If you have a question that is not listed then please feel free to click on the "contact us" link above to email it to us.  Or, call us on our Toll-Free number at 1-800-588-5350 and we will be happy to help you.

• How do you know how old the Tibetan singing bowls are?
   
• Where do you get the Tibetan singing bowls?
   
• How come your bowls are more expensive than from other companies?
   
• How do the sounds of the bowls relate to the chakras?
   
• What is the difference between Tibetan and "crystal" bowls?
   
• What's the difference between old bowls and new bowls?
   
• How do I find a bowl that's right for me?
   
• How do I select a bowl for a gift?
   
• By purchasing a bowl am I depriving Tibet of it's cultural artifacts?
   
• Why are the bowls named what they are?
   
• Do you have a store?
   

Rain Gray, the president and CEO of Bodhisattva Trading Co., Inc., is an experienced international dealer and expert of Indo-Tibetan bronzes at the museum level.  His extensive knowledge and experience, gained over the past 30 years of studies in this field, are applied to the dating of the Tibetan Singing Bowls.

Specifically Rain compares the accumulated wear caused over years of usage, handling and ritual washing-- and other elements such as stylistic changes in the shapes of the bowls and the surface structure of the metal-- against a data base of bowls with original inscriptions which include actual dates.

Rain makes four trips a year to the Himalayas and personally selects each of the Tibetan Singing Bowls offered by our company. Having lived and worked in the Himalayas for 30 years he has built up a large network of people who collect our bowls.

We deal primarily with 12 different families, one of which we are now dealing with the third generation, having dealt with the grandfather, the father and now son who is presently managing their business. These 12 families have a large network of collectors who travel throughout the Himalayas, traveling from village to village trading for the bowls.

These are brought out of the mountains and consolidated, then the finest pieces are set aside and kept until Rain returns to the Himalayas to grade them and make his personal selection according to age, harmonic balance, ease and smoothness of playing, sound volume and long sustain.

Simply put, we pay more. In order to have the top quality bowls saved for us, and in order to get first pick, we pay a premium. Therefore, our Himalayan collectors and consolidators are always happy to put aside the top pieces for us. After we have skimmed off the cream of the crop, the pick of the litter, the remaining bowls are then offered to other buyers. Keep in mind that that we only select and buy the top two to three percent! We have always found that one gets what one pays for and are happy to pay a premium for the best bowls. The difference between the best, what we call "Master-quality^®", and the other 99.5% of the bowls that we reject is enormous.

Basically, we decided from the inception of our company that we would only offer the best to our customers. We have found that a bowl that is harmonically balanced will greatly help to put the user into a balanced state. Whereas the rejected 99.5% of bowls, which for the most part have become harmonically un-balanced or out of tune (due to changes in the metal caused by expansion and contraction over many years as a result of sever weather conditions in the Himalayas, changes in barometric pressure as a result of their now being at a much lower altitude, and metal fatigue as a result of being used for hundreds of years) can actually put the user into a discordant state. If you want to create harmony and balance then it's wise to use a bowl that is harmonically balanced.

There are over 14 different systems which equate the notes of the Western scale to the chakras. Ten of these systems agree that the notes work upon the chakras as follows:

B = crown/ 7th chakra
A = third eye (pineal gland)/ 6th chakra
G = throat/ 5th chakra
F = heart/ 4th chakra
E = solar plexus/ 3rd chakra
D = sacral/ 2nd chakra
C = root/1st chakra

Please note that most of the Tibetan singing bowls produce more than one note (most produce between two and all seven notes of the Western scale) and therefore affect more than one chakra. Those who are doing healing work will want to acquire a set of bowls that will be able to affect all of the chakras. Please call Shakti about this as she is our expert in putting together matched sets.

The silicone glass, or as they are popularly called "crystal" bowls produce what is scientifically called a pure sine tone. Basically, this is one pure, and in the case of the crystal bowls, intense tone as opposed to the complex interweaving of three sets of double tones, rich in harmonics and microtones which are produced by the Tibetan singing bowls. Most people find that the Tibetan singing bowls have a mellower feel compared to the intense tones of the crystal bowls.

