First and Third Fridays of the month
This program is drop-in and offered “freely” with a suggested donation of $25, or a $10 – $40 sliding scale. A basket is set out for cash or checks, or use the BDC’s Venmo.
All funds will be split between the Dharma Center and the guest artist(s). Everyone welcome regardless of ability to contribute.
Due to the constraints of our space, we usually cannot accommodate lying down during these sound meditations. Cushioned chairs and meditation mats and zafus are provided.
Please help us keep a fragrance-free meditation environment. Thank you!
About SoundGate
The Buddha instructed his students to bring awareness and sensory clarity to each of the six sense “gates” of experience. Just as we can anchor in breathing, we can anchor in body sensations, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or mindfully track the activity of the thinking mind.
These SoundGate Meditations offer a sound-scape of sensory experience to be your object of meditation, allowing you to linger in the experience of hearing (and take a break from other sense gates perhaps). A variety of sounds will be offered, bells and bowls, chanting, music, recordings of the natural world and soundscapes of our common humanity. While most are designed to be pleasant and carry beneficial intention, some will be neutral or varied in content.
You may simply relax and bathe in harmonious sound, or more intentionally bring elements of Insight practice to your meditation. See below for further ideas and instruction.
Check our listings below to see what will be offered when, or simply drop in with curiosity and explore.
April 19th – Sound Bath with Tibetan Bowls
Brian Sparks will offer a healing symphony of bowl harmonics.
Brian has received his spiritual teaching from several masters in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. His teachers blessed his bowl work by giving him the specific “Prayer of Aspiration” and granted him many Buddhist empowerments. He has toured with notable Tibetan musicians, actors, and at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in Arlee.
He offers his practice of playing bowls in service of healing, compassion and awakening.
May 10th – Soundbath with Mantras of Compassion
The trio returns – Annika Sophia Grace (vocals), Marius George (percussion) and Jessie Solon (bowls, gong, monochord) will treat us to a blissful sound bath.
June 7th – Guest Artist TBA
Just 21st – Summer Solstice Service
This hour-long service will include poetry, a guided meditation and a 25-minute SoundBath with Chrystal bowls. Stay tuned for more details.
Coming back this summer: Kirtan-style Chanting with Harmonium
We are excited to welcome Kathleen Karlsen back again. Kathleen is a mantra practitioner, kirtan leader, composer, and artist focused on the transformative power of the arts. She has three levels of training from the Kirtan Leadership Institute and has led regular kirtans, mantra events, and workshops for the last six years. She joins us for an hour of Buddhist chants to the sacred sounds of the harmonium.
Chants will be provided for those who would like to chant in unison — this is an evening where your voice is welcome!
More about Kathleen can be found on her website here.
If you play an instrument or are practiced in singing/chanting as a form of meditation and might like to offer a program, please let us know. We welcome collaborators. Please email programs@BozemanDharmaCenter.org to be in touch. Thank you.
More on using sound as an object for Insight Meditation:
Sounds are a wonderful object to practice the key elements of a meditation practice. We can be aware of how they arise, change, flow and pass; aware of whether they are pleasant, neutral or unpleasant; and watch whether the mind creates commentary or judgements about them. In this way, we hone the skills of practice which can be brought to any and all sense gates in turn.
Ultimately we begin to notice that sounds, like all passing experience, have the “Three Characteristics” of all phenomena: they are Impermanent, Impersonal and Incapable of providing lasting satisfaction. This leads to the development of Insight and a wise relationship to our experience.
We often take our thoughts and internal sensations personally – they seem to be by us, or about us, and the mind often reacts with wondering what to do about them. Sounds are far less likely to be taken personally, though we may have a judgement that “this shouldn’t be happening” or strategize how to fix some of them. Many people find it relatively easy to cultivate a dispassionate equanimity with sound, which can then carry over to the other senses. Thoughts, for example can be experienced as simply internal sounds. These SoundGate meditations, while (mostly) lovely and soothing, can also be used to develop your range of meditation experience.
