There's no one in my life. That's no revelation, but in practical terms that means there was no one in my life to meet up with recently to ask, "oh my god, what's wrong with your leg?" And there was no one to whom I could answer, "I have no idea". One morning I awoke with a considerable pain in my right ankle with no apparent cause that had me limping for two days that had strangers looking at me sympathetically. I didn't care. If there was a cause, maybe I could have taken the sympathy (like when I pulled a muscle going to the airport once and was limping bad enough that an airport worker directed me to an expedited line), but since I couldn't identify a reason for it, I felt the pain didn't deserve any special attention and pretty much ignored it aside from the limp and continued to take stairs instead of elevators whenever I usually would. 

It's totally gone now. It's not like it was injured and healed. It just showed up one day painful enough to be a raison d'limp, and then went away just as suddenly without cause or reason. At no time was I concerned about it aside from its mystery. The incident did make me pay attention to my feet, though, especially since one of those days it hurt, my sneakers felt extra snug indicating my feet were probably swollen for some reason. And indeed, they look swollen even now. They used to have definition like a foot should have but now they look like Taco Bell grilled stuft burritos. mmm, taco bell.

elegy

I'm calling it "reverse ideation". Instead of mentally forming a suicide attempt, I visualize the aftermath, having already done it. I wouldn't have done it at home, I would've done it elsewhere, but I wake up in the morning at home and run it through my mind that I had done it the night before. I was gone. My waking up experience is incidental, hypothetical. Witnessing time and space that continues to happen, but I wouldn't be here.

Last month, June 8, Strasbourg, France. If Anthony Bourdain were to have done this reverse ideation, he would have woken up and imagined that he had hanged himself the night before. He knew he was there for work and was due to work that day. His award-winning crew was all there nearby, and he knew he was supposed to meet his friend, chef Eric Ripert, who would be co-hosting the episode, for breakfast. Only he wouldn't show up. He was hanging in the bathroom by a bathrobe sash.

It would be Eric who would be tasked with first noticing his absence and hunting him down. It would be Eric who would find him first, the first to know. The authorities would be called, the crew would be gathered and informed, his family would be contacted and informed. Then it would hit the headline news around the world.

Unfortunately, it wasn't reverse ideation. That's more or less how it might have happened.

So many layers that I can't understand. He was on location in the middle of a shoot, in the middle of a season of "Parts Unknown". His loyal and talented crew were all there prepared to work, to set up and capture the shots and scenes that had earned the show, and previous incarnations, several Emmy Awards. He had a daughter who was just coming of age with years ahead where she could really use him, might very well need him.

He was still making his mark on the world, he still had something to say, much more to discover around the world through the show and much more to show and deliver to his television audience. He was doing a job that he loved and felt blessed to have. And he was supposed to meet Eric Ripert for breakfast. Within all this, he decides it's the exact right time to get off the train. The ride, for him, was over.

I'm not even a super fan. I consider myself an ordinary fan, like tens of thousands ordinary fans around the world. Whenever I saw one of his books in the library, I read it. Whenever his show came on, I made a point to watch it, even re-runs. Whenever he appeared to me in media, he was prioritized. That's the hallmark of his ordinary fans.

When I was living in San Francisco, I had a flatmate who was a souz-chef and she lent me Bourdain's first book "Kitchen Confidential" soon after it came out to give me an idea what her life was like. His writing was incredible; irreverent, funny, insightful, sarcastic, eloquent, personable, scathing. Years later when I got cable TV (so this would be in Taiwan), I recognized his name instantly in the cable TV menu and since then I never missed his shows when they aired. Just this past December when my TV service went down for two months, I mentioned that it disrupted a season of Parts Unknown that was airing on TLC. When he died, season 10 was airing and still is.

It also turned out that he was an alumnus of my high school, Dwight Englewood, albeit some 13 years earlier when it was still called Englewood School for Boys. In his New Jersey episode early on in "No Reservations", some shots from the school in the opening teaser I recognized as being the cafeteria and hallways of Leggett Hall. Only people who went there would recognize that. He grew up in Leonia, where a girl I had a crush on during high school lived. I hate to say it, and it's easy to misunderstand this, but our formative years were probably not too much unlike each other. Obvious, distinct differences, but there was likely shared experience growing up towns apart, and a decade apart back then was closer than a decade apart now.

His suicide makes no sense, and in some ways I understand his better and feel more connected to his than others, even though there are aspects that are diametrically opposed. Even principally opposed. He was an active agent in this world, super-connected through his shows with friends literally all over the world. He had friends, family, he touched people in meaningful ways. He would return to places the show had been years and years before, and people would remember him and he them. He had responsibility, he was gifted and active, he had public worth. And apparently still suicidal. Killing himself may be seen as having been both bold and cold.

For me, being suicidal has meant the opposite; disconnect, be worthless to others (not worth keeping in touch, not worth contacting), don't do anything, have no responsibilities or attachments, affect as few people as possible. And mind you, I have thought of contacting various people through the years, but decided not to because of this principle. If I want to disappear, just disappear. Don't be something to someone and then mind-fuck them by disappearing.

