Buddhism is one of the most important Asian spiritual traditions. During itsroughly 2.5 millennia of history, Buddhism has shown a flexible approach, adapting itself to different conditions and local ideas while maintaining its core teachings. As a result of its wide geographical expansion, coupled with its tolerant spirit, Buddhism today encompasses a number of different traditions, beliefs, and practices.

During the last decades, Buddhism has also gained a significant presence outside Asia.With the number of adherents estimated to be almost 400 million people, Buddhism in our day has expanded worldwide, and it is no longer culturally specific. For many centuries, this tradition has been a powerful force in Asia, which has touched nearly every aspect of the eastern world: arts, morals, lore, mythology, social institutions, etc. Today, Buddhism influences these same areas outside of Asia, as well.

The origin of Buddhism points to one man, Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, who was born in Lumbini (in present-day Nepal) during the 5th century BCE. Rather than the founder of a new religion, Siddhartha Gautama was the founder and leader of a sect of wanderer ascetics (Sramanas), one of many sects that existed at that time all over India. This sect came to be known as Sanghato distinguish it from other similar communities.

The Sramanas movement, which originated in the culture of world renunciation that emerged in India from about the 7th century BCE, was the common origin of many religious and philosophical traditions in India, including the Charvaka school, Buddhism, and its sister religion, Jainism. The Sramanas were renunciants who rejected the Vedic teachings, which was the traditional religious order in India, and renounced conventional society.

Siddhartha Gautama lived during a time of profound social changes in India. The authority of the Vedic religion was being challenged by a number of new religious and philosophical views. This religion had been developed by a nomadic society roughly a millennium before Siddharthas time, and it gradually gained hegemony over most of north India, especially in the Gangetic plain. But things were different in the 5th BCE, as society was no longer nomadic: agrarian settlements had replaced the old nomad caravans and evolved into villages, then into towns and finally into cities. Under the new urban context, a considerable sector of Indian society was no longer satisfied with the old Vedic faith. Siddhartha Gautama was one of the many critics of the religious establishment.

In some religions, sin is the origin of human suffering. In Buddhism there is no sin; the root cause of human suffering is avidy ignorance.

After Siddhartha Gautama passed away, the community he founded slowly evolved into a religion-like movement and the teachings of Siddhartha became the basis of Buddhism. The historical evidence suggests that Buddhism had a humble beginning. Apparently, it was a relatively minor tradition in India, and some scholars have proposed that the impact of the Buddha in his own day was relatively limited due to the scarcity of written documents, inscriptions, and archaeological evidence from that time.

By the 3rd century BCE, the picture we have of Buddhism is very different. The Mauryan Indian emperor Ashoka the Great (304232 BCE), who ruled from 268 to 232 BCE, turned Buddhism into the state religion of India. He provided a favourable social and political climate for the acceptance of Buddhist ideas, encouraged Buddhist missionary activity, and even generated among Buddhist monks certain expectations of patronage and influence on the machinery of political decision making. Archaeological evidence for Buddhism between the death of the Buddha and the time of Ashoka is scarce; after the time of Ashoka it is abundant.

There are many stories about disagreements among the Buddha's disciples during his lifetime and also accounts about disputes among his followers during the First Buddhist Council held soon after the Buddhas death, suggesting that dissent was present in the Buddhist community from an early stage. After the death of the Buddha, those who followed his teachings had formed settled communities in different locations. Language differences, doctrinal disagreements, the influence of non-Buddhist schools, loyalties to specific teachers, and the absence of a recognized overall authority or unifying organizational structure are just some examples of factors that contributed to sectarian fragmentation.

About a century after the death of Buddha, during the Second Buddhist Council, we find the first major schism ever recorded in Buddhism: The Mahasanghika school. Many different schools of Buddhism had developed at that time. Buddhist tradition speaks about 18 schools of early Buddhism, although we know that there were more than that, probably around 25. A Buddhist school named Sthaviravada (in Sanskrit school of the elders) was the most powerful of the early schools of Buddhism. Traditionally, it is held that the Mahasanghika school came into existence as a result of a dispute over monastic practice. They also seem to have emphasized the supramundane nature of the Buddha, so they were accused of preaching that the Buddha had the attributes of a god. As a result of the conflict over monastic discipline, coupled with their controversial views on the nature of the Buddha, the Mahasanghikas were expelled, thus forming two separate Buddhist lines: the Sthaviravada and the Mahasanghika.

During the course of several centuries, both the Sthaviravada and the Mahasanghika schools underwent many transformations, originating different schools. The Theravada school, which still lives in our day, emerged from the Sthaviravada line, and is the dominant form of Buddhism in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The Mahasanghika school eventually disappeared as an ordination tradition.

