Under the clear skies of the Sonoran Desert, the moon is a spectacular sight to behold as it rises over the mountains surrounding Miraval. The full moon is a powerful time for looking within, for healing and shifting. Miraval offers a great way to channel these strengths with the Full Moon Gong Bath, a guided meditation of sound and vibration that can calm the mind and harness the healing and harmonizing potential of this full moon in Capricorn.
This is a complete sound bath that produces an amazing sense of well-being through the vibration of all the water in our bodies (the human body is 80% water).
Sound is heard not only through our ears, but through every cell in our bodies. With a special set of Tibetan bowls tuned to lunar frequencies and a gong tuned to the frequency of our beloved Earth, multiple overtones and vibrations bring about a deep sense of peace and rest.
Miraval Master Healers Pamela Lancaster and Dr. Tim Frank invite you to bathe in the sounds of the custom-made Earth Gong and the Atma Buti Singing Bowls ™. These are no ordinary bowls. Master village artisans of the Nepal region have been crafting these miraculous healing tools for centuries. Seven precious and semi-precious metals are forged and hand-hammered by artisans with the highest spiritual intention to create a masterpiece. As the bowls cool, the village monks pray for hours, infusing the mantras and heart songs of compassion into every bowl.
For this ceremony, a Full Moon 7-bowl set is used. It took almost three years to make them and the rules for creation are strict: they can only be made under an unobstructed view of the full moon’s rays. A single cloud is enough to suspend work. The artisan, too, must be unobstructed – in both health and mental focus. A headache, or even just a bad day, is enough to postpone the process. The monks who participate in this process must fast for 72 hours and shave every hair off their bodies.
The entire time the bowls are being hand-hammered and forged, monks pray and chant this phrase into them: Om mani padme hum, or May I rest in the lotus of my heart.
What meaning lies behind the poetry of this phrase? Simply put, it is the expression of a hope for our highest and best intentions. These six syllables combine to express faith in the practice of a path that unifies the jewel (mani, or the altruistic intention of enlightenment, compassion, and love), with the lotus (padme, a symbol of wisdom). This process transforms the impure body, speech, and mind (Om) into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha with a force that is indivisible (hum).
In other words, we chant to the vibration of the bowls what the monks chant during their creation, with these thoughts in our hearts: Om mani padme hum
- May I respond to a person (or place, or event) in front of me from the divinity and wisdom of my spirit.
- May I respond from the clarity of my mind, from the love and compassion of my heart.
- May I respond in this way, instead of reacting from pain.
Curiously, this chanting of mantra can take us out of the confines of speech and suffering and into the purity of sound – sound that heals, restores, and transforms us into the highest and best versions of ourselves. Buddha himself was born on a full moon day. He became enlightened on a full moon and finally left his human form under a full moon.
Take this moment of full moon reverence to bathe your being in the bowls’ celestial sounds, and to root in the grounding vibration of the gong’s earthen tune.
