What is a Singing Bowl?

Singing bowls are a beautiful and powerful mystery . . .
They produce the sound of AUM
The sound of energy becoming matter
They alter space, mind and time
The sound and music of the bowls awakens cellular memory
and heals the energy body

One singing bowl is a treasure
A set of bowls that sing together is a miracle
What exactly are they?

The singing bowls originated in the pre-Buddhist, shamanic Bon Po culture of the Himalayas- often called "Tibetan" singing bowls, they are actually made in Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Tibet. The bowl culture seems to date back to a Bronze Age in China some 3000 years ago and at its peak
extended geographically as far as Burma and Indochina.

Some sources state that the bowls are made from the seven sacred metals, corresonding to the known seven planets: gold (Sun), silver (moon), mercury (Mercury), copper (Venus), iron (Mars), tin (Jupiter), lead (Saturn) Legend goes on to say that the iron was from meteorites found on Himalayan mountaintops, metal from the heavens.

Unlike some of the other Tibetan sound producing devices whose use is well documented in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, there is absolutely nothing written about the singing bowls, even though they have been found in both monasteries and private homes. The Tibetans, when questioned about the use of the bowls, are vague, saying that the bowls are simply vessels for food (although it's hard to imagine that a handmade object that can vibrate five individual and simultaneous tones, each at its own consistent frequency, and can sustain a vibration for literally minutes, was intended as a container for grain). Some accounts say that it is forbidden even within lthe monasteries to talk about the bowls, and that the highest lamas used them in secret rituals to travel to other dimensions and other worlds. The legends say that the secrets of sound yield so much power that they must be kept hidden.

We do know that the act of listening to the sound of a singing bowl stops one's internal dialog, making the bowls an excellent tool for meditation, centering, and trance induction. They are used by healers to tone and balance the energy body. The sound and feeling of a large singing bowl vibrating on one's chest is powerful and indescribable - the sound is transmitted via the skeletal system through the entire body. An extended toning session induces relaxation on the cellular level. Because of these properties, singing bowls are being incorporated into a variety of healing modalities.

And the bowls can be used to make music, a music of a different ethic than our Western ears are used to. The bowls' multitonal properties and otherworldly sound challenge our very conceptions of tonality.

There are two ways to play a singing bowl: you can strike it with a padded mallet for percussive, pulsating tones, or you can rub around the edge with a wooden dowel for a sustained, choirlike effect (in the same way you would rub a finger around the edge of a wine glass).