Howard Wiley

Boise, ID, USA

Mar Contreras

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Eddy Tempelaars

Nederland

Jennifer

Fairfax

Julian Buechner

Munich, Germany

Brandon Charles

Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Jason

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Gerlinde Braumiller

Austria

Laura

Erin

Nevada City, CA, United States

Ryan Story

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Bunga Soetoko

Indonesia

Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Eric Killough

Morgan Hill, CA

Carole Lacy

Kinver, United Kingdom

Jenny Huynh

Kristiina

Tampere, Finland

David Wooden

Krystal

Houston, Texas, USA

Paulie

Sheffield, UK

You will cultivate a garden of loving-kindness in your heart, extending its blooms to others, starting with those closest to you and expanding to all beings.

Loving-Kindness (Metta)

Relationships

Buddhism

Traditions

Compassion

Visualization

English

Ayya Khema (August 25, 1923 – November 2, 1997) was a Buddhist teacher, and the first Western woman to become a Theravadin Buddhist nun.

Flower Garden - Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta) by Ayya Khema

 In order to start, please put the attention on the breath for just a few moments. We'll imagine that we have a beautiful garden of flowers growing in our heart. The most exquisite blooms, lovely fragrance growing and being cared for through our love and compassion. And we can enjoy this garden and all the lovely flowers in it and feel at ease. Have a sense of well-being within the flower garden of our heart. Now we'll cut a beautiful bouquet of flowers, the loveliest ones we can find, and hand it to the person sitting next to us, expressing our love and care through this gift. Everyonev We'll think of our parents, whether they're still alive or not, and make the most beautiful bouquet out of the flowers in our heart and hand that to them with our love and gratitude and devotion and see the joy that it brings to them. And we'll think of those people who are nearest and dearest to us, those we might live with, and for each of them we'll make a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the garden in our heart, nourished by our love in all different colors, with lovely fragrance, and give each of them the gift which comes from our heart. And we don't expect anything in return. We always worldelia will live foreverร anh thrilling thine lives, avoiding any Now we'll think of all our good friends, relatives, acquaintances, anyone who comes to mind. And for each of them we make a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the garden in our heart, nourished by our love, cared for by compassion. And we give this gift to each one of them, showing them that we care. We'll think of those people whom we meet in our daily lives. The people we work with, neighbors, students, teachers, patients, salespeople, postmen. Anyone who comes to mind, who is part of our life and whom we meet in our everyday activities. And we realize that the more flowers we give away, the more of them grow in our heart. So we can make a beautiful bouquet for each of these people. The loveliest blooms we can find. And we can give them the gift which comes straight from our heart, showing them our care and concern in our togetherness. And now we'll think of a difficult person in our lives. Or if we don't have one, then one that we feel quite indifferent towards, whom we neither dislike nor like. Or the difficult one that we reject and resist or rejects us. And again we cut a beautiful bouquet of flowers out of the garden of our heart and hand it to that person with love and respect and care. And see the joy that it produces and the relief we feel. And again we cut a beautiful bouquet of flowers out of the garden of our heart and hand it to that person with love and respect and care. And again we cut a beautiful bouquet of flowers out of the garden of our heart and hand it to that person with love and respect and care. We'll open our heart as wide as possible and extend the flower garden to its largest possible degree. And then we allow people to enter, enjoy the beautiful flowers and each one take one home with them. First we allow all those people who are present here to come into the flower garden of our heart, which is nourished by love, looked after by care and concern. And each one that comes takes one of the beautiful blooms and a new one grows in its place. And we see the joy that that brings. And then we allow all the people that are here in the monastery to come and have that beautiful experience. And feel loved and given the gift of a flower from our heart. And we think of our hometown and the people we know and the people we have seen there, the people we imagine that are there or assume that are there. And we let them all come into the garden of our heart. And we see the joy that that brings to them and each one may have the gift of one of the beautiful blooms. And we might think of all the people that we have met anywhere at any time, seen anywhere at any time or heard about. And let them all enter and take away with them a beautiful flower from the garden of our heart. And let them all come into the garden of our heart. And as we open our heart ever more and the garden becomes larger and larger, we can let all the living beings that we can think of enter, be joyful, being given the gift of the flower out of the garden and getting the feeling of our togetherness. And we put the attention back on ourselves and we see that the flower garden in our heart is unimpaired. There are just as many blooms there as there were to start with. Giving them away has certainly not diminished them. And their fragrance and beauty brings joy to our hearts. We feel a sense of well-being, of being surrounded by love. And now we anchor that flower garden in our hearts so that we have access to it at any time and never lose it. May people everywhere become aware of the beautiful flowers in their own hearts. Thank you.