Subject: Cooper's speech to a dying Leland
From: George.Harris@samba.acs.unc.edu (George Harris)
Date: 1990-12-04, 17:02
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

I was under the impression that cooper getting the forestry merit
badge (in the preview) was his formal induction into The Bookhouse Boys.

As to the overall quality of the episode, I'd say it was mixed.  In
parts the writing was rather poor, & the director occaisionally tried too
hard to emulate DL, but there were many scenec that I found affecting.

With regard to Cooper's speech to Leland as he lay dying, it is a
paraphrase of the opening paragraphs of The Tibetan Book of the Dead.  The
actual text has "O, Prince" before each instruction.  The actual book should
be read in its entirety over the corpse as the spirit hovers nearby.  It is
also interesting to note that Leland's comment, "She's beautiful" indicates
that he is seeing one of the spirits the book warns about, rather than the
spirit of Laura, as the casual viewer may assume.  The book repeatedly warns
the dead/dying person to ignore any being he/she sees: they're snares, set to
draw the spirit into the cycle of rebirth again.  If you look for the light,
you can escape the cycle.

With this knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism, & the fact that Cooper has
professed a strong interest in Tibetan culture (I'm surprised he doesn't have
a Lhasa Apso), I found Leland's death scene to be one of the most moving and
satisfying scenes in the series so far wrt what the characters do & what they
*would* do given what we already know of them.  That this particular bit of
Tibetan culture has been bastardized elsewhere should not detract from ones 
appreciation of this scene.

My appy polly loggies if this has already appeared (which I doubt),
but as I'm taking the GRE math subject this Saturday, I shouldn't even be
posting this, much less catching up on att-p.

"Leland says you're going back to Missoula, MONTANA!"
George.Harris@samba.acs.unc.eduGe|ge