Tuning in to which Tibetan singing bowl to buy involves some self-discovery, a bit of education, and a journey into the wide range of choices available.

The best way to choose an antique singing bowl, really, is to fall in love with the sound. That feeling is a measure of your affinity with the vibrations coming out of the instrument. There are many different sounds available in the high quality singing bowls for sale on this website and you may find you have a preference for tones in a specific range. That is the self-discovery part, feeling the resonance between you and a bowl’s soundscape.

There is more than a bit of education available on this website. You may find it helpful to start on the Tibetan singing bowls page where the singing bowl essentials are discussed. The singing bowl types page provides an overview of all the different styles, sizes and shapes along with the range of tones for each. In that most essential area, sound, Best Singing Bowls has you covered. All the singing bowls for sale here have been selected for the quality of their sound and internal harmony. Singing bowls range over five octaves so you have quite a bit of choice high to low.

Along with the sound you are going to get a unique beautiful looking object. Do you want a small or large singing bowl, one with an ancient patina or a bright cleaned surface? Some antique singing bowls have inscriptions or extensive markings. Virtually all the bowls have some amount of incuse (carved in) workmanship. Bowls can be well-worn or crisp.

Selecting Your Singing Bowl

If you dive right into our selection of singing bowls for sale please take advantage of all the filtering and sorting tools we have. They are designed to allow you to narrow or widen your focus. Especially helpful is narrowing your choices down by choosing a singing bowl Octave (how deep or high is the main tone) type, size, and price. There are many more filters as well if you have a specialized interest. Once you filter at the top of the page is the sort box. You can display bowls by tone, size, and price among other choices. The default display is a bit of a random walk.

Don’t get fooled by all the pictures being about the same size – a big Jambati singing bowl can be 10X the size and weight of a tiny Manipuri.  Our high quality sound clips are very good at conveying the full range of sounds in each singing bowl. We do no sound processing or digital enhancement, just straight up recordings. You can be confident the Tibetan singing bowl you receive will sound exactly the way you hear it on the clip.

Each bowl has a Details page with more information, photos, and a second sound clip. That second clip is with a ringing stick, teasing out individual tones. I have been surprised how some of my customers have been able to use the sound clips to discern that a bowl has a special resonance with another already in their sets.

Use our Features to Keep Track of Your Choices

It is really important to keep track of the numbers of the bowls you like. The easiest way to do this is to hit the COMPARE button.  This way your choices are recorded. With compare you can play bowls side by side. More importantly you can email yourself the compare list which will have a link in it so you can go back to your choices at a later time.

Let Us Choose For You

Maybe you don’t want to do the deep dive into dozens of singing bowls. When you order our specials we take care of the selection. You can guide us a bit by sending a note with the order.

Maybe you’ve looked and aren’t sure or haven’t found exactly the right bowl. Please contact us! We have great success matching bowls and people. Check out some of the comments on how to pick and choose Tibetan singing bowls from our customers

Use Suggestions

Playing Tips

Care Instructions

Making a Singing Bowl

A singing bowl is one of the few possessions you will acquire that has the potential to last a lifetime working just as well as the first day you got it.

What is a Singing Bowl Used For?

• • • To make you feel better
    • As an aid in meditation, yoga or a spiritual practice
    • As an aid in teaching
    • For healing practices
    • As a ceremonial object, an altar piece
    • For music and performances, even in orchestras
    • To soothe upset children and babies
    • Getting a classroom full of kids to come to order
    • As a conversation piece that speaks for itself
    • To remind you of something you might have forgotten

You want to start with a singing bowl that delights you, one who’s sound has a place of sweet resonance in your mind. This isn’t hard, certainly not on this website. Perfection is not required in this regard, there is not one single sound for starting on this journey. Once you have that bowl, it is good to put it somewhere where it is easy to see. The idea is to ring it frequently so you hear the sound again and again so the visual cue is helpful. Over time the unique soundscape will find a place in your memory. Your brain is organized for sensitivity to unique repeating stimuli. Not only that but your brain is also organized to experience pleasure within a context of safe familiarity. You can use this groove in your mind as a fast way to access the good feeling that your singing bowl is associated with. Put simply, familiarity breeds contentment.

