Singing bowls are a beautiful and powerful mystery . . .
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. 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. 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.