When I die, I want people to react with indifference, an afterthought. I've traditionally overestimated my worth and angled for a soft landing. Truth to tell, I expect the vast majority of people with whom I've had the pleasure of acquaintance in my life to never even know. The news would just not cross their front porch. And if it did, it would be 'Wow, really? How? Wow! Really?! When? Wow! That long ago?! I had no idea'. That's as soft a landing as it gets for people who were never even off the ground. The hardest landing? Geez, what the hell did they expect?

Where I relate to him and feel connected to him is that few have mentioned depression or are suggesting he was depressed. Yes, there are simpletons who assume he was depressed because that's the easy way out of understanding something they're too dim to fathom. When no one in a position to know, including his mother, says he was depressed, the idiots can only comfort themselves by attributing his suicide to depression. Kate Spade was depressed, Chris Cornell and Shinee's Jonghyun battled with depression. These were established. Robin Williams is a little more complicated. He was subject to depression, but was battling all sorts of demons.

I don't think Anthony Bourdain was depressed, unless someone who would know comes out and definitively says so. He was morbid, had a dark sense of humor and probably had a close relationship with mortality that pervaded his existence. It shows in his shows, he jokes about death often, making fun of his own demise and conjuring it in humorous imagery and appropriate snark. There was even a previous episode featuring Eric Ripert (Swiss Alps, I think), who was plotting to murder Bourdain and trying to figure out how to get away with it. I saw it after he died and it was still hilarious. Ripert is Buddhist which made the premise even more ridiculous, but it shows how Bourdain's gestalt permeated the show.

I'm not depressed. I even tried to convince myself I am not long ago to befit my suicidal angst (not), but it didn't last long and was a total failure. That attempt was pretty ridiculous and ranged farcical (the skit in my head was hilarious). So if it wasn't depression, was Bourdain's suicide a little more like my theoretical forays into suicidal ideation? Based on some amorphous principle, rather than solely on emotions. An understanding of not wanting to be here anymore, not needing to be here anymore despite daughter coming of age. Perhaps an understanding of the vanity and fleeting nature of life. I mean true understanding. It's not a giving up. I love what I'm doing, I get feedback that I'm doing good, but nothing's permanent and I trust my daughter will land on her feet. I'm ready for what's next.

I'm not gonna pin any of that on Bourdain. That's what I'm hoping to see in myself, minus the loving what I'm doing and good feedback, and of course the daughter. In my view of the world, the daughter would preclude suicide. Of course I don't need to explain my reasons, the fact that I don't have one is the explanation enough. The fact that Bourdain had a daughter is testament to her worth and value to him enough, suicide notwithstanding. Sometimes some people just want to die. They just don't want to be here anymore.

Maybe that's what Anthony Bourdain found in all his travels and all the people he met and spoke and connected with, all the views and perspectives of this vast world that he uniquely internalized. He could present them to us in his shows in diluted, edited form, but he experienced those people first-hand. Was it too much? Maybe. Did it lead to a better understanding that few people, if any, could have without walking the path he walked? Likely.

All this in a world where issues are no longer discussed, where there's more often than not partisan digging in, digging in ideological trenches, digging in heels. People don't want to hear the other side, much less understand or experience it, and they're proud of that fact. All this in a world of emerging generational warfare where Bourdain had no choice but to be a partisan representative. However much he could empathize with both sides and tried to present them fairly, he was getting on in age. He was old guard. Whatever it was, it warranted pulling the emergency brake on the train because it was time to get off.

I wake up in the morning and in reverse ideation, I committed suicide the night before. I don't know exactly where my body is, but I hope it will simply return to nature without ever being discovered. In the reverse ideation, nothing in my apartment changes for the entire day except the external light from the window until it fades to darkness in the evening. It lightens up the next morning and changes through the day until it fades to darkness once again. This goes on for days. Then weeks. Months? Between weeks and months, there's a jiggle of the door knob that someone finds unlocked. Until then, no one noticed anything amiss. Mission accomplished.

After Anthony Bourdain died, TLC Asia posted a few of his early No Reservations episodes. It was pretty raw back then and there was still a sense of trying to appeal to an audience. The camera people were still finding their feet, but it was the beginning of what would become more than camera work. Later on, and fully established in Parts Unknown, it was no less than cinematography. It was no less remarkable than Bourdain's writing. The camera work on other shows is pretty utilitarian, union maybe, and just gets the job done. Zero Point Zero Productions camera work is pretty much art.

the guru, part two

The whole guru thing doesn't really occupy a lot of my thoughts. It's more an abstract side issue and I'm happy just to reiterate that my current attitude towards gurus may be a point of personal karma. It's conditional and will change with karma and conditions. I'll probably have to deal with it in some lifetime and I'll leave it at that.

That's all good and well since as soon as one touches on the issue of the guru, it does get really murky really quickly. It gets into psychology. It gets into controversy. It gets into history and cultures clashing. Who needs it? I don't. But people do get into the guru thing and the attendant issues and possible messes.

