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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.
- Sales Rank: #267754 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Da Capo Press
- Published on: 2000-06-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .79" h x 5.56" w x 8.43" l, .80 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Library Journal
Issan Dorsey once described himself as a "faggot speed-freak cross dresser," a description that only hints at the outrageousness of his life of substance abuse, prostitution, and female impersonation before embracing Zen in late-Sixties San Francisco. Author Schneider, himself a Zen practitioner and friend of Dorsey, presents an evenhanded account of Dorsey's extraordinary life and death. Dorsey is probably best remembered for his work with the gay community in San Francisco and the establishment of the Maitri hospice for people with AIDS, where he died of the disease in 1990. This work is not an introduction to Zen, but for anyone with an interest in the subject the book raises important questions. It gives a clear handling of the paradox that was Dorsey and the great compassion that he embodied. Recommended for public libraries.
- Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N. Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Religious history rings with tales of converted libertines- -Saul, St. Augustine, Thomas Merton among them. Now, thanks to this wonderfully uplifting biography by freelance journalist Schneider, to that list can be added Issan Dorsey--the thieving, doping, female-impersonating gay hooker who became abbot of one of the nation's top Zen monasteries. Born Thomas Dorsey, Jr., in 1933, the future abbot bloomed into his homosexuality as a teenager and moved to San Francisco, where he developed a nightclub drag-queen act--and a world-class drug habit to go with it. Here, we learn much about Dorsey's life from his own mouth--Schneider interviewed Dorsey extensively, as well as his friends, for this account: ``I loved barbiturates...I'd take them by mouth, or melt them down and shoot them. If I had tracks, I'd just put makeup on them,'' says Dorsey, who hit bottom in the early 60's in Chicago while living and robbing with a hooker/stripper/thief named Bang Bang La Toure. When Dorsey moved back to San Francisco, though, he encountered LSD--and spun into a psychedelic, then spiritual, direction, eventually landing on a balcony overlooking meditators at the city's Zen Center. Dorsey decided to join them--and never looked back, devoting himself to two Zen masters, including the controversial Richard Baker (Schneider examines the Baker-Dorsey relationship as a provocative case study in the master-disciple dynamic). In time, Dorsey became abbot of the Castro district's Hartford Street Zen Center, and it's clear from the numerous testimonies here that his earlier life instilled in him an astonishing tolerance and compassion for all--a trait that inspired him to open the city's celebrated Maitri Hospice, for AIDS patients. Never fully embracing celibacy, Dorsey himself contracted AIDS, dying in 1990. Not hagiographic--Schneider emphasizes that Dorsey remained mercurial until the end--but, still, angels weep as the abbot, his body ravaged but his dignity aglow, breathes his final breath. (Eight pages of photographs--some seen) -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"A fascinating account of the life and death of an extraordinary teacher who was also a pioneer..." -- Peter Matthiesen
"A memorable account of an extraordinary man, unlike anyone I have ever known, whose life was full of strangeness, simplicity, and grace." -- Joan Halifax, author of Shamanic Voices
"A wonderful book I return to when I want... Dorsey back again to remind me to slow down and enjoy life." -- David Chadwick, author of Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki
"An inside look at Zen masters, their sublimity, scandals, and humanity, a tearful chronicle of home-grown American Buddhist heroism." -- Allen Ginsberg
"Well-researched, cleanly written . . . It details an amazing man and adds to our knowledge of gay history..." -- Lambda Book Report
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
inspiration on the way
By Irma Bauer
I read this book after reading a biography about Janis Joplin. The same time, maybe occasionally even the same places (Big Brother and the Holding company played at a concert raising funds for Shunryu Suzukis Tassajara-project). A similar background in a time, when people, societies, whole nations were on the move, being shaken, transformed, struggling for new outlooks or on the contrary trying to conserve a seemingly dead old world. Two lives in the same turbulent and exciting days, and yet how different. I was deeply touched by both books. But the one which stays with me and serves as one of the inspirations on the way to inner realisation is this biography of Issan Dorsey. To read it has been not only a deep confrontation with memories of my own past, but also a wonderful and inspiring testimony on what transformation on the path can cause in a gifted and persevering individual.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
An incredible life, a remarkable man.
By Dave
I read this book because I heard about a renowned Buddhist named IssanDorsey at a dharma talk. I'm gay myself, and hearing that Issan Dorsey was also a gay man made me interested in finding out about his life. So, I popped his name into a search engine, and ordered this book from amazon.
Up until recently, my relationship with religion in general has been a bad one. The tendency of Western religions to preach hate toward my kind has made it all but impossible for me to participate in any of them. Legislators on both sides of the political aisle have used religion as a vehicle for either passing laws to restrict my freedom or turn a blind eye to these efforts, for fear that any support for my community would render one 'unelectable'. None of this has made for a very good advertisement of religion for my community.
Buddhism struck me as being fundamentally different, and when I read this book, I realized just how different it was. Issan Dorsey was from my side of the tracks, and instead of preaching self-loathing to him, Buddhism taught him how he could make a major difference in the lives of those who needed him the most.
I'm pretty inspired to give this Buddhism thing a try now. I've never heard of a religion that doesn't judge people before. Maybe this is the one for me.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
A deep sense of gratitude
By Porchlight
I read the reviews of this book before purchasing it. As a queer writer in Spirituality and Religion I have a great deal of sensitivity about heterosexist bent towards gay characters and history. So, David Sunseri's review of the book sat perched on my shoulder as I read this book.
Having finished this book I have to say that I am left seriously questioning Sunseri's criticism of the book. It is a wonderful story and a tender account of a remarkable person. Having read this book and appreciating the care given to speak to the myriad parts of Issan Dorsey's (full) life story, I have to wonder if Sunseri isn't speaking from a place of internalized homophobia. Nowhere did I find the "sensationalizing" of homosexuality that Sunseri and Harper Leah (?) mention.
In fact, I am now left to believe that Sunseri and Leah would prefer a completely sex-free, queer-free reading of Dorsey's life.
If the book had sensational parts, that's because parts of Issan Dorsey's life were sensational and outrageous. That's not heterosexist bias dear ones. Heterosexist bias would be to "clean up" those stories and de-queer Dorsey. Fortunately Schneider doesn't suffer from any such prudery.
A closer reading of Sunseri's reviews show what is clearly a bitter bias towards anything involving the entire Soto Zen community. Sunseri states that quite vividly in his review of Robert Winson's "Dirty Laundry."
Fortunately, I don't suffer from that bias. I approached this book wanting to know more about this intriguing person, Issan Dorsey, who, by all accounts, wasn't afraid to embrace the totality of his life's existence and who has left a legacy of caring for others in need.
Do not miss this book if you're interested in a truly remarkable story of a Gay pioneer and spiritual elder. It is not the complete story. But it is one of the stories and it deserves to be read. Perhaps members of the Hartford Zen Center complaining about the lack of Issan's "teachings" in the book could get off their zazen pillows and publish them. I'm sure they have more access to it than anyone.
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