What Is a Singing Bowl?

Practice bowl: Also known as a Buddhist sound bowl or a bowl of prayer, there are many different types of instruments in Tibetan Buddhism, one of which is called a copper urn, also called a Buddhist sound or a Buddhist sound bowl. A copper bowl and a bowl Composition of handmade mahogany handles. Owning a mantle means that he has the authentic status of Zen gate.

Singing bowl

Practice bowl: Also known as a Buddhist sound bowl or a bowl of prayer, there are many different types of instruments in Tibetan Buddhism, one of which is called a copper urn, also called a Buddhist sound or a Buddhist sound bowl. Composition of handmade mahogany handles. Owning a mantle means that he has the authentic status of Zen gate.

Chinese name

Singing bowls; Himalayan bowls; singing bowls; Himalayan bowls; singing bowls; Buddhist sound bowls; turning bowls; practice bowls

Foreign name

singing bowl

Place of origin

Tibet

1) The accompaniment uses cymbals (referred to as copper bowls in the Tang dynasty). "" is an ancient percussion instrument in China. The sitting cymbals are used by Buddhist temples, and the bronze and carcass are mostly plain. In ancient India, there were copper cymbals in the fine house courtyard of Zhai Temple. After the Tang and Song dynasties, he was used as an indispensable instrument in morning and evening recitations, chanting readings, and practices in the Zen forest.

2) Shi Cheng's letter, "Manchu pass" is an idiom originally originated from Zen. In order to continue the Buddha's wisdom, the middle finger of the Zen gate gives the disciples a positive pass to the disciples. This is the "hand pass". Chinese Zen masters and apprentices teach the Tao, and often perform rituals of granting mantles. For example, the teachings of the first ancestors of the Chinese Zen ancestors to the six ancestors were used to teach the Tao. Later, as a fixed idiom, "man-in-the-middle" refers generally to the academic and artistic inheritance between masters and apprentices, as well as metaphors in terms of ideology, learning, and skills.

Because the mantle is a token to establish the authentic status of the Zen apprentice, the mantle plays an important role in the process of spreading the Fa. Whoever has a mantle means that he has the authentic status of the Zen gate. The mantle has also become the object of competition for Zen apprentices.

With your left hand flattened, place the bowl in the center of your palm. Keep your fingers flat and do not touch the edge of the bowl. Hold the peach handle with your right hand, and then wipe the edge of the bowl with the lower end of the handle along the circumference of the bowl, clockwise or counterclockwise. Wipe slowly around the edge of the bowl, gradually and slowly, the Buddha's bowl will follow the wooden handle to rub the edge of the bowl, the slight vibration caused by the sound of pleasant resonance, the sound is louder and louder, around the beam Endless, its sound is ethereal and far-reaching. Some people think it sounds like a Buddha sound, so the bowl of the Buddha sound is named after it. This bowl is mostly used by people to participate in meditation, making the mind quiet and far away, empty and enlightened. , Its magical effect varies from person to person, with different opinions.

After the "buzz" sound gradually sounded, as the number of rotations increased, the "buzz" sound due to resonance became louder. At this time, in the operation, you should try to adjust the mood as much as possible, don't be anxious and impatient, it is better to use pure and clear "hum" to avoid collision and glide.
When the operation is nearing completion, the speed of turning the bowl slowly slows down, and the sound will gradually fade away. It is better to light up and down during operation.
The Buddhist sound bowl is made of special ring copper and is popular in Tibetan Buddhism. Arabic characters are engraved around the bowl of the Buddha's sound bowl, and the pattern at the bottom of the bowl is auspicious, meaning more than every year.

Equipped with a patterned mahogany stick, which can be rotated around the side of the bowl, it can emit a natural sound like "hum-hum-", the size of the sound can be freely controlled according to your own feel, the more durable the turn, the Buddha The louder and louder the sound, it is very wonderful! Tibetan Buddhist believers believe that the sound is the sound of a Buddha, turning it once a day can keep the family safe.

If half a bowl of water is contained in the Buddha's bowl, the sound will be louder, and the water in the bowl will begin to boil, forming a fine water splash, jumping up like a ballet, very splendid and beautiful, but it will not affect the sound quality of the Buddha's bowl. . In a space of several hundred square meters, even if there are thousands of people, everyone can hear its music.

The sound of the Buddha's bowl is ethereal and far-reaching, making people's hearts quiet and distant, and being ethereal and enlightened. It is considered to be like the sound of a Buddha, which is used for meditation in Buddha. When you listen or hold on, you can help users return to their natural state of freshness and calmness. In the process of purifying the state of mind and external environmental space, assist the listener to activate the ability of self-awareness and self-observation, and make it easier for the state of mind to enter the emptiness of practice.

When the Buddha sound bowl is held, moving the Buddha sound stick along the circumference of the bowl can increase the vibration of the sound wave, let the Buddha sound that enters the state of mind, lead our body and soul to feel the resonance and resonance of the unity of heaven and earth. Treating the feelings of everyone around us as if they were our own, conveying our life-long agreement with the Buddha. All things are born to support others, and I do my best to repay the heavens; awaken the Buddha nature in our hearts and let us be with the Buddha at all times.

Nowadays, the Buddhist sound bowl is no longer the exclusive object for practitioners, and many people also ask one to be placed at home because of their love. When nothing happens, sit cross-legged, put it on the palm, and ring with a mallet. Listening in the buzz, sometimes transcending freedom, sometimes confused and desolate, sometimes just a hammer of a craftsman, sometimes it is the sound of heavenly Brahma. While listening, it's time to talk to your inner self, you know her, joy and trouble, venting and taming. It's a kind of awareness, a kind of observation. No need to be deliberate.

Tibet's magical copper bowl has been passed down since the 5th century AD and is a vessel of religious significance. It is made of bronze alloy and contains copper, tin, zinc, iron, gold, silver and nickel. When people use a mallet (sometimes with animal skin on the outer bread) to rub or hit the edge of the bowl, it will make a variety of musical sounds throughout the bowl. Pattern. Now, scientists have unveiled the physics of this religious device, and related research has been published in Nonlinearity.

The "singing copper bowl" is the result of the interaction between liquid and solid materials. This phenomenon is often applied to architecture, such as wind-loading of bridges or buildings. When people rub a bowl filled with water, the bowl is stressed to cause a very slight deformation, which will affect the interface between the water and the copper bowl, creating ripples. When the friction is strong enough, the ripples will separate into small droplets.

Researchers at the University of Liège (Belgium) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) observed the formation, excitation, acceleration, and jump of trickle through high-speed photography. A similar phenomenon occurs when rubbing a tall glass. This phenomenon inspired Franklin to invent the glass harmonica. Of course, the Tibetan copper bowl is easier to make music than the glass, because its resonance frequency is much smaller than that of the glass.

To excite ripples and water droplets, the researchers put a loudspeaker next to the bowl to make a certain frequency of sound. When the emitted frequency matches the resonance frequency of the bowl, the bowl will naturally vibrate and make music, and the water in the bowl will appear ripples. The high-speed camera takes a panoramic view of it all, and researchers can use the images it saves for measurement research.

J. Bush, one of the researchers, said: "The motivation of our work is mainly curiosity and interest, not the pursuit of practicality. Of course, we provide examples of the interaction between liquids and solids, which also has certain practical significance.

"We are very satisfied with the physical principles contained in the magical Tibetan copper bowl. But I think if we try to change the nature of the liquid in the bowl, there may be more new discoveries," he said.

Photography of singing bowls singing water