During the 1st century CE, while the oldest Buddhist groups were growing in south and south-east Asia, a new Buddhist school named Mahayana (Great Vehicle) originated in northern India. This school had a more adaptable approach and was open to doctrinal innovations. Mahayama Buddhism is today the dominant form of Buddhism in Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, and Vietnam.

During the time of Ashokas reign, trade routes were opened through southern India. Some of the merchants using these roads were Buddhists who took their religion with them. Buddhist monks also used these roads for missionary activity. Buddhism entered Sri Lanka during this time. A Buddhist chronicle known as the Mahavamsa claims that the ruler of Sri Lanka, Devanampiya Tissa, was converted to Buddhism by Mahinda, Ashokas son, who was a Buddhist missionary, and Buddhism became associated with Sri Lankas kingship: The tight relationship between the Buddhist community and Lankans rulers was sustained for more than two millennia until the dethroning of the last Lankan king by the British in 1815 CE.

After reaching Sri Lanka, Buddhism crossed the sea into Myanmar (Burma): Despite the fact that some Burmese accounts say that the Buddha himself converted the inhabitants of Lower and Upper Myanmar, historical evidence suggests otherwise. Buddhism co-existed in Myanmar with other traditions such as Brahmanism and various locals animists cults. The records of a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim named Xuanzang (Hsan-tsang, 602-664 CE) state that in the ancient city of Pyu (the capital of the Kingdom of Sri Ksetra, present day Myanmar), a number of early Buddhist schools were active. After Myanmar, Buddhism travelled into Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos, around 200 CE. The presence of Buddhism in Indonesia and the Malay peninsula is supported by archaeological records from about the 5th century CE.

While Buddhism was flourishing all over the rest of Asia, its importance in India gradually diminished. Two important factors contributed to this process: a number of Muslim invasions, and the advancement of Hinduism, which incorporated the Buddha as part of the pantheon of endless gods; he came to be regarded as one of the many manifestations of the god Vishnu. In the end, the Buddha was swallowed up by the realm of Hindu gods, his importance diminished, and in the very land where it was born, Buddhism dwindled to be practiced by very few.

Buddhism entered China during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE): The first Buddhist missionaries accompanied merchant caravans that travelled using the Silk Road, probably during the 1st century BCE. The majority of these missionaries belonged to the Mahayana school.

The initial stage of Buddhism is China was not very promising. Chinese culture had a long-established intellectual and religious tradition and a strong sense of cultural superiority that did not help the reception of Buddhist ideas. Many of the Buddhist ways were considered alien by the Chinese and even contrary to the Confucian ideals that dominated the ruling aristocracy. The monastic order received a serious set of critiques: It was considered unproductive and therefore was seen as placing an unnecessary economic burden on the population, and the independence from secular authority emphasized by the monks was seen as an attempt to undermine the traditional authority of the emperor.

Despite its difficult beginning, Buddhism managed to build a solid presence in China towards the fall of the Han dynasty on 220 CE, and its growth accelerated during the time of disunion and political chaos that dominated China during the Six Dynasties period (220-589 CE). The collapse of the imperial order made many Chinese skeptical about the Confucian ideologies and more open to foreign ideas. Also, the universal spirit of Buddhist teachings made it attractive to many non-Chinese ruler in the north who were looking to legitimate political power. Eventually, Buddhism in China grew strong, deeply influencing virtually every aspect of its culture.

From China, Buddhism entered Korea in 372 CE, during the reign of King Sosurim, the ruler of the Kingdom of Koguryo, or so it is stated in official records. There is archaeological evidence that suggests that Buddhism was known in Korea from an earlier time.

The official introduction of Buddhism in Tibet (according to Tibetan records) took place during the reign of the first Tibetan emperor Srong btsan sgam po (Songtsen gampo, 617-649/650 CE), although we know that the proto-Tibetan people had been in touch with Buddhism from an earlier time, through Buddhist merchants and missionaries. Buddhism grew powerful in Tibet, absorbing the local pre-Buddhist Tibetan religions. Caught between China and India, Tibet received monks from both sides and tension between Chinese and Indian Buddhist practice and ideology turned out to be inevitable. From 792 to 794 CE a number of debates were held in the Bsam yas monastery between Chinese and Indian Buddhists. The debate was decided in favour of the Indians: Buddhists translations from Chinese sources were abandoned and the Indian Buddhist influence became predominant.

