Re: Issan Dorsey, One Mountain
Issan was a great teacher.
A little book about him on order ...
http://www.amazon.com/Street-Zen-Life-I ... 1569246378
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Re: Issan Dorsey, One Mountain
Took me a while to see the significance of the first picture. I thought it was some 40's or 50's US film star!Leave a comment:
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Issan Dorsey, One Mountain
I just wanted to share with you one of my other biggest inspiration in sitting and the Soto path: Issan Dorsey( sometime in 1933- September 6,1990). He was a gay zen priest and teacher and ex-prostitute, drug addict and female impersonator. He established the Maitri Hospice at Hartford Street Zen Center for people dying of AIDS during the first spread of the epidemics in the 80s. He was not a saint and never pretented to be anything but what he was that was ungraspable, beyong thinking. just ineffable. A f..... up life sitting as a living Buddha. Both and none of them. A traditionnal koan presents two oxes fighting and disappearing as they enter the flowing stream of a large river.Wasn't he smashing as a drag queen?
Issan had two faces
but I cannot choose any
the drag queen in a soapy bath
or the floating cloud
neither one nor the other
will tell you the whole story
Boddhistvas and destitutes
are made of the same stuff
in close embrace
they dance
and twirl and turn
the single flower
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