind of a new age glow, where the modern heart and mind can whisk itself away to places of fantasy. Yet among truly Animist cultures the Shaman was an important position for the success of the entire community, nor is there any similar situation in this world today, as dominant society is dead, mechanistic and hostile to any notion of Animism.

Bon is shamanism, as the teachings revolve around the place mankind occupies in the living cosmos. Shamanism isn’t the rote learning of the priest, it is the direct experience of the spirit. Shamans are born, not made, since it is the spiritworld itself that does the instruction and the initiation of the person.

Missing from modern understanding is the fact that the role of the shaman is often forced upon the one in question, as the community required experts to intercede on behalf of them with the Gods and Spirits. Thus the visions and experiences of the shaman became the property of the community, and the community used them in order to prosper.

Bon shamans work with the five elements, and in Bon there are higher and lower expressions of each one. It is Bon who brings to the community the meeting with the Terrible Mountain Gods. It has long been the role of the Shaman to work with the dead, to lead lost souls to the threshold of their waiting world, and it is Bon that gave the world the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

It goes without saying that the Red Hat path of working with the dead is often at odds with what most people view as wholesome. Releasing the spirit that is trapped in the corpse has been seen as the same as killing, and the ushering of the dead, bringing their final messages to the living has been perceived as Necromancy.

Again an important distinction must be made between Buddhism, Bon, and the evaluations of western society. The shaman performs the role of psychopomp primarily for the health of the community. Buddhism offers no particular insight into funerary rites, and modern funerals are universally limited to those directly impacted by the death, so there is no equivalent outside of Bon to understand the working with the deceased.

The closest we can get is to look at other animistic cultures such as the Dine’, known widely as the Navajo. Amongst this culture the dead can have a virulent influence called Ghost Sickness. It is widely understood that those who die in certain ways can leave a contaminated stain in reality. Thus it becomes imperative in such a society that experts are present to mitigate the negative influence, thus we can take this understanding and apply it to Bon, that the service of the shaman was intended to preserve health and harmony.

If we were to be honest, a great deal of the fear and worry derive from how Buddhism returned to Tibet, in what form, which was with one word, Tantra. Tantric masters cavort with women initiates, they guzzle booze, insult the upstanding, carry weapons, and perform secret rituals upon the places occupied by cadavers.

Tantra came from the mysterious Vedic tradition, to find a home in Buddhism early on, its most visible aspect being the use of sacred paintings called Mandalas. Yes, these are the same sigils that the Prophet of the Machine God, Carl Jung, reported his patients creating spontaneously. To say that such images are latent to the human psyche and infused with potent living significance is putting it lightly. Tantric masters have understood Mandalas for thousands of years. They transcend psychology.

Like Bon, which traces its history back 18,000 years, Tantra has a mysterious origin. In India are sacred temples with Chakras and incredibly gorgeous Yoginis, there are ancient traditions such as the Mandala of the Phoenix, the Lingam and the Yoni. In India lives the tradition, of a pre-pubescent girl being chosen to be the Goddess. No one can say how many thousands of years have passed, without erasing these objects and observations, manuscripts and illuminations. Yet we do know they are a persistent companion to Mahayana Buddhism.

If Bon enjoys no direct western comparison, then Tantra is especially bereft of explanation. The western mind entertains little bits and pieces, especially those that excite its taste for weirdness and suspicion. I can personally attest that the Mandala is a powerful expression, and the results of ritual working are very real.

It was Tantra that returned Buddhism to Tibet, the left hand path, brought by Born of a Lotus with his women Yoginis. Most accounts agree that Born of a Lotus was not Indian, rather he was from the place of the high mountains. The women initiates he travelled with were from distinct places, each one emerged from significant populations, and of them he brought two to Tibet.

Thus the return of Buddhism began with the number three, and those who study such things are quite aware that this number has great significance. In Tantra the realized feminine power is divine and is perceived as the source of all manifestation, Maya Shakti. Your hunger, praise to Her. Your bashfulness, praise to Her. Your sleep, praise to Her, perhaps with this the depth of illustration understanding comes clearer.

