Explore the history of using Tibetan singing bowls in meditation as well as research results pointing to the benefits of sound baths. Discover how the sound of singing bowls can influence your body and mind and calm your mind with popular audio singing bowl pieces.
Tibetan singing bowls, or sound baths, in which one is immersed in the sound of bowls and gongs, provide relaxation and have been shown to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression. The sounds of a Tibetan singing bowl offer respite from the everyday churning of the mind, and so does meditation and yoga. Thus it’s not surprising that these practices are frequently co-mingled. Explore the benefits of using singing bowls in meditation practice.
The History Of Making The Bowl Sing
Despite marketing claims to the contrary, the use of bowls, or standing bells as “singing” instruments, by running a mallet around the bowl’s outer rim and edges, is a decidedly Western practice.
While the standing bell dates back thousands of years to the geographical regions of China and Mongolia, it was historically used as a gong, by striking the bowl with a wooden or felted mallet. Some Tibetan Buddhist monasteries used the bowls in this way to mark time or the end of a meditation.
The method of making the bowls “sing” by gliding a mallet around the bowl’s upper rim is relatively new. While musicians have been playing the rim of crystal glasses, or the glass harp, since the 14th century, historians point to New Age music recordings from the 1970s as the point in time when the popularity of singing bowls began to sharply rise.
Today, sound bowls come in all shapes, materials, and sizes to provide a range of tones and frequencies. There are crystal bowls and metal alloy bowls, the latter of which are often marketed as Himalayan bowls, or Tibetan singing bowls. While these metal alloy bowls are sold at souvenir shops in Nepal, India, and Tibet today, this phenomenon is more in response to Western demand, than out of historical context.
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