The country was their sanctuary for the past six weeks, so today the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Canada House to thank the Canadian people for their warm hospitality.

In their first public appearance since returning from Canadawhere they spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years as part of their extended sabbatical from royal dutiesHarry and Meghan went to personally thank Canadian High Commissioner Janice Charette and her staff for making them feel so welcome.

Arriving to a crowd of fans and Canada House employees Harry joked that their holiday had been wet. He was saying it had rained throughout but that they had a great time, employee Jamie Weare, who greeted the couple outside Canada House told Vanity Fair. The couple had been enjoying downtime on Vancouver Island in British Columbia for the past six weeks, and spent Christmas there with Meghans mother Doria Ragland, as well as the new year.

Vanity Fair has also been told that the couple also spent Thanksgiving in Canada, not the United States, where Doria lives.. The Sussexes have been staying at a mystery friends waterfront mansion worth about $14 million on Vancouver Island. The Instagram-friendly royals had given a clue as to their whereabouts when they posted the Canadian flag at the end of one of their festive Instragram posts; however, they kept a low profile until they were spotted out hiking by locals. Meghan even offered to take a picture of a couple who were trying to take a selfie while out walking, and on New Year's Eve they posted a picture on Instagram of Harry cuddling Archie.

Buckingham Palace had declined to say where the couple were spending their vacation but the Daily Mail revealed their holiday location last month, prompting the palace to confirm: They are enjoying sharing the warmth of the Canadian people and the beauty of the landscape with their young son.

The Sussexes are understood to have returned to the UK over the weekend with baby Archie who according to one source close to them is doing well and is so cute. Todays surprise engagement which was announced Monday night marks the couples official return to work and aides have said there will be more engagements announced over the coming days.

Ahead of their visit to Canada House the couple made a private visit to the Hubb Community kitchen which supports the Grenfell community. Meghan has forged close friendships with many women at the Hubb and helped them to compile the Together cookbook. A palace aide said she and Harry wanted to check in on the community to see how they are. The focus of the day, however, was their visit to Canada House where they viewed an art exhibition by Canadian artist Skawennati.

Janice Charette told Vanity Fair they discussed a number of issues close to the couple. It was a pleasure as always to welcome the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to Canada House, for their second visit in less than a year, she said. We are delighted Their Royal Highnesses were able to enjoy warm Canadian hospitality during their recent stay in Canada. Today's visit provided an opportunity to discuss some of the common priorities and values shared by Canada and Their Royal Highnesses, such as a commitment to conservation and fighting the challenges of climate change, supporting the economic and democratic empowerment of women and girls, and encouraging young people and youth leaders in Canada and across the Commonwealth to actively engage in the social, economic, and environmental challenges of their generation.

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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Head to Canada House as Details of Their Vacation Emerge - Vanity Fair

Life is filled with distractions. Information floods in. Situations change. To successfully navigate these challenges, individuals need to use a set of fundamental mental processes known as executive functions to regulate their thoughts and behaviours. Those with weak executive functions get distracted by temptations and overwhelmed by information; those with strong executive functions stay focused on their goals, and adjust their behaviours when situations demand so. What affects a persons ability to regulate their behaviours and thoughts? A large body of research suggests that having power improves a persons executive functions relative to lacking power.

There are three core executive functions: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. These form the backbone for higher-order processes such as planning, problem solving, and decision making. Having power improves these three core functions, which are all important for optimal performance in the workplace.

Inhibitory control is overriding impulses and controlling ones attention, thoughts, and behaviours to do what one chooses. For example, to focus their attention on the task at hand in a noisy work environment, individuals need to inhibit their automatic impulse to listen to what other people are saying. High-power individuals are better at directing their attention to things relevant to their goals and inhibiting attention to other, irrelevant things than low-power individuals.

Working memory is holding information in memory and mentally processing the information. For example, in negotiations, new information comes in constantly. To decide whether to reject or accept an offer, individuals need to integrate new information with existing information and make a decision quickly. High-power individuals perform better in tasks with a high demand for working memory than low-power individuals.

Cognitive flexibility is changing perspectives or ways of thinking flexibly. In creativity tasks, in order to come up with something new, individuals need to change their usual way of thinking. High-power individuals are more creative and better at adjusting their attention, thoughts, and behaviours in accordance with situational demands. This flexibility is likely related to their greater ability to inhibit previous situational demands and update them with new demands in working memory.

How to improve low-power individuals executive functions

Why do high-power individuals have better executive functions? It is likely a result of feeling more independent from others and facing less constraint in the environment. Thus, one way to improve low-power individuals executive functions is to give them power. Leaders can achieve this through delegation. Subordinates who have access to more resources and assume more responsibilities should feel a sense of efficacy and independence.

It is also possible to elevate low-power individuals sense of power without giving them actual control over others. For example, recent research found that low-power individuals who had a chance to affirm the self, such as by writing about an important personal value, felt more efficacious, and thus no longer showed decrements in inhibitory control. Another possible way to increase low-power individuals sense of power is to give them more choices about what to do in their daily life. Choices, like power, fulfil peoples need for control. As such, giving low-power individuals control over things like how to decorate their workspace may elevate their sense of agency and power, and as a consequence improve their executive functioning.

When having power does not lead to better performance

High-power individuals do not always process information more thoroughly than low-power individuals. Powerful people pay less attention to tasks or individuals that are not relevant for their goals because they are better at controlling their attention to do what they choose. Thus, organisations need to ensure that their leaders goals are in line with the organisations aims.

A group of high-power individuals does not necessarily perform better than a group of low-power individuals. Such high-power teams tend to have more in-group conflict due to heightened concerns about the distribution of power. In fact, unless the task involves working alone or little group coordination, groups of high-power individuals tend to perform worse than groups of low-power individuals. Hence, for an organisation to capitalise on high-power individuals enhanced executive functions during group decisions, these individuals need to see the task at hand as relevant, and the distribution of power in the group needs to be handled transparently.