The Buddha was not concerned with satisfying human curiosity related to metaphysical speculations. Topics like the existence of god, the afterlife, or creation stories were ignored by him. During the centuries, Buddhism has evolved into different branches, and many of them have incorporated a number of diverse metaphysical systems, deities, astrology and other elements that the Buddha did not consider. In spite of this diversity, Buddhism has a relative unity and stability in its moral code.

The most important teaching of the Buddha is known as The Four Noble Truths, which is shared with varying adjustments by all Buddhist schools. In general, the Four Noble Truths are explained as follows:

In some religions, sin is the origin of human suffering. In Buddhism there is no sin; the root cause of human suffering is avidy ignorance. In the entrance area of some Buddhist monasteries, sometimes the images of four scary-looking deities are displayed, the four protectors whose purpose is to scare away the ignorance of those who enter.

Buddhism does not require faith or belief. If faith can be understood as believing something which is unsupported by evidence, and ignorance is overcome by understanding, then faith is not enough to overcome ignorance and therefore suffering. And belief, as understood by other religions, is not necessary in Buddhism:

The question of belief arises when there is no seeing - seeing in every sense of the word. The moment you see, the question of belief disappears. If I tell you that I have a gem hidden in the folded palm of my hand, the question of belief arises because you do not see it yourself. But if I unclench my fist and show you the gem, then you see it for yourself, and the question of belief does not arise. So the phrase in ancient Buddhist texts reads 'Realizing, as one sees a gem in the palm'

(Rahula W., p.9)

In its most basic form, Buddhism does not include the concept of a god. The existence of god is neither confirmed, nor denied; it is a non-theistic system. The Buddha is seen as an extraordinary man, not a deity. Some Buddhist schools have incorporated supernatural entities into their traditions, but even in these cases, the role of human choice and responsibility remains supreme, far above the deeds of the supernatural.

In some Chinese and Japanese Buddhist monasteries, they go even further by performing a curious exercise: The monks are requested to think that the Buddha did not even existed. There is a good reason for this: the core of Buddhism is not the Buddha, but his teachings or dharma. It is said that those who wish to understand Buddhism and are interested in the Buddha are as mistaken as a person who wishes to study mathematics by studying the life ofPythagorasor Newton. By imagining the Buddha never existed, they avoid focusing on the idol so that they can embrace the ideal.

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Buddhism - Ancient History Encyclopedia

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment 4.11 avg rating 114,688 ratings published 1997 154 editions

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Eckhart Tolle (Author of The Power of Now)

Our conference room block is almost sold out. Please call 714-698-1234 to contact the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach for availability as there may be some available rooms at the current rates or potential cancellations. We also suggest booking into one of the other Huntington Beach options.

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The Waterfront Beach Resort (Next door to conference center) 21100 Pacific Coast Highway Huntington Beach, CA 92648 waterfrontresort.com714-845-8000

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Map and Detailed Directions

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Meals

The Hyatt Regency features several full-service restaurants, lounges, and bars, and an on-site grocery store that will be available for meals and snacks during the conference. Huntington Beach also features over a dozen brand-new restaurants within a short 5-minute walk from the hotel.

For a list of on-site and local dining options, click here.

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Eckhart Tolle Living a Life of Presence - soundstrue.com

The IHSAA Executive Committee presents the Arthur L. Trester & Ray Craft Mental Attitude Awards to the outstanding senior participant in each classification of the boys basketball state finals. The recipients of these awards, who were nominated by their principals and coaches, must excel in mental attitude, scholarship, leadership and athletic ability in basketball. The Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever, the presenting sponsors of the state tournament, donate a $1,000 scholarship to each school in the name of the recipient.

The 4A, 3A and 2A awards are named in honor of the late Arthur L. Trester who served as first commissioner of the Association from 1929 to 1944. Trester helped Indiana high school sports and the IHSAA emerge from the Great Depression in a position of preeminence unmatched by perhaps any other state in the nation.

Beginning in 2016, the Class A award was re-named in honor of Ray Craft, the long-time associate commissioner who served from 1983 to 2008. Craft was involved at nearly every level of Indiana secondary education and interscholastic athletics during his career including administering the boys basketball state tournament for many years. He was also a starting senior guard on Milan High Schools 1954 state championship basketball team.

From 1917 to 1943 the award was known as The Gimbel Medal for Mental Attitude in honor of Mr. Jake Gimbel of Vincennes, who awarded the medal each of those years until his passing prior to the 1943 tournament. In 1944, the award became known as the IHSAA Medal for Mental Attitude. In 1945, the IHSAA Board officially named the award The Arthur L. Trester Medal for Mental Attitude.

