Beloved Buddhist nun Ayya Khema expertly guides the reader through ten
meditations on generating loving-kindness and cultivating the fifteen
wholesome qualities necessary for igniting compassion and boundless
love.
Having escaped Nazi Germany in 1938, Ayya Khema has singularly profound
perspective on creating peace, unconditional love, and compassion. She
gently teaches that inner peace is not necessarily natural or innate.
Instead, peace should be considered a skill that needs intentional
practice--every day. Peace is the sum of many parts, namely the fifteen
wholesome qualities the Buddha himself noted in the Metta Sutta,
including usefulness, mildness, humility, contentment, receptivity, and
others. Ayya Khema expertly guides us through each individual condition,
using her trademark humor and personal narrative, to help each reader
shape their own path to self-transformation.
The second part of the book includes an eye-opening discussion of metta
(loving-kindness) as both a morality and concentration practice, as well
as ten meditation practices that use visualizations rather than more
traditional mantra repetition. These visualizations include your heart
as a Fountain of Love, reaching those close to you and those far away,
and a Flower Garden, where we tend to the blooms in our hearts through
love and compassion and share them with others. Edited by her student
and retreat leader, Leigh Brasington, this book is a complete course in
practical ways to calm and brighten our minds.
