Anthony Bourdain: zen and the art of loss.

 Suicide is not funny, it is not a joke, and it is almost always a shock. I did not know Anthony Bourdain he is just one of my many idols or, influences on my life. I bought my first punk album the dead boys debut, primarily because he was wearing one of there shirt on an episode of no reservations. His nonchalant toughness and ability to impose narrative on events while always feeling like your mind had broadened rather than being restricted was one of the reasons I believe he made a travel show impact in a way that is typically reserved for rock stars and literature.
   This is not an obituary like I said I did not know him. I am just a fan of his television travel series. That being said this is going to be more about Zen and depression. About meditation, perspective control and purpose.
   Zazen as a goalless practice has always fascinated me all the while confused me. It was only when I started practicing meditation with simple goals like breathing control or mantra based brain condition to try to open my mind to new perspectives. That I was able to let go and just do zazen in all of its contradictions.
     Emphasize on the point I do zazen without a goal and never found a contradiction when I prayed after meditation. Even though when I prayed, I did so with purpose. The question I have had with zazen was whether I could do it as a goalless practice. While still having goals when not doing the method. I do Zazen, but I am also on a diet. I do zazen but also practice tarot as taught by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I do zazen.
    The way the mind works is confusing and relative to each individual. There is observing the brain creates fiction like when I do a tarot reading in the non-divination therapeutic tradition I learned it. There is calming condition meditation like when I whip out my mala and repeat this may be my last breath. With "this may be" on the inhale and "my last breath" on the exhale. Like reps, these two types of meditation draw out the brain to elaborate on or to observe for later dissection throughout the day. While zazen seems to turn a human being into something that is dogmatically anti-dogma. Like a Mobius strip, there is no inside or outside. You observe but let go and hold the posture. While seemingly contradiction goalless nature of the practice but I have noticed how the more I do zazen I find that the observing part of my brain becomes withdraw from the fiction of verbal ingenuity of my ego in its struggle to claim that this fiction I call myself is anything but a fantasy.
    This would seem to imply that when I do zazen that it has a goal in my mind. But I find this stupid a frustrating so I quit thinking about it then continue the mediation. All this seems somewhat distant from where I started, but I will leave you with a quote from Anthony Bourdain that goes "I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do."
    That is how I feel About my relationship to Zen Buddhist and zazen. I hope wherever Mr. Bourdain is he can share a beer with god. I have depression and have tried to kill myself. But I know if he would not have killed himself he would feel worthwhile when he got to see his daughter again. I only wish he could have held off till after the abyss crawled back to wherever it comes from because the loss of life leaves a vacuum for despair for the people he actually touched and not just fan's like me.