Recipients were given a medal each year from 1945 through 1964, hence The Arthur L. Trester Medal for Mental Attitude. Since 1965, the award has been made in the form of a plaque with a copy of the original medal incorporated on the face of the plaque, hence The Arthur L. Trester Award for Mental Attitude.

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IHSAA Basketball Mental Attitude Award

Most often people seek to work with a personal coach because they would like to change, achieve or create something in their personal or professional lives. From the outside looking in they might appear to have it all together, yet they feel something is missing. Some want a more rewarding relationship, better health, a more exciting career, while others want more business success or a new sense of fulfillment and balance in their lives.

More and more people today are seeking the help from a professional life coach because they choose to create better quality lives; they want more time for themselves and their most important relationships and they want to invest more time in their emotional and physical well being.

Creating a life you love and achieving the results you really want starts with a deeper understanding about your unique capabilities, talents, core values and the beliefs that support them. Understanding and accepting of who you are is the first step on your path to personal and professional growth.

Life Coaching will further help you to:

There are different types of life coaches:life coaching, business coaching, executive career coaching, performance coaching, personal development coaching, etc. People who enroll in a coaching courseall askthe same fundamental question: "How can I be better?" "How can I achieve my personal best, and create the results I want in my personal and professional life?"

"Life coaching is a partnership in which we guide and support people to a higher level of personal and professional achievement. People seek the structure, support, feedback, learning and accountability personal coaching provides to help them achieve their most important goals."

Professional coaching is about increasing someone's personal power, by increasing the number choices and options a person has to accomplish his or her goals. Personallife coachesbring out the best in people, and inspire them to appreciate and support the best in others!

Most of us are familiar with the term coaching from the world of sports and training. The greatest athletes in the world all rely upon the help of a coach to elevate their game and reach new heights

Coaching offers a 'time out' in the most important game of all, the game of life. Are you going for gold in the game of your life? Our qualified life coaches can help you stay on track.

The rest is here:
Life Coaching skills for personal success - Life Coach

During next season, 49ers fans will want Brian Hoyer to embody the cobra pose as opposed to downward-dog.

Niner Nation might raise an eyebrow at the 49ers quarterbacks take on yoga and meditation while appearing Wednesday on KNBR. Others may applaud Hoyer for using non-traditional training options to help his play.

You would train your body, why wouldnt you help train your mind, too? Hoyer told Murph & Mac. We have an app on our phone and you can go to it when you need it. I try to do it every day sometimes theres not always enough time in the day. But its something that I feel has really helped me.

The topic arose because 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan recently explained his appreciation for yoga and meditation to the Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. Hoyer certainly sounded on board when asked about the topic, offering an extended explanation on why hes latched on to Shanahans training regimen.

Its something that I really enjoy because its about being mindful and being in the moment, Hoyer told KNBR.And I think in this profession, you can get so caught up and so wrapped up and theres pressure all the time. And thats not a way to live life.

So, its about being where you are. So when Im at home, Im at home with my wife and kids and Im enjoying that time. And when Im at work, Im here at work andworking and taking time to meditate and just kind of clear your head.

And as far as the yoga its something we do weekly and I think its great not only for the mental aspect, but to stretch out and get some of that type of work involved in your routine.

Its very what you might call new school For me as a quarterback, of course I have to lift and be strong and be able to take hits. ButI alsoneed to flexible enough to be able to throw the football and be able to move around.

Hoyer is set to begin the season as the 49ers starting quarterback and only time will tell if he can become, like Tom Brady, a pro-yoga Pro Bowler.

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Brian Hoyer advocates for yoga and meditation, like Shanahan wants - The Mercury News

Date published: Thursday 7th September 2017 12:05

Its hard to find respite from the world, but its even harder to find a way to get away from ourselves.

Theres always myriad little threads of thought going around, many of them unpleasant or worrying, all of them in our own inescapable inner voice. Weve all, to some degree or other, had the experience of wanting to take a holiday from our own head.

The suggestion to take up yoga and meditation is unbelievably common from therapists and doctors as a way to take a little daily mental holiday, particularly for people with issues around anxiety and depression, like me.

The idea is that it teaches not only patience, but the ability to let your own thoughts pass through your mind uninterrupted, rather than continually getting hung up on seeing every single thought from every single critical angle.

While those ends would undoubtedly do me the world of good, I am wary of the new-age woo pseudoscience that often seems to go hand-in-hand with yoga and meditation.

Shallow and short-sighted though it may be, I just cant turn off my critical faculties long enough to get out so much as a namaste without wanting to shatter the nearest fire alarm with my face and run into the night screaming Forgive me, Immanuel Kant!

