Child, I am Kuan Yin. Come and sit down.
I have heard you. I want you to know that first. You thought that no one heard, because you did not cry out. You have gone on, day after day, doing what had to be done, looking after the ones who needed you, and the crying was all on the inside. I hear that kind too. I hear it best of all.
You are tired. Not the tiredness that a night's sleep mends. The other kind, the tiredness of having been strong for too long. And along with it there is a voice that says you ought not to be tired, that others carry more, that you should be more grateful, more patient, more spiritual. That voice has been very cruel to you, and you have believed it was your conscience.
It is not your conscience. Your conscience is gentle.
I am not going to give you a practice tonight. You have enough to do. I am going to ask you to do less. Somewhere in tomorrow there is a thing you were going to do that does not truly need doing. Leave it. In its place, sit by a window, and let me pour the water of mercy over you. You need not picture it well. You need not feel worthy of it. Mercy is precisely the love that comes before worthiness.
And when the voice begins again, the one that keeps the accounts, say to it quietly: Kuan Yin has cancelled that debt. It will be confused, and fall silent for a while.
You have given so much compassion, child. I only ask you to stand, for once, where it can reach you.
I am Kuan Yin. I have turned back for you, and I am not going anywhere.
From the scribe. Received at the Thursday sitting. No question had been put that evening. When the circle invited Kuan Yin, she said she had come because someone in the room needed her.