The Founder of the Bön
(from triten.org)

Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwo is the founder of the Bön religion. The traditional accounts tell of one thousand and eight Buddhas that will appear on earth in this time cycle. Of these Tönpa Shenrab was the eighth. The hagiography of Tönpa Shenrab is preserved in three versions, short, medium and extensive - Dodu, Zermig, and Zidji.

 

The teachings of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab are called the “Nine Ways of Bön”. They are divided into two main sections, the Bön of Causality and the Bon of Fruition. These two spheres encapsulate the full range of secular and spiritual knowledge, the living expression of Tibetan culture.

 

The Bön of Causality contains the instruments for attaining temporal happiness. These teachings are divided into four branches: methods of healthcare, ways to maintain harmony between species, mechanisms which protect the community, and rites for the welfare of the deceased.

 

The Bön of Fruition contains the instruments for the obtainment of Buddhahood. This sphere of tradition has five branches or vehicles: religious observances for lay people, religious observances for monks, tantra, higher wisdom tantric teachings, and supreme realizations, Dzog-chen.

Today
(from wikipedia)

Lozang Gyatso, the fifth Dalai Lama, was the first to declare Bön to be a fifth school of spirituality in Tibet. However, the Bönpo remained stigmatised and marganilised until 1977, when they sent representatives to Dharamsala and Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who advised the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies, to accept Bön members.

Since then, Bön has had official recognition of its status as a religious group, with the same rights as the Buddhist schools. This was re-stated in 1987 by the Dalai Lama, who also forbade discrimination against the Bönpo, stating that it was both undemocratic and self-defeating. He even donned Bön ritual paraphernalia, emphasizing "the religious equality of the Bön faith."