Within the Bön tradition, karma is understood as a subtle law of cause and effect that governs the unfolding of experience across lifetimes. Intentional actions of body, speech, and mind leave imprints that shape both present circumstances and future destinies, influencing health, longevity, prosperity, obstacles, and spiritual clarity. There is a strong emphasis on the interconnectedness of human conduct with the natural and spiritual worlds, so that harmony or disharmony with local deities, spirits, and the environment carries specific karmic consequences. Negative actions toward nature spirits or violations of sacred places are therefore seen as particularly weighty. At the same time, Bön teachings affirm that karmic tendencies are not fixed: ritual practices, offerings, confession, mantra recitation, and devotion, as well as ethical conduct and generosity, are regarded as powerful means for purifying negative karma and accumulating merit.

Rebirth, in this view, is the natural continuation of a stream of consciousness that moves from life to life according to karmic patterns and mental states, especially at the time of death. Bön speaks of multiple realms of existence, including human and animal births, as well as various god, spirit, and deity realms, along with hungry-ghost and hell states. The intermediate state, or bardo, is taken seriously as a crucial passage in which guidance through ritual and instruction can help secure a more favorable rebirth or even support liberation. Proper funeral rites and practices directed to the deceased are therefore not merely ceremonial, but participate in shaping the trajectory of consciousness beyond death. In some cases, highly realized masters are held to be capable of consciously directing their rebirth, reflecting a refined mastery of karmic processes.

On the ultimate level, Bön’s higher teachings, especially those associated with Dzogchen, present a perspective in which karma and rebirth, though unfailing on the relative plane, lose their binding force when the nature of mind is directly recognized. From this vantage, the cycle of birth and death is understood as a display within a more fundamental reality that is beyond coming and going. Yet this ultimate view does not negate the importance of ethical responsibility and ritual observance; rather, it situates them within a broader path that moves from careful attention to cause and effect toward a direct realization of what is not conditioned by karma at all.