THE GONG.
The Gong has travelled down from very ancient times as far back as the beginning of the Bronze Age. It is a very powerful instrument of Sacred Sound and is as big as the Universe and Beyond. Its healing power is, like all healing energy, only bounded by the limitation placed on it by the recipient. It is both shamanic and symbolic and encompasses many schools of thought.
The Gong in named for the sound it makes. It emits the primordial sound of OM and is so powerful that it can suspend conscious thought and place one in a cocoon of all encompassing Sacred Sound. It touches one on absolutely all levels from the densest physical to the highest and finest of spiritual aspects of being. The healing properties of the Gong work at a cellular level so that each and every cell of one’s being is raised in consciousness and cleansed. To experience a Gong Bath of Sacred Sound can be likened to having a shower inside.
The Gong is resonant with the heart and it is heard and more importantly felt through the heart. It works with harmonics and overtones on the principle of the Golden Mean Ratio which is the basis of all the building blocks of Creation. The Gong Sacred Sound is that big.
Joy MacAndrew, PO Box, 9406, Pacific Paradise, Qld 4564. Email joymacandrew@bigpond.com (07) 54488 564Contact Joy if you would like to purchase a copy of her CD Out of the Silence Listen to music clip here
Our facility is a residential, or live in drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. Clients partake in a 3 month program that we run, and part of that is a daily Allied Health Program involving courses on life skills, relapse prevention, group counselling etc. The organisation has invested a lot of time and funds to implementing this new Allied Health Program, which we are very excited about. We wanted to purchase the bowl as a tool to signify commencement of the groups, and also for relaxation therapy. Clients will be free to use the bowl any time they wish. We hope staff and clients enjoy the bowl and learning how to use it!
QLD
Linda Blanchard, NSW
Over the past 2 years I have accumulated a number of beautiful Singing Bowls. The bowls are of a high ordination and as such their friendship was not easily won. Although an active meditation focus at most times, they come into their own during the twilight hours and in the still of the evening. I open my balcony door to the night and sit on the porch with a bowl. The mediumship is exquisite as the sound travels out from the beaten bowl and into the void. At the same time the starlight stoops as if to acknowledge the sancrisity of the instrument.
The mystery of the bowl is beyond understanding; but it is.
Dr Lindy Warrell, Serendipity Meditation Dharma Group
Life and a Singing Bowl
One day in Nepal over 30 years ago, an artisan chased me down the street pressuring me to buy a manufactured item I did not want and cannot remember even today. He was persistent but I ignored him, flush with my purchase of rough, hand carved statuettes of a man, obvious in his sexual desire and a woman open to him. "You stupid tourists", the man shouted at me in anger. "You buy rubbish". He was right.
In Kathmandu I encountered Nepali artisans; I bought yak wool clothing made by Tibetan refugees; I climbed the 365 steps of the Swayambhunath Stupa and ate the tastiest spinach soup in that freezing high altitude world but I learned little about the place as a home of singing bowls.
I came to Buddhism in Sri Lanka two years later as a postgraduate research student doing fieldwork among ritual performers. One day a village monk asked me why I had come to Sri Lanka: to his temple. When I tried to explain my research, he laughed. "You are here for a reason", he said. "Not that." Until that moment, my interest in Buddhism had been intellectual and analytical. I could answer questions about Dependent Origination, the nature of mind, ignorance as the cause of suffering and anatta or the concept of no self. But meeting this monk was a turning point.
Although I completed my PhD when I returned to Australia, I also began a personal search, which took in yoga, Chi Kung and meditation. I read Buddhist texts with a different eye and a different mind and my heart started to open. I had found a path and, although family and career made me lose sight of it at times, I kept reading and learning about Buddhism; about myself.
Just as I retired, my younger brother died prematurely. I was the beneficiary of his will. His blessing gave me the little cottage in the country by the sea that I had for many years visualised for my retirement. I had imagined it being filled with books and friends. I never thought about this with reference to the Sri Lankan monk's prediction about my 'purpose' in going to Sri Lanka.
But here I am, with a room dedicated to the Buddha where I teach meditation. I named my group after Sri Lanka, the Persian name for which was Serendip: it is the 'Serendipity Meditation and Dharma Group'. The word 'serendipity' entered the world lexicon in the 18thC to refer to something fortunate you discover while looking for something else. I thought it apt.
And, so it is that here, in my little cottage on the coast just outside Adelaide, I finally discovered Tibetan singing bowls. I first saw them on sale at a LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) market on a day when, unfortunately, I was not able to buy one. Later, I began searching without success for that trader and instead stumbled onto the web site of the Sherpa Shop where I listened to many bowls singing until I found my own: one that resonated in me. It sits at the centre of my dining table attracting a lot of admiration and shy requests to 'have a go' at making it sing. I use it always in my meditation group to begin and end each sit.
The truth is, I couldn't imagine how else to start and end a sit and i think this is why - The resonance of the bowl gently frames the silence. It takes people into themselves on a musical vibration and returns them to the presence of others with a harmonious note.
Dr Lindy Warrell, 33 Atkinson Crescent, Aldinga Beach SA 5173
lindy.warrell@gmail.com
May You be Well May You be Happy May Your Life be Free from Harm
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