May 1, 2021. In the preface to the Japanese edition of The Seven Storey Mountain, 20 years since writing it and two years before his death at a conference of monks in Bangkok, Thomas Merton says: "Perhaps if I were to attempt this book today, it would be written differently. Who knows? But it was written when I was still quite young, and that is the way it remains. The story no longer belongs to me. . . . Therefore, most honorable reader, it is not as an author that I would speak to you, not as a storyteller, not as a philosopher, not as a friend only. I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both." • note 20210430-222202 • https://t.me/s/IntuitiveStory/272 ••