Your perception of a unique individual sound can change based on your mental state, mood or even energy level. You may not have the same response all the time. If you are fortunate enough to have a few singing bowls you can use the different tones to feel areas of your emotional landscape. A useful daily practice is to see whether you can perceive differences and correlate them to what is going on inside of you.

The basis for many of the uses of a unique soundscape is that hearing it will change the listener. Think of the example of a classroom full of children. I’ve made quite a few sales to teachers and even schools over the years and the feedback I get is that the children respond. They hear the sound and it changes focus and behavior.  A letter I received a few years ago from a teacher, Ingrid, in the comments section goes into this in exquisite detail.  The sound can be a reminder to come back to an emotional state, hopefully a pleasant and balanced one.

Can a sound change physical structure? Is it really true that healing can take place by being exposed to sound, by listening? Certainly there is anecdotal evidence, people say yes sound has helped tremendously. I see two paths by which this might happen. The first is physical.  Sound is energy transmitted through the air. Some of that energy is absorbed by your body and the absorbed energy can have a tangible benefit.  This is the basis of the use of ultrasound in physical therapy where it is used to reduce inflammation and reduce pain, so the concept has a medical basis. The second mechanism has to do with the mind. Medical research, sometimes derisively, calls this the placebo effect.  Bug or feature the ability of the mind to change the body is very well documented.

How To Use Singing Bowls

Often the more I play a singing bowl the more it will grow on me, I begin to resonate with the sound. Some of the singing bowls that I have been ringing regularly over the past quarter century are absolutely inside me. The memory of the sound is so strong I can hear them even if I am not actually playing them. When you think about a favorite song, that capacity can come into play. It is easy and natural.  You’ll buy singing bowls based on the attractiveness of the sound and maybe their looks but I’ll bet you enjoyment will expand as you play them over time and come into deeper resonance with them.

As you can tell from the above I advocate keeping your singing bowls out and ringing them regularly. You don’t need a “reason” to ring a singing bowl. One theory about the singing bowls in ancient times is they were used for entertainment. In this day and age entertainment is good and multiple benefits better. I believe the sounds from these objects are truly profound and beneath the surface of enjoyment they can confer many important benefits.Once you have your Tibetan singing bowl a whole world of possibilities open.

How to Play a Meditation Bowl

If your goal is to have the sound lead you into a quiet state of consciousness generally the best way to play the bowl is to tap it with a mallet. Concentrating on the bowl, especially the pulses of sound as they become quieter and quieter, is an excellent way to bring the mind into focus. The point where you no longer perceive the sound is your point of release from the external. My suggestion is a soft playing surface and a mallet that fits the bowl. We have a series of precision mallets designed to accentuate different parts of a singing bowl’s soundscape as well as inexpensive all-purpose mallets.  Whichever way you go,  a mallet  makes a fine choice for playing your meditation bowl.

Rim play provides wonderful and often concentrated sound, however the activity of going around the rim, paying attention to the position of the bowl in your hand and ultimately putting the bowl down can split your attention.

Buying Tips

Playing Tips

Care Instructions

Making a Singing Bowl

Displayed on end-cap in Santa Cruz, CA, in the original  Staff of Life Natural Food Store. Besides these select few, which happened one holiday season at the express request of the store buyer, every now and again through the years a singing bowl has gone to its new home/owner in one of these special hand-made drawstring pouches; the fabric and lining carefully selected for the person, fitted to the request or occasion.

This one’s velour with floral cotton lining

Another Manipuri and ringing stick goes home in a bag

Every one will be adopted

Corrina takes a very special big Lingham bowl out and sits with it on the river levee at dawn –  just her, her bicycle and the singing bowl.  Two black crows are flying overhead and they come down and land on the bike path not more than ten feet away.  She keeps ringing the singing bowl and they stomp around a bit, cocking their heads but not making a sound.  Sort of unusual behavior for crows.  And then they are off. Corrina said these were the same two crows that visited James in the Rainbow Garden 10 miles away. He had been ringing this same bowl just days before.