Tantra is derived from a Sanskrit root, the oldest complete language in the world, which means expansion. It has no simple explanation, no codification, yet Tantra is the keeper of crazy wisdom, and crazy wisdom is strongly present in Tibet.

The account of Born of a Lotus’ mission in Tibet has passed from banal history into the realm of mythology. It is written that he defeated the mountain gods in spiritual combat, and enlisted them to guard Buddhism. He appears in visions, transmitting esoteric wisdom, which itself is deeply shamanic as previously explained. He is said to appear in many forms, as gurus and teachers across the region. There is no figure in the abrahamic west with whom he compares.

The dovetail between Bon, Tantra, and Mahayana Buddhism was cemented, and this unique expression forms the Tibetan tradition, which is so rich and fascinating. However, this unit of distinct origins has not destroyed the practices or disciplines that weave this remarkable tapestry together. Bon still exists, as does shamanism. Tantra remains vital, and Buddhism retains it science of mind study.

If we wish to grasp the significance of this condition, one need only compare it to the three abrahamics, where Judaism is still obsessed with genocide, Christianity celebrates its murderous intolerance, and Islam is fixated upon world conquest. The puerile and arrogant nature of abrahamism cannot stand the presence of any other, thus any contribution from sources outside the walls of these institutions must remain hidden, because the fictional purity of their message would be challenged.

Tibetan tradition suffers from no such issues, which is not to say things began with quiet pensive virtue. Born of a Lotus stood before the great gathering with the magnetic figures of his two women initiates. He had secured the permission of the king to begin his ministry. We are not told the time of day, or the condition in the sky, only that the gathering was large and in the open.

Here it should be understood that the Asian way in those days was to live life outside with sunrise, and only retire indoors when night fell. This contrasts to modern society where everything is done indoors, and under artificial light whenever possible.

Born of a Lotus inspired more than a small share of curiosity, this strange man whose skin was covered in patterns. If he had been from pre-christian Scandinavia, he would have been described as Elf-Burned. Those who attended him as a baby pronounced the patterns that adorned him marked him as one who was the master of spirits.

It was impossible for the crowd to resist this novelty. Born of a Lotus would begin to speak, and the excited chatter would soon overwhelm the situation. Doubtless the disrespect was lead by a couple ringleaders who weren’t excessively keen on this new ministry. The impasse continued until the man with the patterned skin raised his arms over his head, and brilliant lightning arced across the gathering to strike the garrulous instigators quite dead.

In the silence that ensued the first mission had begun. Born of a Lotus had brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet.

After some time the king grew worried about the power Born of a Lotus wielded, and asked him to leave, but by that time the roots of the unique Tibetan tradition had already sprouted.

It was pointed out previously that no one can truly dispute that the lifespan of Bon has spanned some 18,000 years. Western scholars like to claim that the documents they examine are of a more recent pedigree. We have seen this before concerning Gnosticism. Modern scholarship relies on a material record, not on the age of the transmission. They look with suspicion upon those Blessed Ones who discover buried esoteric wisdom even as the Nag Hammadi library is a shining example. Scholarship has its contribution, but dating is not one of them, and we find with mathematicians, scholars, and academicians a decided prejudice, a bent on truncating history into some condensed event, playing accordion with history to discover how short one can make it, to stuff it in someone’s dust bin.

When scholars actually arrive at a dating system that includes the specifics of an ancient transmitted tradition, I will listen to their theories of condensed timelines. However, they have no idea what they are saying, and perhaps an example is in order. No scholar can date shamanism. Was it a Neanderthal phenomenon? How old is the painting of the “Sorcerer” in the French cave complex? No one definitively knows, yet material culture includes elements associated with shamanism. Under such conditions, 18,000 years can be a conservative claim.