This puts me in a bit of a bind: I want to experience the benefits other people get from their daily yoga, but I need it to be packaged in a way I can actually stand. It was only when I started talking to people in more detail that I realised hang onI get all of that from watching crap football matches.

Most Saturdays and Sundays, Ill be at some game or other as a neutral fan or as a reporter, and its only there, in the stadium, with a really boring match unfolding in front of me, that I am able to spend minutes at a time slipping into idle thoughts.

My eyes reflexively track forwards runs and defensive shapes, before jolting back into full consciousness after a promising passage of play, and then I realise I have absolutely no idea what happened whatsoever in the six minutes leading up to that wasted half-chance.

At that point the cycle begins anew: analysis once again becomes thoughtfulness, and then thoughtfulness becomes thoughtlessness, which sticks around until the swell of noise as a striker goes through on goal jerks you back into analytical mode.

The word hypnotic is always deployed in football to describe elaborate, fast-paced attacking, but it should more properly be used for games devoid of action. There is a lot happening the relentless shuttling of players around the pitch, looking to take up an advantageous position and yet, at the same time, nothing happening. If that isnt some sort of Zen then the mystics are missing a trick.

There must be thousands of people out there who, like me, would never dream of setting foot on a yoga mat, but who go to the game every week and enter that wonderful trance. Even those who are not sitting studiously, but joining in with the rhythm and repetition of familiar terrace mantras, are surely experiencing the kind of weightless, carefree state that churches and yogis aspire to create.

This is what makes football different from other forms of entertainment, and there are certainly similarities in the evangelical fervour of a football fan and that annoying yoga convert who occupies every workplace in the country. A football fan lost in the same chant he sings every week has more in common with a Hare Krishna than she does a theatre-goer; this is more gospel choir than armchair fan.

Bad footballs meditative quality also helps explain why we so gladly lap the game up, even when we know theres a decent chance the game will be utterly awful. When its good its exciting and passionate; when its bad, it is therapeutic and tranquil. It is vital therapy for a huge number of people who would never dream of seeing a mental health professional.

We all want the glitz and glamour of glory, we all want exciting football, and we all want to be entertained but for me at least, even bad football is capable of serving an important mental function.

Namaste.

Steven Chicken

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Namaste: We use bad football as meditation - Football365.com

You cant go home again. The final scene of Twin Peaks: The Return offers the most literal interpretation possible of this old idiom, couched in a typically Lynchian abstraction, when Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) attempts to bring Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) back to her mothers housethe quixotic righting of a quarter-century-old wrong, the replacement of the missing piece that allowed the darkness lurking beneath this placid Pacific Northwest town to break throughonly to find that everythings changed. It isnt Lauras home anymore; it belongs to a Mrs. Tremond, and even shes not as we remember. Lauras no longer Laura either, even if she screams like her.

Even Cooper isnt himselfnot really. Hes crossed so many thresholds and inhabited so many tulpa versionsnot so much fire-walked between worlds as fire-straddled themthat we cant be quite certain which one stands before us now. As he tells Diane (Laura Dern) earlier in the episode, before they drive across some mystical line in the sand, Once we cross, it could all be different; their softcore sex scene that follows and Coopers waking up to find hes a man called Richard confirms as much. Worse, even Coopers ostensible heros return in the previous episode was undercut by a close-up superimposition of his own face while he intones, We live inside a dream, implying that we cant trust anything were seeing. It looks like Twin Peaks, but is it?

Thats a question a lot of fans grappled with across the entire 18-episode revival, with this show that often looked like Twin Peaks, andin the strains of Angelo Badalamentis score that gradually broke through the alien, ambient buzzoccasionally sounded like Twin Peaks, but so often, steadfastly refused to be Twin Peaks. And if David Lynch and Mark Frosts revival of the series could be said to be about anything, it was about the impossibility of ever doing that. Twin Peaks has existed in our imaginations for 25 years, even as it has been endlessly recycled and picked apart, its recognizable strains churned into obvious imitators and costume parties and tote bags. Throughout it all, Twin Peaks has lingered in our minds despite this limiting nostalgia thats been forced upon it, primarily by resisting the exact kind of tidy ending a decades-later sequel threatens. Twin Peaks isnt Mayberry; you cant just return there. And not for nothing, but its corrupted-innocent high schoolers are now middle-aged; many of its players are long retired from acting; some of them are dead.