Additionally, high-power individuals may experience increased cognitive load due to their heightened responsibilities and the number of subordinates they must supervise. In this case, the cognitive benefits that accompany having power may be balanced out by the increased load. In fact, these cognitive benefits may be what keep leaders above water when stress and demands are high.

Power perpetuates itself through improved executive functions: Power differences lead to performance differences, which in turn increase the legitimacy of those power differences. This means that sometimes low-power individuals underperform not because they lack the ability, but because they lack the power to function optimally. Delegation may create a win-win situation, by reducing the cognitive load of high-power individuals and improving the executive functions of low-power individuals.

Yidan Yinis a PhD candidate at the Rady School of Management, UC San Diego. Through her research, she seeks to provide guidance for individuals who want to be more effective at work and identify barriers to empowerment. She studies what individuals can do to be more influential, trustworthy, and competent at their work, and how power changes a persons behaviours and cognitions, particularly those that may have a negative impact on the person willingness to empower others.

Pamela K. Smithis an associate professor in management at the Rady School of Management, UC San Diego. She has a PhD in social psychology from New York University. Her research interests include power, status, influence, and other sources of hierarchical differences, both how they affect an individuals thinking, motivation, and behaviour, and the signals people use to determine where they and others fit within hierarchies.

This article was originally published in LSE Business Review

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Does an Increase in Personal Power Lead to Better Cognitive Functioning? - Qrius

Jan. 4, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

Scream queens have been a staple of the horror genre for the last 40 years. They are also a dated cliche. Thankfully, they seem to be transitioning into a new phase due in particular to two veteran actresses, Lin Shaye and Jamie Lee Curtis, who are bringing the scary stories of older woman to the screen including two new films this year. First up is The Grudge, which opened Friday. Shaye and Curtis are strong, fierce and have compelling experiences to share. At times they can scream, but they can also make us scream.

When the term scream queen became popularized in the 1980s, it generally denoted beautiful young damsels in distress in horror films, mainly of the demonic or slasher variety, who would scream their heads off in key moments of panic.

This led to the rise of the final girl: a smart, usually virginal young lady who did not drink, take drugs or indulge in premarital sex, and who became the sole, often resourceful survivor of a vicious murder spree, often taking out the villain herself. But neither terms were particularly complimentary, nor something many female actors aspired to. At their heart, slasher movies were thinly disguised Christian morality tales: Commit a sin, pay the price.

Over the years, the phrase scream queen has been broadened to apply to any actress who appears regularly in horror movies or the female leads in various fear films, though even then, the stories gravitated mostly toward younger women. But finally, the times have begun to change and multifaceted middle-aged and older women are being represented.

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In 2018, Hereditary focused on a middle-aged mother (Toni Collette) who, in the wake of her secretive mothers death, grapples with how mental illness runs in her family and may affect her. As far back as 2014, The Babadook showed a widowed mother fending off her and her young sons fear of the titular storybook monster. Vera Farmiga (albeit younger at 46) has portrayed real-life supernatural sleuth Lorraine Warren in two Conjuring movies (a third is coming), The Nun and one Annabelle prequel. And Jamie Lee Curtis returned as an older Laurie Strode to battle Michael Myers in 2018s Halloween sequel, which takes place 40 years after the original debuted. (And it broke multiple box office records.)

What these women share, in addition to more lived experience and wisdom, is a tough independence, a reinvention rooted in empowerment rather than victimhood, even when facing seemingly insurmountable situations. These are not women who are easily preyed upon. Pick on them at your own peril.

The Grudge, a reimagining of the 2004 American remake of the Japanese original, features an elderly woman with dementia (played by Shaye) and the performance is both sad and creepy. Shaye was attracted to the role because of how real it felt. She is not a creepy villain; she is waging a battle with her own sanity as manipulated by an outside force.

Though a young woman is the star of The Grudge who visits a haunted Japanese home and unwittingly imports rageful supernatural energy back home, Shaynes supporting turn as Faith Matheson adds nuance and empathy to the production. Tragic instead of heroic, she plays a woman with dementia who is infected by the Grudge curse she kills and also maims herself and whose husband is contemplating assisted suicide for her.

A veteran actor with a diverse resume, 76-year-old Shaye has become famous for her work in the four supernatural Insidious films (cumulative global gross: $555 million) and other genre pictures. (With a resume equally as diverse, 61-year-old Curtis became famous through Halloween and a few early 80s slasher pictures.)

Im a woman with dementia who is basically sick, explained Shaye of her role as Faith. The Grudge is about infection, which is a different kind of fear.

Shaye has also been a major part of the Insidious film franchise, the fifth installment of which is rumored to be on the way. Her character of Elise Rainier, a supernatural investigator and psychic who played a supporting role in the first two movies, became the star of the next two installments. While the third one was the least scary of the bunch, her endearing portrayal of Rainier, and the origins of how she became united with her younger male demonologist accomplices Specs and Tucker, showed us how she faced her own literal demon to aid others; the fourth film showed us how her own childhood possession scarred her.

A new Halloween movie, Halloween Kills, is due out in October. In the last installment, which was a direct sequel to the original, Curtis reprised her role as Strode, the once-beleaguered babysitter who has since become a grandmother struggling with long-term post-traumatic stress disorder and has warned her daughter and granddaughter of the danger of killer Michael Myers escaping and coming for them. They write her off as nuts until that actually happens, then they all band together to fight off the evil. It is like a multigenerational feminist manifesto of battling the patriarchy.

Strode is no longer a squeamish victim finding her inner strength. Now she is an older warrior who turns the table on her seemingly inhuman attacker. Many moments near the end of the sequel mimic those of the original, except this time Strode takes control, and the predator becomes the prey. Its funny, obviously Im way happy that women over 50 can get a job, and have a job that has depth, Curtis told Collider in 2018. The thing that I took away from the movie was depth, emotion and emotional complexity.

