Bön is characterized by a remarkably rich and varied ritual life, touching almost every dimension of existence. There are extensive funerary rites that attend to death and the after-death journey, often involving sky burial and complex offerings intended to guide and support the consciousness of the deceased. Alongside these are life-protecting and purificatory ceremonies, including exorcistic rites that dispel harmful spirits and obstacles, as well as smoke offerings that cleanse spaces and appease unseen forces. Such practices reveal a worldview in which visible and invisible realms are in constant interaction, requiring careful ritual maintenance to preserve harmony.

Rituals of offering and propitiation occupy a central place, directed toward deities, local spirits, and protective powers. These may include water and food offerings, as well as torma—ritual cakes shaped and consecrated for presentation to gods and spirits. Deity worship in this context is not merely devotional but also transactional and protective, seeking prosperity, health, and communal well-being. Seasonal and calendar-based ceremonies, including agricultural and New Year rites, further express this concern with aligning human life to larger cycles of nature and sacred time.

Healing and divination form another important strand of Bön ritual. Healing ceremonies draw on mantras, visualization, medicinal substances, and sometimes soul-retrieval practices to restore balance when illness is seen as the result of spiritual or energetic disturbance. Divinatory techniques are employed to discern auspicious timing, diagnose subtle causes of misfortune, and seek guidance from deities or spirits, reflecting a conviction that destiny and circumstance can be read and, to some extent, ritually negotiated. These practices underscore an understanding of health and fate as deeply interwoven with the spiritual environment.

Within more esoteric strata of the tradition, there are initiation rites that authorize practitioners to engage specific deities, mantras, and contemplative methods. Deity-yoga style practices, ritual dances, and other ceremonial forms serve both as vehicles of protection and as supports for profound spiritual realization. Monastic communities maintain daily liturgies, protector offerings, and festival dances, while village and household settings preserve more localized rites for land, lineage, and livelihood. Taken together, these diverse ceremonies reveal Bön as a comprehensive ritual system, one that seeks to safeguard life, navigate death, and open a path toward spiritual awakening through a continuous dialogue with the sacred.