Himalayan Sound Healing Retreat

Overview

Two places, five days. Namo Buddha, on a ridge two hours east of Kathmandu, is one of the three great Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Nepal — the spot where a prince is said to have given his body to a starving tigress. Pharping, an hour south, is a cluster of cave shrines associated with Guru Rinpoche.

Between them sits a half day in a Patan metal workshop watching singing bowls being made by hand.

What the sessions are like

A sound bath is played, not performed at you: you lie down, and bowls of different sizes are struck and rimmed around and sometimes on the body. The low tones are felt in the chest more than heard. Sessions run forty minutes to an hour and most people lose track of time in them.

Mornings cover the mechanics — how a bowl is struck versus rimmed, why alloy and thickness change the overtone, why two bowls a tone apart produce a beat you feel rather than hear. You will play, and you will be bad at it, which is part of it.

The workshop

The Patan family have hammered bowls for three generations. This is a working shop — hot, loud, and the most interesting half day of the retreat. It is also where the honest history comes out: the metalwork is old, the therapy around it is mostly modern, and the makers say so more readily than the shops do.

What we don't claim

Sound work is relaxing and, for many people, unusually so. The evidence for anything beyond relaxation and stress reduction is thin. Nothing here is offered as treatment for illness, and nobody on this retreat will suggest otherwise.

Best season

February to April and September to December. Namo Buddha is at 1,750 m and the winter nights are cold in unheated monastery rooms. The monsoon is workable but the ridge sits in cloud for much of it.