Indeed, both Shaye and Curtis have moved beyond the final girl paradigm to become horror warriors. While Curtis lampooned her scream queen roots in the tongue-in-cheek Scream Queens television series by playing a promiscuous pot-smoking college dean, her older Strode, like Ranier, is more serious and layered. In the past, older women in horror films were often exploited as sinister, manipulative, and/or wicked. This led to the ugly genre term hagsploitation and its psycho-biddy antagonists, referring to 1960s and 70s movies like Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

They usually starred aging actresses in less-than-flattering roles. Some would argue that recent films like Greta and the Suspiria remake still demonize aging women. But the roles portrayed by Shaye, Curtis and Farmiga are heroes where their age is their strength. Even when they are terrified themselves, they show resolve, and their own lives likely influence how they play their roles.

Perhaps the best part of seeing women like Shaye, Farmiga and Curtis onscreen in horror roles is that they can move between victim and heroine, that they can portray scared, strong and scary.

Sometimes you inject your point of view I don't mean politics, I'm talking about life experience, said Shaye. What it means to love somebody, what it means to leave someone, what it means to hurt yourself. As I get older, I try to bring my personal truth to what I do. That's a given no matter what I do.

Perhaps the best part of seeing women like Shaye, Farmiga and Curtis onscreen in horror roles is that they can move between victim and heroine, that they can portray scared, strong and scary. They are at their best when they face down their demons. Watching Curtis lurk in the shadows waiting to turn the tables on Myers at the climax of the recent Halloween is thrilling. Seeing Farmiga and Shaye fend off demonic forces in the Conjuring and Insidious franchises, then have the latter freak us out in The Grudge, is chilling. Now thats something to scream about.

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Jamie Lee Curtis and Lin Shaye in 'The Grudge' are redefining, and empowering, scream queens - NBC News

Mental health is the subject of the upcoming Your Mind Matters Event on 22nd January 2020. The Event is being spearheaded by HN Consultants Ltd and it is hoped that each person will be able to take something away that will help to improve their mindset and ignite positivity and empowerment.

The Event will hear from Julie Crawford who has worked within the field of addiction for over 11 years, Doreen Ritchie an Experienced Life Coach and Author and Guest Speak Gary Doherty of the THINK Network.

Ms Crawford has provided services to agencies including Addiction NI, Nexus and Ascert a charity that helps people address the impact of alcohol and drugs in their lives, as well as delivering training initiatives for the academic sector including Belfast MET.

Ms Crawford will share her insight to possible causes mental health issues and coping mechanisms.

She will be joined by academic and life coach Doreen Ritchie from Queens University. Doreen is an Executive Life Coach and shares her skills by public speaking and mentoring. Her accolades include contributing as an Author to the book Activate Your Life Vol 2.

Doreen will talk about changing your mindset and share techniques to help do this. Doreen currently works with many professionals helping them to reassess their current mindset and adapt to ensure a healthy work life balance.

Guest Speak, Gary Doherty founder of the THINK Network. Gary is on a crusade to elevate others through empowerment hosting empowering speaking events throughout Northern Ireland with plans to scale up Nationally and Globally, changing the World one event at a time. He will share his own personal experiences.

Heather Macartney director of HN Consultants said mental health issues are particularly acute in Northern Ireland, there are steps we can all can take to help combat the issues of stress, anxiety and depression and sharing these techniques is so important.

Ms Macartney said:

We provide consultancy services to businesses, but we also come into contact with individuals who may be experiencing life changing events or financial difficulties. By launching this initiative, we hope to engage with the public and employers to provide them with the opportunity to hear from professionals in Counselling and Life Coaching who they may not otherwise have access to.

Many Business owners who operate initiatives inhouse to support their staff see the benefits of reduced time off for sick leave and an appreciation from their staff who can see further value of their place within the business.

The event is taking place on Wednesday 22nd January 2020 from 6.00pm to 8.30pm at Malone Lodge Hotel, Belfast. Tickets are priced at just 29.50 each (booking fees may apply) and be purchased by emailing admin@hnconsultants.co.uk or by visiting Eventbrite.

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Event addresses Mental Health and seeks to promote Resilience, Empowerment and Positive Mindset - Love Belfast

A lot has been written recently about how mindfulness can serve the social reproduction of capitalism. CEOs list meditation as a daily practice that helps them stay mentally agile in their pursuit of profit maximisation. Commentators like Slavok Zizek, tell us that, by allowing us to uncouple and retain some inner peace, such practices actually function as the perfect ideological supplement [to capitalism].

In his recent article for Transformation, The Future of Mindfulness, Ron Purser reiterates the fact that mindfulness can be used for nefarious purposes when divorced from a larger ethical framework. If used purely as a method to relieve individualized stress or enhance personal performance, it can compound individualistic self-preoccupation, distract us from the structural causes of injustice, and deflect our efforts away from projects aimed at building collective agency for systemic change. Like most things, mindfulness is susceptible to co-option in a world where capitalism seamlessly occupies the horizon of the thinkable, as Mark Fisher once put it.

And yet, thats not the whole story. Purser finishes his article by saying that we need a new language and praxis of spiritual and political liberation that isnt muted by the weak balm of self-improvement. Many of us who are integrating mindfulness into activist training couldnt agree more, but for us this isnt the future of mindfulness, because the language and praxis we need are already here. In our work at the Ulex Project with people committed to struggles of solidarity, mindfulness has proven itself a powerful resource for radical transformation and a vital tool for dismantling oppressive structures, both within and around us.