So naturally, when the series was first announced, a lot of fans had some immediate reservations. How can you reprise a series that was based on such a nigh-supernatural confluence of talent and timing, with so much of it dictated by what Lynch calls his happy accidents? How do you recreate its strange atmospheres and idiosyncratic quirks, which are by now thoroughly folded into our pop culture lexicon, without creating a pandering facsimile of itself? How do you go home again, when home exists immutably, safely ensconced in a collective dream? (Especially when, suddenly, Jim Belushi is living there?) You cant, and The Returnits subject ironically telegraphed right there in its deceptively innocuous titlewas all about Lynch and Frost telling us that.

The word meta doesnt really appear to be in Lynchs vocabulary; hes long resisted the idea of his art as allegory, doesnt like to reveal his own intentions lest it influence the audience, and openly regards his own ideas as messages channeled from the great unified field. Yet the fact remains that a lot of the biggest ideas he catches while hes quietly sitting and listening often have some bearing on his own life: the formative childhood traumas that cracked open Lynchs suburban idyll in Blue Velvet; his paranoia about fatherhood and the surreal ugliness of life in Philadelphia in Eraserhead. There is much about Twin Peaks: The Return that suggests its similarly about Lynch, now 71 and teasingly retired from filmmaking, marking the passage of time between himselfand usand these worlds he created, and making peace with the idea that we can never fully go back there.

There are many ways of interpreting The Return, of course; were only a few days into the next 25 years of articles, books, and Oberlin courses it will inspire. But this one might be the most satisfying, at least emotionally: In all its thrilling, occasionally maddening elusiveness, the real closure Twin Peaks gave us was the chance to say goodbye.

This was especially true in its inclusion of actors who have died since the shows original run, and those whom we know now were dying at the time: Frank Silva as BOB; Jack Nance as Pete Martell; Don S. Davis as Major Garland Briggs; David Bowie as Phillip Jeffries; Catherine Coulson as Margaret Lanterman, a.k.a. The Log Lady; Warren Frost as Doc Hayward; Miguel Ferrer as Albert Rosenfield. In many of these cases, inclusion is actually too light a word. Some of them amounted to little more than sentimental cameos: Frost popping up via Skype to exchange some dad jokes with Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster); Marv Rosand, whose Double R line cook Toad is only known to diehards scouring DVD deleted scenes, but nevertheless popped up here to take a bread delivery from Becky (Amanda Seyfried); Nance, tugging heartstrings by popping up in archival footage from the pilot alongside the lamented (but not late) Piper Laurie and Joan Chen.

But some of these ghosts also turned out to be major players, to the point where the spotlight The Return afforded themand the shadow of their deaths that surrounded itfelt like deliberate commentary on the gulf of time, the impossibility of traversing it, and the lost pieces that, like Laura Palmer, can never be put back. This intentionality is most deeply felt in Coulsons scenes, which Lynch filmed, quite remarkably, at the very beginning of production in September 2015, only weeks before Coulson would die of cancer on Sept. 28and so secretively that even her agent was surprised by it. In her conversations with Hawk (Michael Horse), Coulsons Margaretfrail, missing hair, a breathing tube beneath her nosesays a series of protracted goodbyes that feel movingly direct, gazing into the camera at Lynch (a friend and collaborator since his early short films), as well as at us, which gives her pronouncements the tinge of last testament.

You know about deaththat its just a change, not an end, Margaret says in her final lines. Theres some fear in letting go. My log is turning gold. The wind is moaning. Im dying. Good night, Hawk. There is special meaning in hearing these words from The Log Lady, who became the de facto voice of Twin Peaks when she recorded a series of Lynch-scripted intros for its initial Bravo run in syndication, where she teased outsometimes ominously, sometimes playfullythe shows more metaphysical questions, becoming the most recognizable embodiment of the shows spirit. That voice is fading now, The Return said; the spirit is moving on. The subsequent moment of silence Hawk holds for Margaret around the sheriffs department conference room is also for us, grieving not only for The Log Lady, or for Coulson, but also for Twin Peaks itself, and the times we have shared together.

Knowing that Lynch filmed those scenes first, one imagines it couldnt help but color the entire productionwhich was already being assembled under the onus of time running outwith an added aura of finality. Miguel Ferrer was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and his condition reportedly worsened in 2016, to the point where NCIS: Los Angeles wrote his illness into his character. But rather than sideline Albertor even use him relatively sparingly, like he was in the original seriesLynch brought him to the fore, keeping Ferrer close at hand as the most frequent recipient of Lynchs own dialogue as Gordon Cole.

I fell deeply in love with Miguel on the latest Twin Peaks, Lynch told The New York Times after the actors death in January. I liked him before, but it wasnt deep love. I just didnt know him that well. This time I fell in love. And indeed, as Albert and Gordon exchange their respective confessions about the past, bringing up things theyve kept from each other for decades, that love is felt implicitly, even when the two are just discussing cold cases. Again, there is the sense of goodbye.

