soaring crane

Well, speaking for myself, I've never heard a singing bowl or (and especially) gong recording that comes close to the original. I have many professional singing bowl recordings, I use them sometimes as background (waaaay in the background, very, very quiet) music during qigong sessions, but they don't, can't, approach the real thing. If you're just interested in a general way to know what they sound like, youtube is your friend, my friend :-)

there's another angle that this can be viewed from: The monkey is also a bridge to your daily life. That means that, when he appears, the better idea could be to continue 'going through the motions' of your meditation or whatever you're doing at the moment, with the understanding that some of your practice will leech its way into your daily life (which for many is the goal anyway). I guess it could be phrased thusly: When having 'one of those' days, or one of those moments, when the world won't stop "interfering" with your practice, let your practice interfere with the world And I'm gonna re-word and repeat my mantra: Sitting in non-judgment doesn't work if there's nothing to be non-judged.

I tried to write-up a tree experience I had a little while ago. I couldn't quite capture it in words and it sort of peters out, but you might see something in it: http://thetaobums.com/topic/33926-tales-from-the-meadow/?p=531861

Hi Learner - from my perspective, singing bowls are like the ant-matter to the tuning fork. They're not tuned and they're NOT (had to come back and add that important little word, oops) terribly useful as musical instruments (for normal music, lol). They're very, very overtone-rich, meaning they create many sinus waves that can be dissonant. But that's what makes them such effective enhancements to meditation and therapy. In the set and system I described, the very bottom bowl is placed at the foot chakra, we call it the 'breaker', and the bowl is specifically selected because it doesn't harmonize with the rest of the set. A somewhat related anecdote: Years ago, I was invited to a demo evening from an importer of Crystal Singing Bowls . They were beautiful and impressive, were perfectly tuned, rang clean and long and crystal clear ... and were totally unsuited for what we do. The salesperson had the mindset that more is better and he when rubbed the bowls with the hard rubber bowl-rubber, the sound was penetrating, searing, oh-my-God-loud. And this was supposed to be a group therapy session. He was trying to impress us. In the feedback round, one person (no, it wasn't me), said the bowls were too 'American'. By that she meant that they strove for the superlative (over here, the USA is known as the Land of the Superlative), and by so doing, missed the heart of the art. Speaking of overtones, I'm actually more of a Gong-addict lol. Especially the tam-tam style you see in the pic I posted. There's a similar scenario in the gong world. Paiste makes very impressive, tuned, concert gongs. If you attend a symphony performance and the percussionist has a gong (which he may bang once during the concert), it'll be a Paiste. I suppose there are other manufacturers of concert gongs out there, but it's a sure bet you won't see a hand-hammered, original Wuhan gong on a professional stage. They're not tuned at all, not tamed. They're wild animals that beckon you to play with them

"Let the heathens spill theirs, on the dusty ground ... " Perhaps the "heathens" know more than the Church? I agree, an introduction with spunk! When it comes to money issues, I've followed Baolin Wu's advice to vigorously massage the ears, which are intimately connected to the kidneys which in turn connects you to water which is wealth, and it does seem to work i.e. i no longer have money concerns. I don't have any more money than before, but I'm not concerned about it edited to add that little quip at the end

You roots run deep, Dog

I hope I didn't give the impression that that scenario is what plays in my mind's eye every time I meditate/cultivate/practice! ooops I wrote that out to illustrate what to do afterward ie leave it behind you.

yesssssss they swim You can also put water in them, just a little warm water, and feel the resonance deeper. I was engaged at a local thermal spa for a little while, once a week with singing bowls in the "meditation" pool (basically a smallish, warm pool in an enclosed area where no kids were allowed). The people would float around on swim noodles and I would play the bowls as they floated on the water. It was ok, sounds better than it really was because the place wasn't really the best atmosphere for this sort of thing and the people who showed up weren't really into the whole idea. But bowls in the bathtub are awesome. I used to have a 'foot bowl', one big enough to hang the feet in. That was pretty interesting.

Like Joe says, only insignificantly. But the overtones reach areas imperceptible to the ears. The value is in the frequencies more than the sound. With that set, the four smaller flat bowls at the top of the pic are placed around the head - next to the left ear, right ear, crown and directly on the heart / chest. The three taller bowls at the bottom are around the feet and the big bowl on the left of the pic is placed on the the knees, the one across from that goes on the stomach. These are all points from the flower of life.