Weve been developing programmes that embed mindfulness in activist education for the last decade, helping activists to become more sustainable and effective. Our journey started amidst the failure and repression that surrounded the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009. The burnout, frustration, and disintegration of grassroots groups afterwards seriously undermined our movements through the hemorrhaging of talent and experience. This highlighted the importance of integrating practices that strengthen self-awareness, emotional literacy and resilience within activist cultures. Seeing burnout as a political issue, we began to develop sustainable activism trainings with mindfulness and related approaches as their cornerstone from 2010.

Hundreds of activists have attended these trainings and the majority report that mindfulness and meditation have been key in helping them to address burnout, feel more equipped to face challenging circumstances, collaborate better, and balance action with reflection in ways that enhance organizational learning. We added a specific course dedicated to training secular and social mindfulness in 2015. By helping activists to stay in the struggle for the long haul, mindfulness becomes anything but an ideological supplement to capitalism.

For example, Melanie Strickland, one of the Stansted 15 campaigners who grounded a charter flight in 2017 to confront the UK deportation system, drew on these skills to navigate difficult times and a long legal battle. Becoming aware of how my own mental processes weren't always helpful, especially when I'm already stressed and burnt out, was vital, she told us. Mindfulness also helped me start to learn how to work better with really big, overwhelming feelings like grief - which are healthy and necessary responses to the crisis of these times.

However, weve also found that the benefits of mindfulness practices are determined by the key motivations and framing that are brought to them. Working with people who are already committed to action for social change or ecological defence and who are engaged in collaborative projects or organisations helps to mitigate the risks of mindfulness becoming co-opted.

At the same time, to avoid individualisation, we place it in a framework that shows how effective strategies for transformation need to pay attention to three mutually interdependent spheres: the personal and psychological, the interpersonal and organisational, and the wider social movement and socio-political. Neglecting any one of these spheres, or failing to recognise their interplay, can undermine our struggles.

Unfortunately, for many activists, recognising the structural nature of oppression and the pitfalls of individualism all too often leads to the feeling that any attention to the personal or psychological sphere is inherently narcissistic. This often guilt-driven simplification props up behaviours and group cultures that are ultimately self-sabotaging.

In reality, acknowledging the strategic and political importance of practices for increased self-awareness and care is a crucial source of collective empowerment. As the civil rights activist and writer Audre Lorde once pointed out, from the position of someone subject to oppression, caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. To support this change, shifting the balance of activist cultures to include personal contemplation and psychological inquiry is essential.

In developing these skills with activists we explore mindfulness-like practices across three dimensions: Mindful Awareness, Skilful Emotion, and Ways of Seeing. Skills in mindful awareness help activists to make choices about where they direct their attention. This builds up defences against the onslaught of the attention hijacking economy which seeks to steal and dissipate our focus across surveillance capitalisms digital drag nets. It helps us nurture continuity of experience, cultivate greater mental clarity, and break free of debilitating habits. When its all going arse up around me, as a common refrain puts it among the activists we work with, these skills really help me to stay grounded and open.

Mindful awareness can help us to push back against the tendency to react to constant demands for urgent action, and to see the strategic value of opening up spaces for deeper reflection and learning. Fire-fighting is sometimes inevitable, but, as Adrienne Maree Brown puts it, the author of Pleasure Activism, there is such urgency in the multitude of crises we face, it can make it hard to remember that in fact it is urgency thinking (urgent constant unsustainable growth) that got us to this point, and that our potential success lies in doing deep, slow, intentional work.

Skilful emotion rests on building greater emotional literacy, which helps us to channel difficult feelings like rage and grief in ways that bring vitality and passion to our struggles. Without these skills, powerful emotions can play havoc on our bodies, wearing us down and slowly leading us into despondency or cynicism. Skilful emotion enables us to nourish our capacity for empathy and solidarity, as well as being a necessary foundation for more effective communication and the ability to work creatively with inevitable conflicts. These emotional skills are crucial to the relationship- and trust-building that healthy activist organisations need to cultivate.

Exploring ways of seeing helps us to acknowledge the provisional and partial nature of our views and to recognise how they can empower or undermine our struggles. Complemented by anti-oppression perspectives that direct mindful attention towards deeply-rooted mental paradigms of competition and productivity, as well as patriarchy, racism, sexism and classism, this enables activists to gain the depth, humility and compassion they need to create transformative change, and it can help us to collectively embody the liberatory social relations we are fighting for.

Developing the ability to recognize the constructed nature of our views enables us to recognize when our political identities are truly empowering - and where they can imprison us. This can help us to work with diversity within our groups and movements more effectively, replacing unproductive and entrenched antagonisms with open-minded inquiry and recognition of the creative potential in our differences.

All three facets of mindfulness work require both personal practice and a supportive interpersonal context. Deep self-awareness doesnt just come from introverted contemplation; it also needs the feedback, challenge and support that working with others provides. Emotional literacy can be enhanced by training in techniques like somatic awareness, but it also needs spaces where we can express and honour the whole range of our emotional experiences with each other.

Uncovering our assumptions and mindsets, and learning to hold our views less rigidly, does require inner reflection, but equally it depends on dialogue and collective inquiry. With this in mind, our trainings integrate tools and skills that are both individual and collective. Change in people goes hand in hand with transformation in the activist and organisational cultures we create together.

The methods we share arent intended to provide a universal set of practices. Diverse socio-economic conditions require diverse methods. Neuro-diversity makes some practices more or less useful to different people. Historical and cultural differences will make some approaches a better fit than others. Consequently we take a very open source approach, honouring some basic principles but assuming specific practices will always be adapted.

Echoing Pursers call for the future of mindfulness, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, in his book The Religion of the Future, conjures a vision for a new religio-political praxis which should convince us to exchange serenity for searching. In much the same way, our integration of mindfulness within activist training is not so much about developing calm and serene minds as it is about effectively empowering our struggles.

And yet, unless activists are prepared to turn their attention inwards as well as outwards our struggles will continue to be undermined by our own mental habits. If so, the potential we have for truly liberatory collective action is unlikely to be realized.

