Within the Bon tradition, the lama stands as the central religious authority, at once spiritual teacher, ritual expert, and guardian of lineage. The lama transmits the teachings through empowerments, scriptural explanations, and oral instructions, guiding practitioners through the paths of study, contemplation, and practice. As ritual specialist, the lama conducts ceremonies for protection, healing, divination, funerary rites, and the appeasement of deities and spirits, thereby mediating between human beings, the natural world, and the sacred. This role naturally extends into that of community leader and counselor, offering guidance on ethical conduct, life‑cycle events, and the ordering of communal religious life. In this way, the Bonpo lama embodies both the contemplative and the pragmatic dimensions of the tradition, preserving doctrine while responding to the concrete needs of the community.

The monastic hierarchy provides the institutional framework that sustains this religious life and ensures continuity of the Bon lineage. At its head stand abbots and senior teachers, responsible for the overall direction of monasteries, the maintenance of discipline, and the organization of education and ritual. Within this structure, teaching lamas and scholars oversee rigorous training in philosophy, ritual performance, logic, grammar, and meditation, forming future generations of practitioners and lineage holders. Ritual officers, chant masters, and other functionaries coordinate daily liturgies and major ceremonies, so that the full cycle of Bon ritual and contemplative practice is maintained without interruption. Through this layered hierarchy, Bon monasteries function as centers of learning, practice, and communal identity, safeguarding scriptures, rituals, and transmissions in a cultural landscape deeply shaped by Buddhism, yet preserving a distinct Bonpo vision of the sacred.