It very well might be the best.

Spring has its hundred flowers,
Autumn has its many moons.
Summer has cool winds,
Winter its snow.
If useless thoughts do not
Cloud your mind,
Each day is the best of your life.
- Wu-Men-Hui-Kai (1183–1260)

And tonight there's an extra hour to be the best in a new moon filled with emptiness.

My best feels a little desolate in new darkness.

Tumbling down the mountain.

The sounds of streams
Are Buddha's speech.
The colored mountains
Are Buddha's pure body.
Night brings eighty-four thousand
Poems of Buddha.
Listen, and someday you may awaken.
- Su Shih (1031-1101)

Connections without contrivance or controversy.

We dedicate the space newly constructed last year in honor of Raimon Panikkar. It is now to be known as:

THE RAIMON PANIKKAR CONVERSATION KITCHEN.

We like him. He died in August of this year. He has inspired us for a while now.

And while now, we want his inclusive, expansive way of seeing and saying things to continue to inspire the conversations taking place around the firebox.

“...[T]he indivisible reality of love is the only True Self.”
(--Cynthia Bourgeault in The Wisdom Jesus, p.32)

And Panikkar:

God is always God for the world, and if the conception of the world has changed so radically in our times, there is little wonder that the notion of God is undergoing a corresponding change.
(-in Christophany, the Fullness of Man.)

Nishitani called it circumincessional interpenetration.

A profound and corresponding change.

Nobody saw it coming.
It came.
Yesterday's elections.
Can you see where it is going?

All Souls.

They must know, by now, what Raimon Panikkar's thinking is revealing.

What for long has driven and unified Panikkar's thinking has been his cosmotheandric vision of reality, what he calls the "trinity" of cosmic matter, human consciousness, and divine presence in co-constitutive relationality. These three basic and irreducible dimensions of reality interpenetrate one another and only exist in relation to one another:

There is a kind of perichoresis, "dwelling within one another," of these three dimensions of Reality: the Divine, the Human, and the Cosmic. 3

And then again:

There is no matter without spirit and no spirit without matter, no World without Man, no God without the universe, etc. God, Man, and World are three artificial substantivized forms of the three primordial adjectives which describe Reality. 4

(from Foreword, written by Joseph Prabhu, to Raimon Panikkar's The Rhythm of Being: The Gifford Lectures, p.xvii.

Footnotes:

3. Panikkar, "The Myth of Pluralism: The Tower of Babel - A meditation on Non-Violence," Cross Currents 29, no.2 {1979}: 214-16.)

4. Panikkar, "Philosophy as Lifestyle," in Philosophers on Their Own Work {Berne: Peter Lang, 1978}, 206.)

Wonderfully worded!

As is each soul.

Nov.2nd is election day. It is All Soul's Day. We might consider electing dead souls.

Some might call that business and money as usual.

May the politicians and the faithful departed rest in peace!

To be faithful you must have attended your life on earth.

My mind is inclined to quiet;
Outside of things,
I lodge in the brush.
The sense of the mountains is best
When you reach their depths;
The source of the valley stream, distant,
Is naturally purified.
For the rest of my life,
All that's missing is death;
All thoughts and worries
Are settled already.
Recluses should leave no tracks;
People stop asking their names.
- Wen-siang (1210-1280)

Ama nesciri -- love, to be, unknown.

And unknowing.

Go ahead. Vote.

Count.

Saints preserve us!

That's not a petition. It is a declarative. Saints declare true relationality, preserving 'us.'

Mountain of Samadhi

This mountain has neither
ugly rocks nor clumsy trees.
It raises itself ten thousand feet
towards the cold heaven.
Even a stray cloud does not
cling around the mountain.
Only the moon showers its
pale light abundantly over the summit.
- Jakushitsu (1290-1368)

Be patient. It's only your mind that wishes you not to be your true self. That will change.

Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints. But our dispositions change. The Church of all the first followers of Christ awaits us, but we do nothing about it. The saints want us to be with them, and we are indifferent. The souls of the just await us, and we ignore them.
Come, brothers, let us at length spur ourselves on. We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven. Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us. We should not only want to be with the saints, we should also hope to possess their happiness. While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory.
( from A sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot. Let us make haste to our brethren who are awaiting us; Office of Readings, All Saints Day)

I opt for clear sight.

Leave the reunion to those who want such reunions.

I'll take the empty room when all have moved on.

This thinnest night of the year.

Bon voyage!