Wordle machts möglich ;-)

This is directed squarely at myself, not at Deci or any of her friends or followers. I'm quite possibly just too stupid to follow these discussions, but regardless, this is a good representation of what I see when I read the opening post to this thread:

Everybody's got something to hide, 'cept for me and my monkey! When I'm showing a group something new, I tell tell them, '"Mitmach Verbot!" That means I'm forbidding them from trying the movement until I say it's time for them to try. I do the movement and it's their task to silently and actively observe. I tell them to look at more than just my hands; they have to look at the legs, the torso, shoulders, the breathing (I ask them when they think I'm inhaling, exhaling ... ), they have to sit on their horse and just watch. But of course there's always someone who absolutely can not do it; they have to move, they can't only observe. In fact, every single person has to put a lot of effort into it. It's an advanced exercise in itself (that's why I do it so strictly) that helps tether the monkey. For my own part, I've stopped worrying about it. When I'm practicing on my own, my thoughts wander like everyone else's, sometimes they go deep, deep, inside, which is of course where they belong, and sometimes they're back in high school, 1981, arguing with this annoying English teacher who accused me of plagiarizing a paper I wrote on Beowulf because the writing style wasn't the same as other papers I had written but I had intentionally tried be creative and he just refused to accept that and gave me a D, even though it was an excellent, flawless paper, and the bad note affected my point total and lowered my grade for the year and I'm convinced that that was the start of a downward spiral in my attitude toward school in general and the reason I said fuck college and joined the Army instead and ended up getting stationed in Germany which I hated at first but got used to it after a while and even married my German girlfriend and after living in New York for ten years, we moved to Germany in 1995 .... shit. Inhale Exhale The trick isn't in controlling the thoughts. And it isn't in suppressing the reactions to the thoughts. The trick is in remaining non-judgemental. The real monkey, the badass monkey, is the one who tells you that you've failed. He's a grinning liar.

very nice, Joe! This is the 'starter set' for a singing bowl therapist here: with this set, we give a treatment that's based on the Flower of Life.

Skydog - But there are some very good people here, for whom I have a lot of respect, who find something valuable in her lessons. That's a bit of a conundrum for me. PS - have you looked at your ppd recently? ;-)

That seems to have been his goal from the outset.

Very nice My dog is my most trusty qigong partner. I take her out on the meadows with me when I practice, and she runs around investigating the area, sometime wanders out of sight, but never too far. The reason I write that is because I'm actually more focused on my activity when she's there than when she isn't. So I'm wondering if you notice a similar effect when you go for a walk. Can you stay in the here and now as easily without your companion? And another similarity: I play my guitar often (like you, though, I mostly enjoy the feeling of holding it and the vibrations that come from it. Actually, from my amp, I play a telecaster haha) Lovely little poem, too. Maybe take a look at our Haiku thread: http://thetaobums.com/topic/4535-haiku-chain/page-397 No commentary, just take the last line of the last post and make something new from it

and yet again soon yellow sun wanders past noon a tethered balloon

Hello Sunchild and thank you for a very interesting introduction. I wouldn't know how to analyze your situation. But then, my "advice" is to not analyze things Write more when you get a chance.

Because there seems to be more activity in the I Ching section, I wanted to (once again) link to a book that I feel everyone should have. It's not elegant, it's not intellectual. It's straightforward and slick, and takes a ton of mystery out of the work. The most valuable section for me is the first half of the book where they succeed in making the incredibly complex history of the Yijing approachable for anyone who can read English, more or less. This book goes into the most esoteric aspects of the Yijing, but in everyday language... Well, a huge part of the first section is available as preview at Amazon, so just give it a perusal and decide for yourself: The Complete Idiot's Guide to I Ching My only wish is that this particular Yijing translation were available in a more elegant package/binding ...

It seems to me that someone capable of the former wouldn't engage in the latter. But that could be my fault.

I was referring to the link that links to itself, MH :-)

Ahhhhhhh.... I'm caught in a logic loop!

Does this thread actually have a topic?

I often wear Indian Kurtas (I think that's what they're called) because they're comfortable and really great for qigong. No identity stuff going on here though

I find your OP very interesting, but confusing. Would it be possible for you to refine your thoughts a little and re-phrase it? I do understand that your point was not to provoke (yet another, sigh) debate about vegetarianism vs omnivorism (of that's a word, which it probably isn't) It seems to me ,you're talking about raw nature, animal survival instinct. You're talking about the stomach of the devout vegan that will devour the first animal to cross its path when the choice is between starving to death and living another day. A system so bent on survival, it'll begin to devour component parts of itself, rather than die. Something like that?