Meditation: Choosing Zen Bowls
The busy lifestyle we have these days make us crave for a more relaxed experience. Meditating even for just a few minutes each day can already help us a lot in breaking free from the demands of our seemingly hectic schedule. Those who practice meditation are quite familiar with the different methods and accessories that can help them have that higher level experience. However, if you are just a beginner, it helps that you learn more about the basic accessories you should have to help you meditate better. Zen bowls are quite popular accessories and most people wonder how they should god about choosing a good bowl.
There are certain factors you will need to consider in choosing Zen singing bowls for meditation. Some factors can be seen in the site at http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/category/meditation/. Foremost among them is the quality. You should keep your eyes and ears open so you can better check if the bowls you are looking at are indeed of excellent quality. If you are having doubts with your sense, it is important that you find someone who is quite familiar with these bowls that you can trust. This would be the one of the best persons to help you.
There are several Tibetan bowls we can find in the market or in the site at zensingingbowls.com. Many of these are machine-made and designed to look old. If you are after an authentic Zen bowl, you will need to keep your senses open for different signs. The shape of the bowl would give you an idea of its age, so are its markings and thickness. Older metal bowls are usually older. The tone is also something you should look into.
Most people find it hard to tell which Tibetan bowls are antiques and which ones are merely good reproductions. This is when you would need the assistance of a trained eye. While it requires a trained eye to visually examine "Zen" singing bowls, you need not be an expert to determine the authentic ones through using your ears.
It would also help for you to ask several questions about the meditation bowl. Do not simply take the word of the seller that the bowl is old. A 20-year-old bowl can already be ancient to sellers but this is relatively new according to Zen standards. A real old bowl would be 100 years old at the very least. You should also ask where the bowl was made, as well as how the markings distinguish one type of bowl from another. If a vendor is not able to give you answers to these questions, you can easily tell that the vendor does not really know much about this Zen accessory. If you feel the need to research more about this, feel free to review the details in the site at http://www.zensingingbowls.com.