We are pleased to announce that J.F. Marc des Jardins will be contributing to BLK Celebration 2018.

Marc will deliver –

“The Tibetan Bon Tradition and the Zothyrian Bonpos”

The Tibetan Bonpo tradition is associated with the pre-Buddhist religions of Tibet and remained almost unknown to the scholarly world until the end of the 1980s when religious practices began to be tolerated again by the Chinese government. Since then, the Tibetan Bonpos have reopened their temples and began a renewal of their practices in earnest in order not to lose the traditions that still remained alive with the oldest generation of lama-priests.

A handful of specialists have chronicled and research the beliefs, history, practices, scriptures, and esoteric teachings of the Bonpo lamas and our understanding about this tradition has changed dramatically. While the world remained still in darkness on the ancient ways of Bon, a Chicago priest and hierarch began to write about his visions and insights on that timeless school of wisdom.

Michael Bertiaux began to share with his close students the results of his research and visions on this ancient lore. That moment coincided with the growing worry of Bonpo Lamas for the survival of their traditions. How did these two currents, apparently worlds apart, relate to each others?

This presentation focuses on the Tibetan Bonpo mystical world and the visions and insights of Michael Bertiaux and how the latter’s can inscribe themselves inside some of the mystical ritual and meditative practices of Bon and help deepen their significance.

J.F. Marc des Jardins Ph.D., C.M.D. is an Associate Professor at the Department of Religions and Culture at Concordia University in Montreal. He completed his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at McGill University and conducted Post-doctoral Studies at the Institute for Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is one a the few specialists on the Tibetan Bon Religion in North America and has lectured extensively at prestigious universities and research institutes in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. He has been researching Bon since 1991 and has spent several years in the Tibetan regions of Western China among Bonpo communities, their monastic institutions and retreat centres. He has also been a student of Michael Bertiaux since 1981.