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

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

Transcript

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.

Reviews

Special and important way to touch and embody loving kindness.

Lovely way of extending loving kindness and compassion

Thinking of our heart as a garden that only grows as I open it for love is the most lovely thing I can think of, and it was a beautiful meditation to start my morning with.

Thank.you 🌼

Come and pick a beautiful flower in the garden of my heart! It is nourished with love!

Beautiful loving kindness meditation from the great teacher Ayya Khema.

Beautiful meta mediation. I return to this often for grounding and to strengthen my compassion

Simple yes powerful metta mediation. I found it calming and easy to follow each visualisation. Have added to my favourites. Many thanks 🙏

Vielen Dank für diese Aufzeichnung. Eine der wertvollsten Metta Meditationen auf dieser Plattform.

Beautiful! Thank you 🌺🐞🌹🌱⚘️🌷🌼🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 the flowers of my heart 🙂

I finished this with the biggest grin on my face, and felt such enormous love in my heart. Even after I offered bouquets and flowers to anyone I could think of. Om.

Beautiful.

One of the most beautiful Metta meditation I followed through this year. So grateful to find this precious track. Thank you so much. I feel abundant 🌺

Beautiful, thank you for this guidance back to love.

So beautiful. I listen to a lot of guided meditations and I live most of them most of the time but this one is special. I am changed. Thank you.

Love this version of metta. Really brought a sense of heartful opening. I shall use this again 🙏

I cried. Such a lovely pratice. Thank you!
At the final seconds I see myself on a big flowers and the ones I invited are also on the big flowers. The flowers keep growing and mix witj the clouds. There are rainbows sparkling with beautiful colors everywhere.

This is so beautiful and calming meditation. Thank you very much 🙏🏻🤍🕊

Giving state of mind supports one's own ability to help others helping to self doubt with self worth🕉 thx

Beautiful imagery that helped me to remember that when I start with love, I will end with love.