Bon therefore is best understood as a transmission from a higher spiritual reality to this material place. We are told that Bon was brought here from another world by the Supreme Holy Man, who was himself a Buddha long before Sakyamuni was born. One can understand this better if one sees the Buddha as a repeating feature of cyclic time, rather than some unique individual who happens upon fame.

The image of entire extant otherworlds with their own systems and populations and environments is fully understood in shamanic cultures. Modern people have a real problem with this, because thousands of years of heavily incarnate abrahamic propaganda limits them. I have previously documented one of my own journeys into another world, in Loki’s Changeling, and thus I can confidently conclude that even moderners can travel between worlds, thus it is hardly an allegory that the Supreme Holy Man brought Bon to the high mountain places from another world.

How many worlds are there that hover around the invisible cosmic pillar? If we only knew, but the answer seems somewhere around infinity.

Here in the west everyone is obsessed with certainty. How many angels can fit on the head of a pin, there is only one right way yadda yadda, yammer yammer on to bluster and ego posturing. Yet Tibet loves its Bon and Tantra because Tibet is quite comfortable with uncertainty.

Uncertainty is beautiful to those who embrace it, because instead of a war over who is right, or a genocide, or an angry exchange, uncertainty points directly to the human condition. Bon and Tantra assert that one has this mysterious perception, and where it comes from and where it goes is anyone’s guess, and steering oneself in such a condition is a fool’s errand that is only based upon one’s limited opinion.

Thus, the deeply rational position of Buddhism is complemented by Bon and the Tantric condition. Buddhism in Tibet lives in a fashion that allows a rational faculty to exist without prejudice. Buddhism can embrace what Bon and Tantra both represent without being threatened by either tradition. The rational, through dispassion and careful observation, can guide to intelligent decisions even though it truly knows nothing. In this life there are quite a few best-guess choices that have to be made, and the science of mind is an aid to making them.

Rationality, however, has severe limitations. There can never be any truly rational explanation for life and death. Rationality comes up short in other areas, such as purpose and meaning. Thus the Bardo state, and the chance for liberation belong to Bon because no rational position can explain why they exist, or their significance.

The Tibetan book of the Dead isn’t, in any real sense, an actual book. Rather it is a collection of liturgical and other writings that deal with funerary practices, drawn from diverse locations and condensed into one volume. What is remarkable about this book is neither source or intent, but how the western mind relates to it.

A recurrent theme in this piece has been the difficulty in conveying to a modern western experience, the meaning and significance of the unique threads and streams that make up the Tibetan tradition. The so-called book of the dead is no exception.

Western occultists and students of the spiritual have interpreted these manuscripts in a fashion to draw conclusions concerning the living. A persistent belief has arisen that the book of the dead illustrates a condition where the world is a simulation. No one seems to ask a simple question, why does anyone think funerary rites have anything to say about the living?

In shamanic cultures such as Bon, the dead intersect with the living, a condition which is often fraught with difficulty due to the disruption and even disease that dealing with dead can bring. The land of the dead is often anathema to the living. Modern methods of thinking have little to no application in an animist world view, and using books of the dead to inform any condition other than that of the deceased is bizarre and a non sequitur.

Western thinking is not shamanic. Western thought deals with concepts and certainties, abstractions and counter intuitive postulates. Western thinking comes up with stupid statements such as. “There is no death.” Apparently, the western mind is utterly incapable of evaluating its own condition, doubtless the result of a few thousand years of demented abrahamic thinking.

Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that it is thought the Bardo state is Buddhist, when it is actually Bon.

It is, in conclusion a reality that Tibetan tradition is woven together from an ancient shamanic Bon, to a deeply rational Buddhism, with a powerful current of Tantra. This tradition has been empowered by advanced beings whose place in cyclic time was both predicted and awaited.

In any quick survey there are things that must be omitted, but it is the authors’ position that enough has been included to provide a glimpse that is both respectful, and informative.

Cover: Thousand years of Tibetan masterpieces revealed for first time