Issan Dorsey, Roshi, who famously transformed himself from a wild drug-addicted traveling drag queen to a Zen Monk, (which misadventures are hilariously and richly recounted in his biography, Street Zen by David Schneider) was the Dharma heir of Zentatsu Richard Baker and one of the most remarkable (and, understandably, remarked-upon) figures in that lineage of Western (Soto Zen) Buddhism.
In 1980 (while he was director of the San Francisco Zen Center) he became a member of
The Gay Buddhist Club, which eventually morphed into the Hartford Street Zen Center. Originally a discussion group for gay Buddhists, the group eventually wound up meeting regularly and sitting zazen in the basement at 57 Hartford Street, one of its members’ houses.
In 1987, Dorsey created a hospice (the Maitri Hospice) within the Zen Center, serving, primarily, gay men who were dying of AIDS.
In 1989, he was officially installed as the abbot and given the Dharma name “Issan” (meaning “One Mountain”).
He himself passed away from complications linked to AIDS in September of the following year, much missed, gone too soon, an extraordinary loved and revered figure.
His successor at the Center? – none other than Philip Whalen
David Schneider’s 1993 biography (recently reprinted and now in its third edition) is a wonderful and entertaining – and, frankly, essential, read. As Allen writes – “An inside look at Zen masters, their sublimity, scandals, and humanity, a tearful chronicle of home-grown American Buddhist heroism.”
“A memorable account of an extraordinary man” writes Joan Halifax, “unlike anyone I have ever known, whose life was full of strangeness, simplicity, and grace.”
“Street Zen is about much more than the life of Issan Dorsey”, declares Lama Rod Owens –
“it is an exploration of how the material of our whole lives can be used as fuel for awakening..”
Here’s a short excerpt (very short excerpt)
The entire book is available here
See also:
Kobai Scott – The Lone Mountain Path – The Example of Issan Dorsey (from the Shambhala Sun, 1998)
Bernie Glassman on Issan Dorsey (introduction to the second edition of Street Zen, 2000)
Joan Halifax on Issan Dorsey
Ken Ireland’s appreciation of Issan Dorsey (2009)
and a very brief glimpse of the man himself – here: