Dolpo Bon Society and it objective

Activities of DBS:

Initiating and management of Bon spiritual ceremonies at regular intervals:-Bon Geshes (doctorate degree in philosophy) from different regions are invited to perform religious rituals, hold prayers for the benefit of the society as a whole and discuss for future developments of the area. The Society also organizes oral instruction and initiations for the general masses for the welfare of both this and next life.

Building Schools where all subjects are taught. Most of the villages of Dolpo have primary schools which are run by the government. In those schools, Native language (Tibetan) and English are not taught due to which the students can not go out to pursue further studies and majority of them remain uneducated and thus most of them are spoiled. In the view of the above problems, DBS is planning to build a school where all subjects are taught including English, Tibetan, poetry, astronomy and astrology, drawings, herbal and other medicines.

Renovating of old Bon Monasteries. Most of the monasteries in Dolpo are very old and in critical condition. Some sort of restoration is badly needed. Since most of the people are poor and destitute, the monastery could not undertake the necessary renovations for it is dependent on the alms of the people for its survival. Therefore, the Society has committed to take up the responsibility.

creation and running of spiritual learning institute (Monastery): that facilitates centralised learning and mass gathering center for numerous religious ceremonial purposes.

Attracting educated people of Dolpo to serve the society. Since there is no proper educational institution and facilities, Geshes and other educated people of Dolpo who are educated outside of Dolpo are not coming forward to serve their own society and some of them remain unemployed besides acquiring high qualifications.

To overcome this, we will create conducive atmosphere to attract the educated ones to Dolpo so that they can work towards both spiritual and secular development of society in terms of proper administration of various organization with the help of their skills and advices. At the same time many of educated ones can be absorbed in their own society and find gainful employment.

Organaizational structure of DBS:

The society is a unitary centralized system consisting of a representative Bonpo lama from each of the Dolpo region and a set of permanent executive bodies consisting of the president, vice president, executive secretary, additional secretary and a treasurer.
At present, the various executive body posts are held by the following eminences:

Geshe Nyima Kunchap - President
Geshe Nyima Woeser - Vice President
Santaram Hirachen - Executive Secretary
Angad Hamal - Additional Secretay
Teg Bahadur Jankri - Treasurer

Background information:

Dolpo District is situated in far-flung area of northern Nepal. There are around ten big Bon (a religion predating Buddhism) monasteries and many small subsidiary monasteries in the region. Most of the big monasteries are tantric monasteries headed by the respective lineage holder.

Traditionally there is no formal and fixed system of education in the monasteries however, general pattern is that the students acquire basic knowledge of Tibetan from their homes before joining the monastery. once acquired, according to their choice, they take tantric vows & ordination (called 'Kang-gya-dham' meaning to 'tie one's leg' in the native language) from high lama on an auspicious day. After which the novice tantric agrees not to go out of the monastery's premises for three years. During that time, they are also taught of Bon's ritual performances, religious chanting, playing various religious instruments and making sacramental cakes and decorating it etc. Moreover they have to accumulate mantras and perform meditation of various deities. Then only they are recognized as real tantric. As the tantric feels that the conditions permit, he initiates in performing preliminary practices which entails accumulating nine different chants of one millions each and practicing natural state of mind etc. culturally and religiously, this system is deemed noble and laudable. But unfortunately, these noble religious customs are not only declining but are fading away in most of the monasteries.

This declining and fading trend is accountable for the dwindling number of recruits due to poor and non existent modern facilities for one. the other reason being the scattered nature of monasteries and lack of roads to connect them, which takes about two to five hours horse ride between them. that hinders the monasteries to cooperate and communicate on timely and effective manner in assisting each other in times of need.

At a couple of conferences of many lamas and Geshes (doctorate degree in Bon philosophy) of different monasteries of Dolpo, a strong need is felt and unanimously decided to have some kind of Society and centralised learning center cum monastery that caters in overcoming the stated problems. Hence Dolpo Bon Society was finally formed.