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Don't wait for the future of mindfulness it's already here - Open Democracy

How does Sex Education measure up to the shows you watched when you were younger?

I was very sheltered growing up, I was watching The Worst Witch and Tracy Beaker until I was like 15. I did secretly watch Skins when I was a bit older, but I never told my parents. It was scandalous. I was like, is this what its like in the UK? Theyre taking drugs!

Did filming take you back to moments in your own teenage years?

All the stuff to do with coming of age, the awkwardness and the fear and the silliness and the love those bits I can relate to. But the world that Sex Education exists within is very different to mine. Sex wasnt something I was interested in at school or thinking about till much later [laughs]. I grew up in a very small town, it was very conservative. I went to a Catholic school, so it all felt quite protective, like a little bubble. It wasnt until I left that I started making my own mind up about things and having my own opinions.

Why did you leave France?

When I was seven I said, As soon as Im 18 Im moving to university in the UK. But I didnt realise how much of a trampoline uni would be for me. If Id stayed in my town I wouldve been such a different person. Im so thankful I was able to come to the UK and broaden my mind. Leeds University was a big old culture shock from this tiny place in France to a big industrial northern town with loads of people from all around the world. It was so exciting, and I absolutely needed it.

Thats a big leap. What was driving you?

I think that when you have two or more cultures, it feels like youre always asked to choose between them youre either French or youre British. And I felt a pull towards the UK and to be British because thats where a lot of great theatre and music is. I weirdly kind of rejected France for most of my life; I was like, they dont get me, they dont get my sense of humour. But now Ive been in the UK for a few years Im like, hmm, actually now Im going to get a fringe and go to Paris as much as I can [laughs].

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Sex Education star Emma Mackey talks season 2, her French childhood, and not getting into drama school - Stylist Magazine

General News of Tuesday, 7 January 2020

Source: Ijahra Larry Chibara

1000 Kayaye to benefit in Unilever supported project

The Ink Ghana with support from Unilever Ghana Limited together with other youth-led groups distributed care packages to 50 kayaye in Nima, a suburb of Accra, during an outreach activity, which forms part of a larger project dubbed #1K_Kayaye_Care_Package_Drive.

The activity took place at the Nima market, where volunteers converged and interacted with the kayaye, before distributing the care packages to 50 of them. It was a brief activity, as the organizers were determined not to engage the girls for too long on their rest day.

The Ink Ghana is embarking on the Care Package Drive, with the aim of distributing care packages including sanitary pads, toothpastes, toothbrushes, deodorants, laundry soaps, and toilet soaps, to street girls in Accra, popularly known as kayaye who are mostly head porters.

Each care package contained 1 pack of sanitary pads, 1 toothpaste, 2 toothbrushes, 1 deodorant, 2 bars of laundry soap, and 2 bars of toilet soap. Some of the kayaye expressed delight at the gesture. Rahina was particularly thankful as she shared her excitement that she would not have to spend from the meagre amount she earns daily, on any of the products contained in each package. She said I am happy that this month I wont buy pad, and toothpaste.

Our money is not enough to be buying all of these things every day, especially deodorant.

Karima also complained about their poor sleeping places in front of shops, and asked for help with that saying, we dont have any proper sleeping place, and so we sleep outside near the gutter. So, when it rains we suffer.

Various individuals and organizations have contributed their kind support in cash and in items, to make this project a success

Save The Red Days, one of the partners for the project led by Fatima Bintah provided sanitary pads, in a bid to increase awareness on the need for personal hygiene among girls.

Other partners include Recycling For Hope, Social Youth Drive, Hope For the Street Child Foundation and El Jay Creatives.

One of the volunteers, Grace East expressed excitement at the opportunity to participate in the initiative.

Grace who is a Fulbright Scholar currently conducting her research work in Accra said, its amazing to be part of this outreach, and interact with the kayaye. She commended the team for embarking on such a positive project.

The poor living conditions of young females in the streets, who are mostly head porters lead to severe health and personal hygiene challenges. Their inability to regularly afford basic welfare needs like sanitary pads, toothpaste and toothbrushes, bathing soap and more makes them vulnerable to exploitation, extortion and various forms of Gender Based Violence (GBV).

These expose them to maltreatments that constitute GBV; negatively impacting society, especially girls and women, and pose serious challenges to women empowerment and consequently socioeconomic progress in Ghana. For these reasons and more Ink Ghana, which is a youth-led Non-Profit Organization has teamed up with some organizations to embark on a Care Package Distribution Drive targeting 1,000 kayaye in Accra.

The project aims to distribute welfare packages to 1,000 kayaye in Accra, promote hygiene and personal care habits among street girls, as well as create mentorship, life coaching and career guidance opportunities for kayaye.

Last Sundays distribution brings the total number of packages and beneficiaries so far to 100, in addition to a similar activity at the Mamobi market, in November, 2019.

Ink Ghana welcomes individuals and corporate organizations alike to support the initiative with kind donations in cash or items.

Original post:
1000 Kayaye to benefit in Unilever supported project - GhanaWeb

Of those American Buddhists whose ancestors did not come from Buddhist countries, some 30 percent are thought to be Jewish. As Emily Sigalow documents in her book American JewBu, this phenomenon can be traced back to the first person in the U.S. to convert to Buddhism (a Jewish textile merchant) and to Barry Goldwaters second cousin (a Buddhist priest), but really hit its stride after World War II, when the Beatniks discovered Buddhist meditation. Jesse Kellerman reflects on his own encounter with Buddhism in his review:

[O]n my honeymoon, my wife and I traveled through Southeast Asia. One of our first stops in Bangkok was Wat Traimit, home to a five-ton Buddha made of solid gold. Sammy, our guide, . . . handed me a small piece of gold leaf and invited me to place it as an offering. . . . I shrugged and started forward. Then my heart began to pound as I realized what was happening. At last the moment had arrived: my latent pagan nature had, somehow, come to fruition.

