Meditation in the Bon tradition and in Tibetan Buddhism unfolds through strikingly parallel methods, yet each is grounded in a distinct sacred story and symbolic universe. Both traditions cultivate calm abiding and insight, employ tantric visualization of deities, and culminate in Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, as a direct approach to the nature of mind. In Bon, these contemplations are framed within its own doctrinal structures, such as the classification of Causal Bon, Resultant Bon, and Dzogchen, and within a cosmology centered on figures like Tonpa Shenrab and the four transcendent lords. Tibetan Buddhism, by contrast, organizes practice through foundational vehicles, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, rooted in the teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha and the broader Buddhist understanding of samsara, karma, and rebirth.

On the level of concrete practice, both Bon and Buddhism train attention through calm-abiding methods—such as focusing on the breath or a visual object—and then deepen this stability with insight that examines impermanence, suffering, and the unreliability of egoic views. In both, tantric meditation takes the form of deity yoga: practitioners visualize themselves as enlightened forms, recite mantras, and work with subtle channels and winds through practices like tsa lung. The outer form of these meditations is often very similar, yet the pantheons differ: Bon meditators engage with deities such as Shenlha Ökar, Satrig Ersang, and Tapihritsa, while Buddhists focus on Buddhas and bodhisattvas such as Śākyamuni, Avalokiteśvara, and Tara. The mantric and ritual languages also reflect this divergence, with Bon drawing on its own scriptural and linguistic heritage and Buddhism relying on its canonical sources.

At the highest level, both Bon and Nyingma Buddhism present Dzogchen as a direct path to recognizing the primordial, luminous nature of mind. Practices such as trekchö, resting in naked awareness, and thögel, visionary contemplations often associated with sky-gazing and subtle postures, appear in both lineages with remarkably similar experiential intent. Yet each situates this nondual realization within its own understanding of the ultimate ground: Bon speaks of a primordial base associated with Kuntu Zangpo and preserves a more explicitly indigenous cosmology, while Buddhism articulates the same luminous openness as emptiness inseparable from compassion, informed by dependent origination and no-self. In both cases, meditation is not merely a technique but a way of inhabiting a world: Bon keeps close ties to healing, protection, and harmony with spirits and the natural environment, while Buddhism orients the same contemplative technologies toward awakening as defined by the Four Noble Truths and the broader Mahāyāna vision.