For example, I've read that when you've accepted a guru, you give yourself completely over and never doubt their teachings or methods or authority nor the compassion and wisdom behind it. But one part of my current attitude towards the guru is that I tell myself I could never give up critical observation over any purported guru. It's something hard-wired into me that I don't believe in never questioning something right in front of me that seems wrong, even if it's a teaching or method by a guru who I've accepted as legitimate.

Even though I think my attitude is healthy, independent thinking, maybe it's actually a block, a karmic obscuration, a negative result of something in past lives that's essentially impeding progress on the path. An unwillingness to submit, an attachment to ego. *Me*. I think that's questionable. I think that sounds wrong. It's seeing the form of something and thinking it's one thing because of my adherence to my subjective view and interpretation when the substance is something completely different. That's actually not a bad point. It's just the tip of the iceberg how messy it gets.

This exact issue is part of the heart of the controversies regarding allegations of sexual abuse by Tibetan Vajrayana gurus that have started to be reported. The truth can be very tricky in these cases because of the multiple levels of perspectives and subjectivity, which includes the "secret" aspect of some of the teachings.

One bottom-line starting point for me considering the issue is to believe the accuser, although various layers of nuance may be forthcoming. There's a power dynamic involved and the person in power, the guru, doesn't get immediate benefit of the doubt. It's the guru who is responsible for having proper discernment who is ready for whichever teaching.

It is proper discernment that when effectively applied prevents sexual abuse scandals. If a scandal arises, it's the guru's failure to protect the teachings, practice and vows. On the other hand, if a guru explains himself adequately, then the burden may shift to whether there were circumstances regarding the student that the guru wasn't aware of and was mistaken or misled. The subjective harm might still remain, but there might be no criminal or improper intent.

That power dynamic is a very poor foundation for a guru-student relationship, and may be related to why I'm so averse to the guru idea. The student wants something and perceives the guru as someone who can offer it. In a near-best case scenario, a qualified guru does have it, but it may turn out to be a minefield of figuring out how to deliver it.

It really breaks my heart to hear of these abuses because they just shouldn't be happening. It breaks my heart because it violates one of the most sacred and beautiful (and misunderstood) aspects of tantra. It confounds me why it's happening. Is it the teachers' fault? Is it the students' misunderstanding?

One thing seems clear to me is that there must be an immediate moratorium on any purported practice that even remotely touches on sex between teacher and student. There's just too much room for misunderstanding and abuse in the current climate where Tibetan gurus in exile can gain rock star status (which wouldn't exist in Tibet) and western sensibilities aren't fully understood and westerners are cultural newbies and susceptible to abuse.

My understanding is that the Tibetan tantric tradition and practice developed over centuries and became a thing. But that thing is not something that can be plunged into the deep end of the west without controversy, conflict and misunderstanding. Personally I do think these teachers have lost their way, confused by how westerners reacted and responded to them. They are being overcome by emotions of pride and lust brought on by wealth, fame and power that wouldn't emerge in traditional Tibetan contexts. There would've been self-/community-imposed checks.

Those checks are needed now and need to come from the larger Buddhist community. I thought the same thing when I was outraged by Buddhists in Myanmar using their position to practice violence and hate towards Muslim Rohingyas. I was thrilled when the larger community actually did speak up in a widely-circulated letter condemning what Buddhist monks were doing in Myanmar. They didn't have any authority, I'm not sure what effect the letter had (apparently not a lot), but it was important to say something.

The Dalai Lama would be an appropriate person to call for a moratorium since Sogyal Rinpoche, who he considers a friend, was involved in a scandal and has stepped down from all official roles. The Dalai Lama did the right thing in declaring that Sogyal Rinpoche had been disgraced/disgraced himself, which coming from the Dalai Lama was tantamount to a complete loss of credibility and authority to teach and that he should go into extended retreat. Mind you, as far as I know, Sogyal Rinpoche has never accepted fault nor expressed realization of his error.

Mind you further, that doesn't mean that Sogyal Rinpoche's international bestseller "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" has lost all credibility and is worthless. My detachment from the guru concept includes not being disillusioned by his downfall. The teachings are not the guru. People who were inspired by the book should not confuse the disgraced Sogyal Rinpoche with what they found so inspiring from the book, which was something inside themselves all along.

Despite a moratorium (which actually would have to be secret, an internal memo, because publicly it would draw all sorts of unwanted and misunderstood attention) on all sexual contact between teacher and student in the name of tantric teachings, the principles could still be taught to students who are ripe for them. The practice should be stopped even with students who are ripe for them and instead the scandals must be confronted and the teachings should focus on why the practice is being temporarily stopped. The errors of the teachers accused of abuse must be explored and explained where they went wrong. And truth to tell, I don't think it's all that complicated. Just go back to the very beginning and take a refresher course of Theravada Buddhism and review all basic, Mahayana and Samaya vows. It doesn't take a zen master to not get involved in a sex abuse scandal.

I don't know if the recent reports of sexual abuse in the Tibetan Vajrayana community is an outcropping of the #metoo movement, but reversing the disempowerment of women, I hope, is a global movement and I wouldn't expect Buddhist institutions to be immune. If there are problems Buddhist institutions perpetuate, they must be confronted and rectified.