Within the Bon tradition, ritual life is understood as a way of maintaining harmony among humans, deities, spirits, and the natural environment. A broad spectrum of rites addresses prosperity, protection, purification, and spiritual progress. Purification and exorcism rituals remove negative influences and spiritual obstacles, often through smoke, water, or fire offerings and the recitation of mantras. Healing and life‑enhancing ceremonies strengthen life‑force and well‑being by invoking deities, using blessed substances, and performing specific liturgies. Such practices are not merely remedial; they are also seen as renewing the subtle bonds that link a person to the wider cosmos.

Another important domain is the relationship with deities, protectors, and local spirits. Elaborate ceremonies propitiate major protective deities and warrior gods, seeking protection, removal of obstacles, and the stabilization of communities and landscapes. Offerings—whether in the form of torma cakes, smoke, or fire rituals—are directed to mountain gods, territorial spirits, and wandering beings, expressing both reverence and a desire for peaceful coexistence. Divination, using methods such as dice or other traditional techniques, often precedes or accompanies these rites, helping determine auspicious times and diagnose underlying spiritual causes of difficulties. In this way, ritual and divination together form a kind of spiritual diagnostics and response.

Rites surrounding death and transition occupy a particularly significant place. Funerary and after‑death ceremonies are designed to guide consciousness through the intermediate state, with specific liturgies recited at key intervals after death. These may be integrated with practices such as sky burial, where the body is offered in a ritualized manner, framed by Bon scriptures and prayers. Such ceremonies are understood as benefiting both the deceased and the living, who accumulate merit and restore balance through offerings and communal participation. Life‑cycle events and seasonal observances, including New Year celebrations and annual worship of mountain deities, further weave individual lives into the larger ritual calendar.

Monastic and daily practices provide the steady rhythm that undergirds these more dramatic rites. In monasteries, regular chanting, protector prayers, and empowerment ceremonies sustain the continuity of lineages and authorize advanced tantric and contemplative practices. Lay practitioners participate through circumambulation of sacred sites, offerings at family shrines, and attendance at communal rituals. Across these varied forms, Bon ritual can be seen as a comprehensive system for negotiating visible and invisible forces, cultivating protection and healing, and supporting the path toward liberation.