Why do we pay homage to Kuntuzangpo? This is done because as we are human beings we would always like to know the origin of everything. Here we may ask how the tradition and teachings of Bön and the lineage of Dzogpachenpo Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyü started. As a teaching itself there is no beginning because there is no time. Now, the question arises who was the first person who discovered or composed this transmission and to whom did he communicate them. Traditionally the Bönpo teachings come from the primordial master or primordial state who is the expression of the Dharmakaya or the dimension of Bon (Bonku), the essence body or the pure dimension of absolute truth, that is Kunzhi, the base of Dzogchen. The personification for that dimension is called Kuntuzangpo in Tibetan and Samantabhadra in Sanskrit. He transmitted the whole teachings to the Sambogakaya manifestation (Dzogku) Shenlha Ödkar, who in turn gave the complete transmission to the Nirmanakaya Buddha Shenrab Miwo the historical founder of the lineage of Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyü and also the first of the nine master of the transmission by mind. Mental transmission is directly form mind to mind and in the same way the first discovery is in the mind. It is not a person it is the primordial state itself, the first master is the primordial state and his disciple is the movement; the time when it was taught is the timeless space. That means that there is no time  in that space and that there is not even the concept of a disciple taught by a master. When we say disciple - now and today - we think of a disciple as a person, as a human being. But in that case it`s not a disciple as a person or any concept. It is only the awareness taught by the primordial state beyond time.

The awareness is itself teaching the awareness to develop it. We can say the master becomes as the awareness and the disciple becomes as a concept in an other dimension instead of saying the primordial state is teaching the awareness.

The disciple is the concept, because if there is a concept there is a non-understanding and the master is the awareness, trying to teach this non-understanding concept. Therefore master and disciple are in the same dimension of the mind but not as a dimension of concrete persons. This is the origin of the teaching, transmitted mind to mind directly. In that dimension there was no word to explain it. In the great unconditioned realm beyond space, which is primordially pure, beyond samsara and nirvana and spontaneously perfected with all the potential qualities, where there is no cause, no external dimension or universe and no internal dimension of beings contained in this universe, no form, no color, lies the 'paradise of space', the citadel where the primordial master, self-arising-awareness, the Bönku Buddha Kuntuzangpo, gave the teachings to the Perfection Body Buddha Shenlha Ödkar by direct mind transmission. He, in his turn, transmitted the teachings to his 'mind' disciple the Manifestation Body Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche, who in his turn transmitted the teachings in the world dimension of Zhang Zhung by mind transmission without words. Thus, these teachings were gradually handed down in this way by the lineage of nine masters of the mind transmission from Zhang Zhung.

In the tradition of Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyü it describes how in the beginning the knowledge or wisdom is actually found in each individual. If there exists this knowledge in an individual, then there is also an understanding. Therefore the question is not only where this understanding arises but when it does, and especially from the point of view of Dzogpachenpo we say that if there is a recognition of Rigpa, the innate awareness, where does this awareness first arise from?

It arises spontaneously from Kuntuzangpo, in its pure dimension of the non-conceptual mind; and not only this understanding or innate awareness or Rigpa, but anything arises in Kuntuzangpo, from this non-conceptual pure dimension because in that space exist no concept at all. Therefore it also communicates there with a similar kind of consciousness. In anyway communication can only happen when you have a similar kind of mind. Otherwise, if mind were different - like a different computer program - it does not communicate; it is not compatible, so to say. In a similar way if the primordial knowledge or yeshe, and the innate awareness arises and communicates in Kuntuzangpo, this awakened state communicates only with a similar kind of mind and not with any intellectual mind. In the same manner Tönpa Shenrab Miwo communicated only to a 'person' who had such a frame of mind and not to any intellectual person. He taught only to a student who has this non-conceptual base, who has the opportunity, or the ripeness in order to understand well what he communicates. That kind of direct transmission or communication went through the first nine Dzogchen masters of Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyü and it is therefore called mental transmission.