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feature article
“The Sounds Around You”
ask Sharon
An opportunity for you to get advice, share advice, or read through our community’s questions.
Sharon’s community
Meditating with Singing Bowls
Do you find it difficult to meditate? Meditation is often defined as quieting or calming the mind. There are many, many ways to do this. And that is good news.
An effective way of calming the mind is to create a very strong focus on one thing. Singing bowls are a successful tool for creating this focus. Their sound has such a powerful presence that it is difficult not to focus the mind, especially when you are playing one. It is a wonderful way to create a meditative state with minimum effort. And that is even better news.
Sound moves through your body faster than it moves through the air. The sound of the singing bowls affects you physically in three main ways. The first is the effect of the sound on your brain waves. It stimulates more brain waves in the alpha frequency range (around 8 to 13 Hertz), calming the mind. The second is the effect of the physical motion of playing the bowl. This simple and repetitive motion commands your attention as does the sound created by the bowl. This in turn creates the third effect. Your breathing and heartbeat slow down, putting you into a relaxed state.
I have assisted many people in learning how to play the Tibetan and crystal singing bowls and have found a few simple things to make your first experience playing the bowls successful. A singing bowl is played either by striking the outside of the bowl or by rubbing the stick or mallet around the outside rim. Some people find that there is a subtle difference in the feeling and effect created within them by choosing either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction for the rubbing movement. If you have a singing bowl, I invite you to play with this. Below are a few helpful hints.
Tibetan (or metal) singing bowl:
- If the bowl is small enough to fit in your hand to play, make sure you hold the bowl in a way that does as little as possible to muffle the sound. Wrapping your fingers around the bowl will muffle its sound more. Two ways that work well are demonstrated in the pictures below.
- I have found that the sound appears more easily if you hold the stick straight up and down. You can vary the pressure of the stick against the bowl to vary the volume of the sound. You can also give the bowl a gentle tap to get the sound started. Please see the picture below.
- As the bowl begins to sound and vibrate more, you may notice the stick rattles against the edge of the bowl. The rattle can be minimized by slowing down the movement of the stick around the bowl and by adding more pressure on the stick against the bowl.
Crystal singing bowl:
- Crystal bowls are more fragile that Tibetan bowls. They are played usually with a rubber mallet covered with suede. Please see the picture below. You can use the mallet to chime (i.e. gently strike the side) of the bowl or to rub it around the outside rim as for the Tibetan bowl.
- Please be aware that crystal singing bowls can get very loud. Loud enough to cause discomfort or damage to your hearing. You can control the volume of your bowl by varying the speed of moving the mallet around the bowl and by varying the pressure of the mallet against the outside of the bowl.
As you are playing your bowl, turn your awareness to the effect of the sound on your body, emotions and mental state. As I watch a person play a bowl for several minutes, the physical change in their body is quite dramatic. Their shoulders relax and their breathing slows down. The whole body becomes more relaxed as the mind becomes more focused. Often, the person becomes so engrossed in the sound that they become oblivious to their surroundings. Some of my workshops and presentations end with a crystal singing bowl sound bath during which bowls are placed around the outside of a group and volunteers are asked to play them. Consistently, many of the players become so engrossed in the experience that a gentle touch on the shoulder is needed to let them know it is time to stop the sound. That is powerful focus.
If you do not have a singing bowl and would like to experience their sounds, I have attached a link to two sound files below. The link will take you to the files on my website. Each one lasts for about 5 minutes. The first link is the Tibetan singing bowl pictured above. This bowl is around 300 years old and vibrates many frequencies simultaneously. The second link is a singing crystal bowl pitched at F#. It is also pictured above. To me, the pitch F# is associated with the thymus gland and the heart's intimate connection to spiritual essence or God. This bowl is also an alchemical bowl. There is platinum bonded to the outside of the bowl and gold bonded to the inside of the bowl. The sound of this bowl to me, and the combination of the platinum (which resonates a feminine energy) and the gold (which resonates a masculine energy) creates a balance of feminine and masculine in the heart.
Hear the Tibetan Bowl
Hear the Platinum/Gold Crystal Bowl
Sharon Carne
January 2008
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