Staple of relaxation videos and Buddhist rituals, Himalayan singing bowls and their special magic
- Used in sound therapy, meditation and alternative healing, the way the bowls vibrate to lull their listeners has been widely studied
- Performer Tsang Man-tung has a simple explanation: ‘singing bowls have a very special frequency which seems to make time expand and slow down’
On a cool spring night, Tsang Man-tung leads 100 people in a guided meditation exercise on a Hong Kong rooftop.
Waving his arms theatrically, he strikes a bronze-coloured bowl held in one palm with a wooden mallet held in the other. As he directs participants to close their eyes, direct their focus inward, and practise long, slow breaths in and out, the background roar of air conditioner units and a busy road below seems to dull; external stresses melt away.
With his trendy, vertical hairstyle and layered linen robes, Tsang, a master of Himalayan singing bowl performance, looks part rock star, part New Age luminary.
As part of the Wuji Ensemble’s Beyond the Senses concert series in January, audience members were invited to take part in a relaxation session on the roof of the Asia Society’s Hong Kong headquarters in Admiralty. Afterwards they filed downstairs and took their seats in the Jockey Club Hall to experience a mesmerising modern performance featuring traditional Chinese instruments and poetry.
Sat with an array of shining bowls, Tsang closed the show with five minutes of precision bowl striking, letting each send out vibrations and dispatching concertgoers with moony smiles, loose limbs and a feeling of lightness. It’s a sensation Tsang terms “eternal now”, a state where “it feels like the past and future are an illusion”.