Garland Briggs, whose portrayer Don S. Davis died in 2008, similarly became a much larger presence, mostly by being scattered across various dimensions: Briggs was a naked, decapitated corpse who turns up in South Dakota; a ghostly, floating head who occasionally drifts across the void; and, most effectively, a father still capable of moving his son, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), to tears from across the span of decades and the divide of death. In the original series, Major Briggs was an outward hardass who revealed himself to have a great inner well of enlightenment, and whose greatest fear is the possibility that love is not enough. In The Return, Briggs is lovea benevolent spirit still sharing messages from beyond, still putting people on their path. Death is not the end, but a change.

The loss of David Bowie in January 2016 came right before he was meant to film the reprisal of his swamp-accented Fire Walk With Me character, Agent Phillip Jeffries. Most showrunners would have just written around it; Jeffries, though beloved for his David Bowie-ness, is a character who opens more questions than he answersquestions he explicitly didnt want to talk about, and which could have easily been addressed without his direct participation, or elided altogether. And yet, Lynch made those questions and Jeffries central to The Return, resurrecting Bowie as a giant teakettle (a literal Tin Machine) and giving him what appears to be the final word on the shows overarching mythology as he fills Cooper in on Judy, sort of, from beyond.

As great as it would have been to see Bowie againto discover that his death was just a setup for the greatest TV cameo ever recordedas with Major Briggs, its hard to imagine his character having as profound an impact if it were being performed by a living man. The loss of Bowie and Davis adds a melancholy subtext to their characters being trapped inside their respective spiritual holds. Their deaths give themand the showfar greater resonance. They are the shadows of the dream were now struggling to retrace.

Jeffries was the first to declare, We live inside a dream, way back in Fire Walk With Me, as we looked upon Bob, Mike, The Man From Another Place, The Woodsman, and Mrs. Tremond and her grandson et al., cooking up a batch of garmonbozia above the convenience store. (Goddamn, how I will miss writing sentences like that one now that the shows over.) But Coopers We live inside a dream also parallels a scene set earlier in The Return, when Lynchs Gordon recalls a far more pleasant dream he had about Jeffries dreamone that featured a cameo from Monica Bellucci.

Aside from telling us a lot about Gordons taste in women, the sequencelike the real-world owner of Laura Palmers house turning up at the door in the finalemarks a rare intrusion of our reality into Twin Peaks carefully quarantined dream world, as disarming as a needle drop on ZZ Tops Sharp Dressed Man. And while Lynch would probably blanch at the phrase, it can be interpreted as the shows most meta commentary. We are like the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream, but who is the dreamer? Bellucci asks Gordon/Lynch, before pointing over Lynchs shoulder to the younger version of himself. I doubt Lynch ever intended the scene to be read this bluntly, but there is certainly something here suggestive of Lynchs extratextual role as the shows creator, now living inside his own dream.

Like Albert, Gordon has a notably bigger presence in The Return, interacting with just about every major character and narrating the plots myriad twists in much the way Cooper did in the original show. His more central role takes on greater significance when you consider that The Returns cast wasnt just a reunion for the Twin Peaks cast, but also assembled players from Lynchs vast repertory company. Robert Forster, Naomi Watts, Patrick Fischler, and Brent Briscoe (and had she not turned it down, Laura Harring) from Mulholland Drive. Balthazar Getty from Lost Highway. Chrysta Bell, from his side gig as a musician. Along with some new additionsincluding actors, like Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who seem like they should have been in a Lynch movieThe Return was a homecoming for Lynchs far-flung flock. Most notably there is Laura Dern, whose role as Diane comes close to creating some Grand Unifying Theory Of Lynch by bringing her into an another intimate pairing with Blue Velvet love interestand Lynchs other longest collaboratorKyle MacLachlan.

In what will surely go down as one of The Returns most analyzed sequences, shortly after Cooper utters that line about living inside a dream (and says to those assembled, I hope I see all of you again), we watch as that trinityLynch, Dern, and MacLachlan, the dreamer and his musesenter an abstract plane, where a door yields to Coopers nostalgia-evoking Great Northern hotel key. Before Cooper passes inside, returning to the seasons earliest scenes, back to the beginning of the loopback to the very beginning of our collective love of Twin Peaks, heralded by Mike greeting him with its famous, cryptic poemCooper turns to Lynch and Dern and says, See you at the curtain call.

