Meditation bowl

Since time immemorial fragrant woods, resins and plants have been burned near the camp fire. These were later employed for ritual purposes, leading to a culture of incense burning. This bowl is made to be used to burn such materials in an amount of sand. The rounded dish bottom is made of 5 mm thick steel, set on a detachable foot made of the same material and furnished with a felt cloth underneath. The bowl, wich once was thought to be the Klöpper head (end caps) on a cylindrically shaped pressure vessel, can be equipped with a separately forged (and separately offered) mandrel for use as a candle holder.

What is a so-called Klöpper head? The answer comes from the physics of pressurised vessels. The Klöpper head is a derivation of the ideal form for the ends of pressurised vessels: the hemisphere. It is flanged and dished and has a relatively high resistance against pressure. The somewhat egg-shaped form was invented by a German engineer, Georg Kloppsch, and therefore named "Klöpperboden" in German. But, the story aside, you can also just take such a "dish" and convert it. What previously withstood pressure from inside now curves upwards, forming a bowl. We now have a vessel, but for what? Let’s just keep it empty for now and put in the thoughts that appear just looking at its form and musing about function, material and manufacturer. Guess what: we have imperceptibly started to contemplate and meditate.

According to an old Latin verse, the Cistercians preferred valleys, the Benedictines mountains, the Franciscans small towns, and the Jesuits large towns for their monasteries: “Bernhardus valles, montes Benedictus amabat, / oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes”. The Benedictines of the Königsmünster Abbey have certainly kept to this, for their monastery towers high above Meschede, town in the mountainous Sauerland region. From a bird’s eye view, you’ll easily spot that the monastery’s buildings build up a small town on their own: in the foreground the grammar school and some of the monastery buildings, flanked by the House of Silence and the “Oasis”, further back the workshops with a smithy and carpentry plus the agricultural buildings – all this embedded in a park-like garden.

Due to the manufacturing process (vibratory grinding), machining marks may occur and the product may have unevenness in the surface.