No matter who or what you’re sitting next to, meditation is a solo trip. That’s why singing bowls sound even better if you’re meditating on your own. But how to use singing bowls when meditating alone? What to remember as a beginner?
Meditating alone is hard when you have nothing but your breath to focus on. But singing bowls help to quickly switch the brain into a meditative state so you can look into things with clarity, focus, and calmness.
I’ll describe the many ways to enhance the experience of meditating on your own with singing bowls today.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
An Overview Of Singing Bowl Use For Meditation
Do you know there are 16 types of meditation?
For some, meditation may be sitting with their eyes closed, and others might find it better to stare at an object or peel their ears to a sound.
Basically, there are two types of meditation - calming and intention meditation.
In calming meditation, you let the thoughts flow through your mind to reach a cleansed state by focusing on an object.
In intention meditation, you focus on an intention.
Whether you choose silent meditation to wind down at the end of the day or in stressful work situations, meditating alone is a rewarding experience for the mind, body, and soul.
One of the most popular benefits of meditation is stress relief (PubMed). That results from meditation affecting your brain to slow down the heart and breath rate by reducing the stress hormone cortisol.
Many studies have concluded that meditation improves other stress conditions... such as IBS, PTSD, and Fibromyalgia (Healthline).
Another published PubMed study describes how eight weeks of mindfulness meditation reduced anxiety.
Meditation also improves depression, anxiety, and pain for some patients while others experience fewer negative thoughts, making it a daily practice.
“Instruments like sound bowls can help your brain get into a deep meditative state by shifting your brain wave activity into theta mode.”
Read more about it in the article on How to use singing bowls for meditation.
Meditation helps you delve into your thoughts with a fresh perspective. And when you meditate alone, it helps you discover more about yourself.
And combining sacred herbs, smudge sticks, and singing bowls when meditating alone allows you to tap into dormant areas of your mind and spirit.
How To Use Singing Bowls When Meditating Alone?
Meditating alone translates to meditating without anyone else around you.
When you meditate with others, there are chances for different energies to clash unless you’re familiar with each. That’s why meditating alone with singing bowls offers beginners a chance at cleansing, charging, healing, and manifestation.
But all that said, group meditation creates a unique blend of healing and charging energies, especially with singing bowls. Read more about using singing bowls for group meditation in this post.
For now, I’ll tell you ways to use singing bowls with solo meditation below.
1. For Ambiance
The ambiance is the primary use of a Tibetan singing bowl for meditating alone because it translates to ‘setting the setting.’
When you play the singing bowl for a few minutes before meditation, your brain’s theta or alpha wave state is activated. It’ll help you relax, focus, or set your intention more easily.
2. Gong Beats
If you like relaxing sounds in the background when meditating, you can play the singing bowl by tapping gently on its walls instead of playing continuously like a gong. This technique requires you to apply gentle pressure on the mallet while tapping rhythmically to prevent the music from fading.
3. Prayer Beads Meditation
Another way to use singing bowls for meditating alone is for worship and prayer. You can use prayer beads to count the number of verses or chants you’ve completed.
Prayer beads are great for concentration when combined with singing bowls too. You can say a prayer every time you circle the bowl’s rim with the mallet.
4. Sun Salutations
Singing bowl users are generally in love with Yoga too. So, if you’re a yoga lover, go ahead and do a 5 to 20-minute sun salutation yoga after playing your singing bowl.
It’ll help you loosen your muscles and calm the nerves to get easily into the meditative state.
Learn more about ways to do Yoga with singing bowls.
5. Candle Light Meditation
If you don’t like sitting out in sunlight for sun salutations, manmade light from candlelight is a good alternative. All you need to do is light up the candle and play the singing bowl for a few minutes before getting into your meditation routine.
Do you know what it does? It combines the elements of light, heat, energy, and sound to open new chakras in your body.
6. Rimming with Mantras
No matter your religion, you can chant them while rimming the singing bowl instead of the gong beat for a better meditation experience than usual.
We learned all about mantras and the power of chanting in this post.
You can chant popular mantras like Om Namay Shivay, Ho’oponopono, Yod He Vav He, Lumen Di Lumene, Om Mani Padme Hung, or Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.
While rimming the bowl, you can also raise it to your mouth to fuse the energies of your sound with the singing bowl while it’s vibrating.
7. Water Charging Singing Bowls For Meditation
Adding water to a singing bowl and rimming the bowl makes the water inside the bowl dance with a thousand vibrations.
Water-charging singing bowls are a therapeutic activity where you focus on the dancing droplets of water. If you’re meditating alone, look at this detailed article on water-charging with singing bowls.
Pick Your Favorite Singing Bowl To Meditate Alone!
Meditation is mostly a solo activity, but that doesn’t mean the energies and thoughts of other people don’t affect a meditator.
So, if you want to cut down distractions even more and get your brain to switch quickly to the meditative state, you should pick your favorite bowl and start tapping the walls in gentle motions.
You can also set a purpose for your meditation, like relaxing, communicating with your subconscious, manifesting intentions, and more.
Also, singing bowls help you meditate by focusing on sound instead of your breath alone, as seen in traditional ways. That’s why you should try adding essential oils, incenses, and smudge sticks to your next meditation session alone.
So, how do you meditate alone?
Here’s a bonus tip- Play YouTube / your own recorded tracks of singing bowls playing.