Twin Peaks: The Return was that curtain call. You cant say the series was solely about Lynch bringing his players out for one final bow, or saying farewell to us, or even grappling with the enormous, occasionally burdensome legacy of his most famous creation (though the scene of a crazed Sarah Palmer stabbing Lauras prom photo definitely had the ring of catharsis). The show is far too rich in meaning for just that; we can start writing our think pieces now, and Ill see you again in 25 years, when we still havent talked it all out yet.

But the entire season was littered with enough nods to Lynchs pastreturning faces, recurrent themes, visual references to his films and paintings (Twitter user @ramontorrente has done an excellent job of cataloging these)that it definitely lends itself to being read as a distillation of his entire body of work, which he then closed the door on by removing its hinges. By creating the uncertainty of a loop, he gave Twin Peaks an elliptical, open-ended closureone that extends its mysteries and allows those players to go on playing in our imaginations forever, wondering whether Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) ever finds her way out of her mind trap, or whether Coopers machinations truly altered the timeline and what that means for the Palmers and the rest of the town, or if Sheriff Truman ever gets to see Jesses new car. The uncertainty renders it immortal, existing beyond time and death, where no matter when youre watching it, you cant even be sure what year it is. It will always be confounding and oblique; it will always be Twin Peaks.

If you know anything about Lynch, its that he is a devout practitioner of transcendental meditation; if you know two things, its that he treasures The Art Life, never happier than when he is going through the many granular motions of a restlessly toiling painter. In both disciplines, he preaches and practices finding the joy in the moment, taking pleasure purely in the work. To resolve that work, to be finished with it forever, would be the end. This is death. Instead, he gave Twin Peaksthe people within and without it, those living and gonethe gift of change, to always be working, to remain eternally unfinished. You cant go home again, it tells us. But The Return isnt about looking backward. It was about the dreamer, happy to still be dreaming the dream, for as long as we are still able.

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Twin Peaks gave us a moving meditation on death - The AV Club - AV Club

Former Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar Hassan has resigned as Wiper Democratic Movement Party Secretary General for reasons he termed as personal.

In a letter to the WIPER Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, Omar says he had shared with both Musyoka and NASA flag bearer Raila Odinga before the August 8 elections, that he would not wish to serve in their government had they won if he failed to win the gubernatorial contest against Governor Ali Hassan Joho for the Mombasa seat.

Omar further says he will not participate in the NASA campaigns in the repeat Presidential poll scheduled in October.

Circumstances as pertains to the steps I wish to take to seek electoral justices indeed as was your quest in the Supreme Court as NASA, the reorganization of my politics and my endeavors towards scholarship, personal development and repositioning the discourse for social justice and accountability in Mombasa and the coast region through non-state actors makes my position as Secretary General General untenable, he said.

When contacted, WIPER party Chairman Mutula Kilonzo Junior said although Omars resignation was not surprising it is a big blow to the party. He however regrets that NASA mishandled the rivalry in the coalition.

In the last general election Omar contested against the incumbent Ali Hassan Joho for the Mombasa gubernatorial seat where he came out a distant third with 43,790 votes against Johos 221,363. Suleiman Shahbal of Jubilee party came a distant second with 69 429 votes.

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Former Mombasa Senator resigns from Wiper Party - Kenya Broadcasting Corporation

Posted on September 7, 2017 | 11:08 a.m.

Organization promots professional development of its members

Santa Maria Womens Network Board of Directors. (Santa Maria Womens Network)

The new Board of Directors for the Santa Maria Womens Network was voted in by participating members at the group's July meeting.

Board members include: Gina Gluyas, Sandra Fuhring, Sandra Dickerson, Kristie Scott, Christie Benedetti, Erika Weber, Anica Julian, Stephanie Flores, Jodi Radford, Susie Duane, Cara Martinez, Lisa Ramos Murray, Virginia Burroughs and Cristina Martins Sinco.

Each took an oath to perform her duties to the best of her ability in hopes of growing the organization into one of the biggest and best Santa Maria networking groups in the area.

The Santa Maria Womens Network is designed to promote the professional and personal development of its members.

Membership includes men and women from the business and private sectors of the community who gather to exchange information, provide mutual support and assist in the overall advancement of women.

Monthly luncheons are held at the Santa Maria Country Club the first Wednesday of each month. Luncheon costs are $22 for members, $25 for guests. Meetings include networking activities or featured speakers.

Proceeds help pay for the annual Women of Excellence dinner, luncheon costs, and are distributed in scholarship funds and grants for local students, teachers, nonprofits and annual member grant.

To learn more, visit http://www.SMWN.net or attend any of the monthly meetings.

Anica Julian for Santa Maria Womens Network.

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Santa Maria Women's Network Introduces 2017-18 Board - Noozhawk