[qikolax]

and also was a skilled Bö practitioner

Hi Kaarine,

No Padmasambhava wasn't a Bon practitioner. Bon was the shamanistic religion in Tibet before Buddhism was introduced. Padmasambhava was an Indian 'tantric Buddhist master' who went to Tibet in the 9th century.(some Buddhist texts had previously been taken there around 7th century I think) There are stories of Padmasambhava and his students having debating and supernormal power contests with the Bonpos, in which the Bonpos were defeated.
I think at some stage elements of Buddhism were eventually incorporated into Bon, which is still practiced.
I don't know too much about it. I've got a book of very old photos of Tibet taken before the communist take-over..... and one is of a Bon temple with dead human heads with matted hair and gaping mouths hanging from the ceiling. Not a very nice photo !

Regarding beliefs in Tibet about local spirits and deities, this comment and the short article in which it features by 17th Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorje is worth looking at :

" I am my own refuge, I am my own protector. Nobody can actually give me protection. I must help myself by clearly understanding what I have to take up and what I have to get rid of. I have to find this out myself and then do it, and that the true practice of Dharma. It is through the practice of Dharma that I create the causes and conditions for my own happiness and for achieving wisdom, compassion, and the ability to help others."

http://www.kagyu.org/ktd/densal/arch.../hhexcerpt.php