Good question! Around 1997 new-made singing bowls started showing up in the Himalayan marketplace and subsequently in markets around the world. These bowls which now come in a variety of sizes, some with various Tibetan Buddhist design motifs, are made with a different alloy of metals than the antique bowls. We believe they consist of more iron as they are usually a heavier weight as compared to a same size antique bowl. They can usually be identified by their highly polished finish, though some are oxidized with a dark finish (a fake patina to appear old) and some also have bright gold design motifs.

The new-made LWTL type bowls are cast and spun on a lathe, as opposed to the antique bowls of the same type which were hand-forged. In the past two years hand-forged new bowls have been showing up in the market, and some are showing promise as far as reasonably good sound quality is concerned. However, we find that the antique bowls have a mellower and smoother sound. It's like fine wine, ie. the age lends a mellowness to the sound.

It's a matter of deep listening, and hearing with your heart! It's best to close your eyes as this will allow you to hear at a deeper level since the part of your brain which normally processes visual information will be freed up to concentrate more fully on auditory input. Feel the sounds and realize how they make you feel and where they are being felt in your body.

It's a process of elimination. By comparing different bowls against each other you will discover which bowl or bowls are right for you. This is the bowl, or bowls, you should choose for your meditation and healing work as they are the ones in harmony with you.

Call us on our toll-free number at 1-800-588-5350 and let us know what your budget is. We will then put together a selection of bowls for you, call you back on our special demo phone line and play each one so that you can make your selection. Don't worry. . . you will know when you hear your bowl!

Follow the process mentioned above, keeping the person who will receive the gift in your mind/consciousness, or simply give them one of our Gift Certificates. As all our products come with a 30-day Money-Back Guarantee, the gift recipient can call us during this time to hear other bowls if they would like to exchange it for one that they like better.

This is a tricky question. Having worked with the Tibetan people now for over 25 years, Rain believes that the singing bowls are meant to be spread to those people here in the west who are practicing the Dharma and who will use them to heal and bring balance and harmony to themselves, their families and friends, their communities and the world.

The tantric saint, Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche, who was responsible for the second, and successful, infusion of Buddhism into Tibet from India in the late 7th - early 8th century A.D., was also the person who brought along with him the first singing bowl along with sacred texts and images. Padmasambhava, who was a fully empowered tantric master, had many siddhis or powers, amongst them the power of clairvoyance and prophecy. He is attributed to having said "When the iron bird flies the Dharma will be spread to the land of the red man, and the Tibetans will be spread over the face of the earth like ants."  This has certainly come to pass, as airplanes fly over the world, Tibetan Buddhist Dharma teachings are readily available in the United States (the land of the American Indian, red man), and due to the communist Chinese military take over/ occupation of Tibet over 200,000 Tibetan refugees are now living in many other countries.

Many priceless ancient Tibetan Buddhist artifacts were destroyed by the so called Peoples Liberation Army. As Mao said to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "[to the communists] Religion is poison." It is our belief and sincerest hope that in bringing these sacred "Tools For Transformation" out of the Himalayas they will be preserved for countless generations and that one day when Tibet is again free, that some of them will be donated back to the Tibetan people living in a free Tibet.

In the beginning of his research and collecting in the Himalayas, for lack of the Tibetan names, Rain simply named them according to their physical characteristics, hence the names Low-wall, Low-wall-thick-lip, and High-wall bowls. Since then, in an effort to find more bowls, local collectors searched in more remote parts of the Himalayas finding other shapes of bowls. Rain subsequently named these other bowl shapes in more Buddhist dharma terms such as Buddha, Karma, Dharma, and Bodhi.

The Buddha bowl is so named due to the fact that the earliest piece of Buddhist art found to date showing Buddha with his bowl, a stone carved bas relief (see image below) from Ghandara, circa 2nd to 3rd century CE, previously owned by Guiseppe, London, and called "The Offering of the Four Bowls", depicts Gautama Buddha  holding a deep bowl in his right hand while bestowing a blessing with his left. Underneath the bowl, which rests on his right thigh, folds of his robe arranged in a flowing wave may attest to the importance of the object and it's mystical significance.

Rain has owned four store/galleries in the past but at this point prefers to deal privately to a unique group of customers and clients either over the phone, by appointment at his office/showroom, by exhibiting at various conferences, at teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and through the internet.

If you are planning a trip to Los Angeles and would like to visit our showroom to hear and see our present collection of bowls in person to make a purchase (minimum of $250.00)  then please call in advance for an appointment.