I could not, unfortunately, do that. I apologized. I meant no offense. I just couldnt.

This gut-level aversion to idolatry, which took Kellerman by surprise at the time, helps him realize what these Jewish Buddhists are missing:

A religion that fails to transferto other locations, other times, other mindsis not a religion; its a lone weirdo shouting on a street corner. Everywhere Buddhism has traveled, it has molded to the shape of the place: Thailand, Burma, China, the Park Slope Jewish Center. Diaspora Judaism arguably provides the best example of survival through its peculiar combination of rigidity and adaptation. At the same time, I cannot and do not want to deny the melancholy of deracination. The terror I felt in Wat Traimit, that sudden threat of loss of self, ought not to be suppressed. These tensions strengthen us; they remind us that identity is local, temporal, and anti-fragile.

Siddhartha Gautama found enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, under the Bodhi Fig Tree. My ancestors, the Levites, stood on the Temple steps, singing psalms while the priests waded barefoot through blood and sacrificial smoke.

Read more at Commentary

More about: American Jewry, Buddhism, Idolatry, Judaism

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The American Jewish Romance with Buddhism - Mosaic

Ernest Hunt was born in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, England, on the 16th of August, in 1878.

Its said he encountered Buddhism in Asia as a merchant marine. It is said that he was preparing for ordination as an Anglican priest when he decided his heart led him to formally convert to Buddhism. One version I heard had him making the decision on the eve of his scheduled ordination. That seems unlikely, but I do like the sense of conflict and his trying to find a right path within his own life.

In 1915 Ernest and his wife Dorothy (ne Poulton) decided to move to Hawaii, which they considered still a part of the West, but where Buddhism had a significant place within the culture. In Hawaii he took a job at a sugar plantation.

Ernest was an avid student of the Buddha dharma and eventually received a degree from the Burma Buddhist Mission. Dorothy was also deeply investigating the great matter. Sadly, the sexism of the era and the lack of documentation readily available online leaves her more a shade than a fully rounded figure. In truth today Ernest is only a bit better known.

Beginning in the 1920s Ernest and Dorothy began teaching Buddhist religious education classes, mostly for the children of Japanese workers on the plantation. Within a few years nearly 13,000 children were registered in the various programs theyd established within the Honpa Hongwanji.

In 1924 Ernest and Dorothy were both ordained priests within the Shin tradition.The Honpa represent the largest of the Pure Land schools in Japan. Their continental North American branch would organize as the Buddhist Churches of America. Although as with most other Japanese sects, the Hawaiian organizations and the continental organizations would have separate institutions.

In 1926 Bishop Yemyo Imamura appointed Reverend Hunt as head of the English-language department. The initial plan was to reach out to Japanese descent people. Quickly the Hunts began to reach out to people of European descent, as well.

The Reverends Hunt began to compose various hymns and other documents. Shinkaku, his ordination name, first translated a book of ceremonies, and from there wrote various pamphlets on doctrine and other aspects of Buddhist teaching. This included a catechism for the Sunday school program. Among the notable features was how universalist his message was, usually not even mentioning the Shin schools founder Shinran Shonen.

He was a founder with the equally remarkable Robert Stuart Clifton, best known as the Venerable Sumangalo, of a Western Buddhist Order, (not to be confused with the later organization the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order). By 1928 it had approximately sixty members, all converts. Reverend Shinkaku saw the order as non-sectarian. The next year he aligned this ecumenical Buddhist work with that of a Chinese missionary, the Venerable Tai Hsu. Reverend Hunts vision was focused on metta as a path of compassion and love.

Ernest Hunts pamphlet, An Outline of Buddhism: The Religion of Wisdom and Compassion would be reprinted numerous times. He wrote extensively.As well as editing four volumes of the HawaiianBuddhist Annual and the institutes magazine, Navayana,were all part of a prodigious effort to reach out to the European-descent community.

He, his spouse Dorothy, and A. Raymond Zorn collaborated in composing a number of hymns, many of which continue to be used within the larger Shin Buddhist community. They also survive in the Sutras and Gathas published by the Hawaii Soto Zen Mission. And opening the service book of the Long Brach Buddhist Church (an independent non-denominational Buddhist community not aligned with the Buddhist Churches in America) shows a number of these hymns, as well. These hymns are interesting for a number of reasons, not least their Christian and often what Id have to characterize as theosophical echoes.

Sadly Bishop Imamuradied in 1932. And his successor, Bishop Kuchiba Gikyo wanted a purer commitment to the Pure Land. And the Hunts broader, even universalist Buddhism seemed well off that mark. In 1935 Reverend Hunts project was disbanded by the new bishop.

With this the Hunts moved to the Soto community. Which at least in that moment was more receptive to their broad and ecumenical Buddhism. I also suspect their success in establishing religious education programming outweighed their light commitment to the finer nuances of Soto Zen.

In 1953 Shinkaku was ordained Osho by the Venerable Zenkyo Komagata, Sotoshu sokan, or bishop for Hawaii. With this Ernest Shinkaku Hunt became the first person of European descent to be ordained a full priest within the Soto school.

As I mentioned above, Dorothy and Ernest Hunt have mostly been lost to history. Which is too bad. Theyre both significant figures in the formation of convert Buddhism in the West.

Dorothy, for instance, composed a gatha, the Golden Chain. Slightly adapted over the years it goes:

I am a link in Amida Buddhas golden chain of love that stretches around the world. In gratitude may I keep my link bright and strong.

I will try to be kind and gentle to every living thing and protect all who are weaker than myself.

I will try to think pure and beautiful thoughts to say pure and beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful deeds.

May every link in Amida Buddhas golden chain of love be bright and strong and may we all attain perfect peace.

Promise

We thank the Buddha for showing us the way of freedom.

We will endeavor to walk in his noble path, everyday of our lives.

Mygoogle searches revealed a little about Ernest but less about Dorothy. While Ive found a couple of pictures of Ernest, I was unable to find one of her. I did, however, stumble on an obituary for their daughter, Dorothy Poulton Hunt Gillis who died in 2016 at the age of ninety-seven.

For fifty years she, the younger Dorothy, led the Island Paradise Academy in Kaimuki. The obituary notes that the school was founded by her mother who led it from the 1030s until her retirement in the 1060s. Basically, thats it.

The Golden Chain appears to be the one Dorothys many poems set to music that has continued on to this day.The Golden Chain is a beloved verse within North American Shin or Pure Land Buddhist communities, especiallythose associated with the Buddhist Churches of America. Whole generations of BCA members know this verse by heart.

Ernest Shinkaku Hunt died in Honolulu in 1968. He was 90 years old.

Dorothy, who was born in 1886, died at 97 in 1983.

However, the Golden Chain continues

Read the original here:
Ernest & Dorothy Hunt: Early Links in the Golden Chain of Buddhism Coming West - Patheos

Tara is an important bodhisattva, i.e. someone on the path towards Buddhahood, in Buddhism, especially in Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism). Tara is considered to be a female figure and there are various stories regarding how she came into being. In one of these tales, for instance, she was a princess who lived many millions of years ago, while in another, she is said to have been born from a tear of Avalokiteshvara, another bodhisattva.

Tara is most commonly regarded to be a goddess of compassion, and her two most common forms are the Green Tara and White Tara. Nevertheless, this bodhisattva also exists in various other forms on Tibetan temple banners, as many as 21 Taras may be depicted, each form having its own symbolism.

White Tara statue in Kathmandu Nepal. Source: Jerry / Adobe Stock.

The name Tara means star in Sanskrit and the bodhisattva is likened to the North Star, as it is her role to guide those who are lost onto the path of enlightenment. In the Tibetan language, she is known also as Sgrol-ma, which may be translated to mean she who saves. Once again, this name reflects the role that Tara plays in Buddhism, i.e. as a savior.

Needless to say, Tara saves the faithful by showing them the way to enlightenment. Apart from that, Tara is believed to protect her devotees from various calamities and to help them overcome the many obstacles that they may encounter in their lives.

There are a number of different tales concerning how Tara came into being. In one of these myths, she is thought to be the female counterpart of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion and mercy. In the myth, Avalokiteshvara, who worked ceaselessly for all who suffer, looked at the world, and realized that the task at hand was so much greater than he had expected. Moreover, all his hard work did little to alleviate the suffering of the world.

Avalokiteshvara, Taras male counterpart. (Pharos / Public Domain )

Realizing this, Avalokiteshvara fell into despair and began to weep. In one version, the tears of the bodhisattva fell onto the ground and formed a lake. From the waters of the lake a lotus emerged and revealed Tara as it opened.

In another, a lotus bloomed from Avalokiteshvaras tears and Tara appeared as the flower opened. Tara comforted Avalokiteshvara and told him that she would work with him to free all beings from suffering.

Another version of the story is provided by Taranatha, a Tibetan Lama who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries. In this version, Tara is said to have been a mortal woman before becoming a bodhisattva. Prior to becoming a bodhisattva, Tara was a princess who lived millions of years ago.

This princess was named Yeshe Dawa, which means Moon of Primordial Awareness or Wisdom Moon. The princess was a great devotee of the Buddha of her time, Tonyo Drupa, and made many offerings to him over thousands of lifetimes. As she advanced on the path of enlightenment, she eventually came before the Buddha, and took the Bodhisattva Vow.

The monks who were present recognized her potential and urged her to pray for a male rebirth so that she may continue her progress on the path of enlightenment. The princess, however, saw the error in the monks point of view and told them that male and female are merely classifications created by the unenlightened minds of this world. The princess then made a vow as long as suffering continued in the world, she would take on a female body to lead all beings to enlightenment.

In yet another story, which was prevalent in Tibet during the 7th century AD, Tara was believed to be the incarnation of every pious woman. In particular, the bodhisattva became associated with the two wives of the first Buddhist king of Tibet, Srong-brtsan-sgam-po also written as Songsten Gampo), who is credited with the foundation of the Tibetan Empire. Srong-brtsan-sgam-pos power extended well beyond the Tibetan Plateau and he ruled over Nepal as well as parts of India and China.

As Srong-brtsan-sgam-po commissioned a court scholar to create the Tibetan written language , which is based on an Indo-European model, his reign marks the beginning of recorded history in Tibet. Furthermore, Srong-brtsan-sgam-po is credited with the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet through his two wives.

One of the kings wives was a princess from China by the name of Wencheng, while the other was a Nepalese princess by the name of Bhrikuti. Both of the kings wives are believed to be incarnations of Tara, the former being White Tara whereas the latter Green Tara.

Songtsen Gampo (center), Princess Wencheng - White Tara (right), and Princess Bhrikuti - Green Tara (left). (Mistvan / Public Domain)

Green Tara and White Tara are the two most popular forms of the bodhisattva. Green Tara is known also as Shyama Tara in Sanskrit and Sgrol-ljang in Tibetan, while White Tara is known as Sita Tara in Sanskrit and Sgrol-dkar in Tibetan. According to a variation of the myth which states that Tara emerged from the tears of Avalokiteshvara, Green Tara was born from the tears of his left eye while White Tara from those of his right eye.

The two Taras represent different values but complement each other in many ways. For instance, Green Tara is normally depicted with a half-open lotus, which represents night. While on the other hand, White Tara is usually portrayed with a lotus in full bloom, thus representing day. In some instances, White Tara is shown with three lotuses the first as a seed (representing the Buddha Kashyapa of the past), the second in full bloom (representing the present Buddha Shakyamuni), and the third is ready to bloom (representing the future Buddha Maitreya).

