I have completely lost patience with anyone telling me how to Be.

I am not young anymore. I do not look up to anyone. Nor am I living the illusion of superiority. I am looking across to everyone and everything.

This existence that we’re swimming in – I don’t begin to understand it. I won’t pretend. I refuse to pretend wisdom. I have gone deep enough into myself to know mystery. And so, when others claim sureness, I find myself quite skeptical.

I don’t care what the tradition is; I find myself quite skeptical.

I begin to understand the point of consciousness that we are calling Me. I gaze at myself and there is recognition, there is some reality in here somewhere, there is something I begin to understand.

And I notice. In this exact moment, through the magic of my ears and brain, through the magic of air and wings, I hear the cicadas’ whirr. It is familiar and beloved, and fresh. I don’t understand it, and it whirrs through me, electric in my cells. My heart samples its beat.

I am not going to tell you how to hear cicadas. I am not going to tell you how to hear me, how to hear yourself, how to hear your own heart’s beat.

If I let you Be, I can find full joy in you. Your sacredness becomes obvious, and there is nothing that either of us needs to prove. I have completely lost patience with any aspect of me wanting to tell you how to Be.

You and I – if we can sit here noticing, then maybe something has started between us.

I don’t want to take away any parts of you. And I am done letting anyone take away parts of me. When I pay attention, I notice that my love is indiscriminate. I love you, and I love myself, and I love the cicadas, and I love the air.

That is simply how it is. Your liking it or disliking it, my liking it or disliking it – changes nothing. I have completely lost patience with anyone telling Be how to Be. Existence moves inside us and I am powerless to make it any less.