I‘m in the internet shop in a side alley, one of the good ones with instant backup power for when the electricity goes down. All of a sudden lots of noise and yelling on the main street.  Then some loud bangs and people run past the door.  The shop guys jump up, go outside and pull down one of the two metal doors over the windows.  Moving fast they pull in their sign, potted plants and even their floor mats.  Then down comes the other door and we’re locked in, a half a dozen Westerners and 20 glowing LCD screens behind industrial strength steel roll up doors like you’d see on a loading dock.  You can hear the chanting, loud voices and honking horns muffled thru the steel.  Hey I’m glad I’m in here not out there. Some patrons didn’t look up from their Skype video calls; I guess they’ve seen it all before.  It’s actually quite cozy so I go back to my Google spreadsheet.

I stayed on my spreadsheet till they closed the shop.  Brand new law is 10:30 PM closing for all stores and bars in Kathmandu. There went the all night partying…

Fortunately I knew a back way through an alley and skipped the worst street.  When I emerged I saw a contingent of soldiers, all in their uniforms but no guns showing.  Still the street was unsettled, people seemed upset and there was a lot of trash.  I thought the rickshaws looked a bit exposed so I waited till I saw some Westerners walking my way and fell in.  They split at the next corner so I tried a cab but he didn’t understand me, or maybe he couldn’t hear me over the din. I wasn’t sure about that mode of transport anyway considering the gridlock plus the hotel was less than half a mile.  I stood there till I saw two guys with backpacks like mine going my way.  So we became three but they didn’t know it, I just trailed behind them figuring safety in numbers.  They got me to my corner which is on a street with a gate and a guard. Once through the gate I could feel the tension lift.

I’m sure when I go down the same streets in the morning you wouldn’t know anything had happened the night before.

We arrive at the yoga studio in the late afternoon darkness.  It is so quiet and orderly in there, the floor gleams – a tabula rasa for my layout.  I need 100 square feet for the singing bowls. First I lay down yoga mats two deep, soft but not too squishy.  On top of the mats go heavy woolen blankets and on top of that various devices to put the singing bowls at different heights.  Out come the singing bowls and cover cloths.  I sort them into groups and sequences.  I’m laying them out musically but also with an eye to instruction.  I want to talk about the different types, how they might have been used and demonstrate different qualities.

An hour goes by and a pleasing arrangement emerges with the singing bowls laid in lines, curves, and little groups.  There are places to walk among the singing bowls both for me during the concert and for people when they get their chances to wander among them later.  We’ve put the trimmed and edged antique carpet squares under all the smaller singing bowls.  The garnish is the dozen colorful mallets and ringing sticks matched for the type of sound I want to bring out from groups of singing bowls.

People start to come in.  They get to admire, even touch the singing bowls but not ring them.   Afterwards they get to fully play.  Finally I greet the crowd and ring a large resonant singing bowl once to bring people to attention and end the last strains of conversation. I begin my talk as usual with no notes, just a mind full of ideas and nowhere near enough time to express them all.  It is nice to have a hundred square foot stage to meander in.  The room’s acoustics are just great, I need to project, not shout.  I introduce myself, tell stories and do show and tell.  After about half an hour I ring the big singing bowl again very gently.  Then I start my concert.

I have a friend very near the end of his days – so near he’s past the doctors and into hospice care.  This friend has a lifetime of involvement with Tibetan Buddhism and is spending his remaining time focused on his practice, sort of shining up his mind to best be able to engage with the great transition.  He’s also, of course, dealing with the pain, weakness and loss of functioning that comes as the body goes through the final shut down.

I’ve visited with him in the meditation hut behind his house in the mountains a couple of times.  Sometimes I bring singing bowls.  Our time can be short, based on his stamina.  One time I brought a Lingham bowl and, though he heard it just once, he felt like it brought a clarification of a teaching to him.  Another  singing bowl, a very special large Jambati, really appealed to him so I left it, a loaner.

