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Issan Tommy Dorsey (1933-1990)

Dharma name: 一山 Issan (=Lone Mountain)

Hartford Street Zen Center at 57 Hartford Street
https://hszc.org/  Issan-ji 一山寺

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issan_Dorsey
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind/2019/09/remembering-zen-master-issan-dorsey.html
https://www.wiseattention.org/blog/2012/08/25/street-zen-the-life-and-work-of-issan-dorsey/

Drag queen, junkie, alcoholic, commune leader--and, finally, Buddhist teacher: these words describe the unlikely persona of Issan Dorsey, one of the most beloved teachers to emerge from American Zen. Street Zen follows Dorsey from his days as a female impersonator to the LSD experiences that set him on the spiritual path. In 1989, after 20 years of Zen practice, he became abbot of San Francisco's Hartford Street Zen Center, where he founded a hospice for AIDS patients. Street Zen draws on interviews David Schneider conducted with Dorsey before his death in 1990 and parallels their nearly 20-year friendship.

PDF: Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey
by David  Schneider
https://tricycle.org/magazine/street-zen/
https://en.calameo.com/read/000039257475a81e80987
https://archive.org/details/streetzenlifewor0000schn

 

Issan Tommy Dorsey
by Michael Wenger
Wind Bell, Vol. 24-2. 1990. pp. 3-5.

"The Road to Lone Mountain looks easy if you can get there
You'll have cookies and tea
The monk will show you the trail to the pass
Nobody else would bother to live there."
-Zenshin Philip Whalen

lssan (Lone Mountain), Abbot of Hartford Street Zen Center and founder of
the Maitri Hospice died on September 6 of AIDS. He was 57.
His loving care and presence were apparent whenever you were near him.
Born in Santa Barbara on March 7, 1933, the eldest of ten children, Issan led
a colorful, but not easy, life. When he was twenty, he was dishonorably
discharged from the Navy for his gay activities. For the remainder of the
19SO's he worked as a female impersonator in San Francisco, and toured the
country in drag as ''Tom.my Dee." In the '60's he founded The Family, one of
the largest communes of the time, and managed the rock band Salvation. He
was friends with Lenny Bruce, Charles Pierce, and many entertainers of the
time. He took many kinds of drugs in large doses throughout this era. Once,
he woke up in the back seat of a car on his way to getting dumped in the
river because his friends thought he had died of an overdose.
One day he chanced upon a smiling picture of the great Indian sage Ramana
Maharshi and his life changed. He came to Zen Center and studied with
Suzuki Roshi and simplified his life. During the next sixteen years, he
practiced diligently and held many positions at Zen Center: head cook,
guest manager, City Center director, Tassajara Head Monk, and member of
the Board of Directors. His determined, warm-hearted attention to detail
grew and his spirit flourished. ·
In October of 1984, he left Zen Center to help his teacher, Zentatsu Baker
Roshi. In 1986, he began to teach and run the Hartford Street Zen Center in
the middle of the Castro district. In 1987, moved by the suffering and dying
all around him, he founded the Maitri Hospice [maitri is Sanskrit for
"friendliness"]. He was diagnosed with disabling ARC in 1988. In an interview
he gave last year he said, ''To have AIDS is to be alive." He was a
living/dying example of hospice/Zen practice.
Maitri Hospice was Issan's crowning achievement. With six private rooms,
it provides residential care for homeless and financially needy people with
ARC or AIDS. This joining of attentive care and Zazen practice was at the
core of his way.
Though sick for a long time, Issan's health failed suddenly. Toward the end
he said, "These days my mind keeps wandering away, but it's so nice to
come back to this world that won't go away."
On September 1, he transferred the Abbot's position to his successor Tenryu
Steve Allen. Up to the last moment, it wasn't clear if Issan would have the
strength to perform the ceremony. However, radiant and ever himself, he
successfully conducted what was described as "the shortest ceremony in
Zen History." Just after midnight on September 6, he died peacefully
surrounded by friends and students.
The Road to Lone Mountain looks easy ...