From Metaphor to Metaphysics: The Triad of Metaphor, Meaning, and Sign in Bön Dzogchen Philosophy

Tür:

Kitap Bölümü

Yazar:

Giacomella Orofino

Yayın yılı:

2025

In the 83rd chapter of the bsGrags pa gling grags \[Drenpa’s Proclamation\], a twelfth-century historical narrative recounting the suppression of Bön (Tib. bon) by the Tibetan monarchy in the eighth century, a conceptual triad comprising metaphor (Tib. dpe), meaning (Tib. don), and sign (Tib. rtags) is found. This triad serves as a bridge between conceptual thought and direct experience, providing a framework for articulating the essential practice of Yungdrung (Tib. g.yung drung, lit. eternal) Bön, which is aimed at attaining enlightenment within one’s own self. This triadic model is fairly common in Bön exegetical literature on Great Perfection (Tib. rdzogs chen, hereafter Dzogchen) texts, whereas in the Buddhist tradition, it is found almost exclusively in connection with the Kun byed rgyal po \[All-Creating King\], a fundamental scripture of the Ancient or Nyingma tradition (Tib. rnying ma pa) and classified as the principal tantra of the Semde (Tib. sems sde) or Mind Series. A key feature of this triad is the evolution of light from a metaphor to a metaphysical principle, a shift that parallels the analysis of Hans Blumenberg (1920–1996), the German philosopher who identified a similar process in Western philosophy. Blumenberg highlights how light, initially a natural and self-evident phenomenon, becomes a complex metaphysical principle, central to the history of ideas, particularly in works of Neoplatonists and Christian thinkers like Augustine. In this context, meta…

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