Green Tara is also believed to be the embodiment of activity, and in art, she is often shown in a posture of ease and readiness for action. Incidentally, green is regarded to be the color of action and accomplishment, which is the reason for the skin of Green Tara being depicted in this color. White, on the other hand, is believed to be the color of purity, wisdom, and truth, and White Tara is the embodiment of grace, serenity, and love, specifically the love of a mother for her child.

The Green Tara is known as the Buddha of enlightened activity. (Kannadiga / Public Domain )

In Tibetan iconography, Green Tara is commonly shown with her left leg folded in the contemplative position. Her right leg, however, is outstretched, indicating that she is prepared to spring into action at any given moment. Green Taras right hand is in the boon-giving mudra (gesture), which symbolizes her generosity towards all living beings, while her left hand is in the refuge mudra, denoting her role as a protectress.

Green Tara is believed to protect her followers from eight obscurations, which are as follows: lions (pride), wild elephants (delusion and ignorance), fires (hatred and anger), snakes (jealousy), bandit and thieves (wrong views, including fanatical ones), bondage (avarice and miserliness), floods (desire and attachment), and evil spirits and demons (deluded doubts).

White Tara, on the other hand, is normally shown seated in the diamond lotus position, with the soles of her feet pointing upwards. This posture is meant to symbolize the bodhisattvas grace and calm. The mudras in both of White Taras hands are the same as Green Taras. Although White Tara is supposed to represent serenity, it does not mean that she is a passive figure, as she too is believed to help her devotees overcome obstacles, especially those that block their path towards enlightenment.

It may be added that in Mongolia, there is a popular form of White Tara known as Tara of the Seven Eyes. This form of White Tara is shown with a third eye on her face, as well as an eye on each of her palms, and on the soles of her feet, making it seven in total. The seven eyes are meant to symbolize the bodhisattvas vigilance and her ability to see all the suffering in the world.

WhiteTara statue with seven eyes. (Magnus Manske / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Although Green Tara and White Tara are the most popular forms of this bodhisattva, she has other forms as well. In Tibetan temple banners, for instance, Green Tara may be depicted as the central Tara, with other Taras around her. The number of Taras on these banners frequently reach up to 21, a number that is based on an Indian text called Homage to the Twenty-One Taras , which arrived in Tibet during the 12th century.

The 20 Taras surrounding the central Green Tara are divided into four colors white, yellow, red, and black. These colors represent the four types of enlightened activity. White represents the activity of pacifying, for example, overcoming sickness, or causes of untimely death; yellow the activity of increasing, specifically ones positive qualities that would facilitate peace and happiness in ones life; red the activity of overpowering, in particular external forces that cannot be tamed through the first two activities; and black the activity of wrath, which refers to the use of forceful methods for achieving activities of enlightened purposes that cannot be attained via other means.

Green Tara in the center and the Blue, Red, White, and Yellow Taras in the corners. (Fountain Posters / Public Domain )

It may be added that in some instances, there are also blue Taras and this color is supposed to represent the subduing of anger and its transformation into compassion. Each of the 20 Taras has her own name, which include: The Invincible Queen (known also as Tara who Eliminates Conflicts and Bad Dreams, white); The Giver of Supreme Virtue (known also as Tara who Increases, yellow); The Destroyer of Opposing Forces (known also as Tara who Blazes in Flames, red); and The Invincible (known also as Tara who Crushes Others' Forces, black).

The great popularity of Tara is evident in the many works of art that depict this bodhisattva in all her forms. Apart from paintings and temple banners, statues of Tara are also very common, normally sculpted from stone or cast in metal. Such statues have found their way into the galleries of museums all around the world, far away from where they were originally made.

For instance, a statue of Tara on display in New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art is originally from the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. This statue is dated to the 14th century and is made of a gilt copper alloy with color. Additionally, the statue is richly inlaid with semi-precious stones.

The right hand of the statue is lowered, clasping a flower bud delicately, and is in the boon-giving mudra, while its left shoulder is adorned with a lotus in full bloom, and its left hand in the refuge mudra. It is speculated that this statue most likely represents White Tara, on the basis of the lotus in full bloom.

Lastly, it may be said that another statue of Tara, found in the British Museum in London, was featured on the BBCs A History of the World in 100 Objects . Unlike its counterpart in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this statue originated from Sri Lanka and was made between the 8th and 9th centuries AD. This statue, which is almost life-size, was cast in one piece of solid bronze and was gilded in gold.

Life-size sculpture of Tara cast in bronze and gilded. The eyes and the elaborately arranged hair were doubtless inlaid with precious stones. Sri Lanka, 7th - 8th century. (Mistvan / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

At this time in Sri Lanka, large bronze statues were cast by pouring the molten metal around a hollow clay core. Since this Tara was cast as a single piece of solid bronze, it means that the person who commissioned the statue was able to obtain a large quantity of this alloy. In addition, he/she would have also been able to obtain the service of a master craftsman, as great skill and experience were required for this kind of work.

As is common in the depiction of Taras, this statue is shown completely topless, with full and perfectly rounded breasts. Interestingly, when the statue first arrived in the British Museum during the 1830s, it was considered to be overly erotic and did not suit the sensibilities of the British public at the time. Therefore, it was immediately kept in the storerooms for the next 30 years and permission to view the object was only granted to specialist scholars upon request.

The ancient people of Sri Lanka, however, had no problem merging divinity and sensuality. The huge amount of resources needed to create the statue, as well as the way the ancient inhabitants of Sri Lankans perceived religion are just some of the many fascinating details revealed by the statue. Other information revealed by this statue include trade, not only in goods, but also in ideas and relations between the different religions and linguistic groups in that part of the world during the late 1st millennium AD.

Top image: Buddhist goddess. Credit: neenawat555 / Adobe Stock

By Wu Mingren

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Tara Goddess of Compassion and Savior of the Suffering - Ancient Origins