When I came back the next week there he was sitting up with the singing bowl right next to him.  He said he’d been ringing it all week and then he told this story.  One sunny afternoon he had the doors to his hut open (these are Dutch double doors) and he was sitting on his couch ringing the singing bowl and meditating.  These two sparrows flew in the hut and one landed on his foot and the other his hand.  He sat there in his meditation, not moving (Tibetan style meditation is generally eyes open) and the bird on his foot flew up and landed on the rim of the singing bowl.  Then the two birds lifted off and flew out of the hut.

without ever hearing about germ theory

In Nepal I was told that people liked to use copper and brass utensils for their healthful qualities.  What these exact qualities consisted of was not made explicit but faith in the concept was strong.  People believed that food stored in brass was rendered more potent somehow.  Well, it turns out that faith and folklore were solidly grounded in empirical evidence.

With the increase in resistant bacteria and the incidence of infection in hospitals there have been a number of recent studies in Japan, the United States and Europe of the bacteriological performance of different surfaces.  It turns out that both plastic and seemingly sterile stainless steel are surfaces on which bacteria, including MRSA and the deadly E-coli 157 can live for long periods of time.  Surprisingly, the best performing surface was copper (well nobody included arsenic surfaces which would probably really do the job).  One study showed E-coli living on stainless steel for 34 days while surviving only 4 hours on copper.  Brass, which is mostly copper with a bit of zinc also performed admirably.  You may well begin seeing brass table tops, food preparation tables and unvarnished brass doorknobs popping up as functional features in institutional settings.  The VA is currently doing a field test to the idea in one of its hospitals.

In Tibet Jambati bowls holding water over time would have the ability to vastly reduce the amount of pathogens in the water while Manipuri bowls in the kitchen would help with food safety in that setting.  The idea that copper and brass were especially healthy is also a part of European folklore.  So the existence of millions of brass bowls in the Himalayas is really not that hard to understand.  How some of these bowls come to sing so beautifully, well, that remains a mystery.

I went to see a presentation by a practitioner of Tibetan sound healing.  He was a Nepali man, very sincere, who was practicing what he called a dying art in his native country. In the course of his discussion he spoke of many instances where people had experienced healing through hearing the tones of his bowls – even in hospital settings.  It seemed to me that it wasn’t just the bowls but the presence of the practitioner that facilitated whatever healing might have taken place.

His bowl set consisted of about 30 new bowls, some machine made and some beaten, which were labeled by note and chakra.  These were the kind of better quality new bowls one would see in most of the shops in Kathmandu.  He arrayed the bowls by tone and played specific arrangements of frequencies, sometimes repetitively (as one might do in a meditation).  Listening, as I did, with the trained ear of a bowl professional I was aware of the missing and flat elements in the sounds. Even in the hands of an experienced and skilled player these new bowls lack the subtle qualities I find most appealing in singing bowls. This is not to say listening was a bad experience.  Quite to the contrary, a proper spell was cast and people seemed to really enjoy it, yours truly included.  Still I couldn’t help thinking just how much better the presentation would have been with a full set of sweet and well balanced ancient instruments.

During Q&A afterwards I asked him about his experience of brass bowls as a kid in Nepal. He said he only remembered eating out of them, and never knew anything about their sounds.  Only when he got older and began to deeply explore his country’s ancient traditions did he meet a teacher who could initiate him into the mysteries.

A very interesting study by Cornell University entomologists involved in developing non-chemical methods of mosquito control caught my ear this week.  In a paper published in the February issue of Science magazine it was reported that sonic resonance is the key to inducing female mosquitoes to mate. The way it works is this.  Male mosquitoes tend to flap their wings between 550 and 650 times per second while female’s wings move more slowly, generally between 350 and 450 beats a second. When you’re hearing the annoying buzz of a mosquito it is the movement of their wings that generates the sound, which comes in somewhere between 350 and 650 Hz.

What I found most fascinating is that the resonance sought by the mosquitoes is not a simple matching of frequencies, the male slowing down and the female speeding up until they both buzz somewhere in the middle, say at 500 Hz.  Instead they both shoot to hit the next mutual overtone above 400 and 600 Hz which is around 1200 Hz. The male slows down or speeds up so that his wings beat exactly two times for every three of hers. When he gets it just right the convergence of the two frequencies produces the high pitched overtone.  Only when the female hears the sweet spot in their mutual sonic field does she allow mating to happen.

What this says to me is that the pleasure one experiences from resonance and overtones is very deep in our DNA.  There is something absolutely primal operating when one listens to profound sounds.