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Illness and Compassion: AIDS in an American Zen Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Ronald Y. Nakasone
Ronald Y. Nakasone
Affiliation:
Russell Tolson Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union. He is also the interim codirector for the Initiative for Spirituality and Aging at the Graduate Theological Union.
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Extract

In an interview just before his death, Issan Dorsey, an American Zen priest and abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center, stated, “AIDS is not fatal. Life is fatal. If you have AIDS, you are alive.” Although infected with AIDS, Issan worked to establish the Maitri Hospice for those dying from complications related to AIDS in the San Francisco Castro District, the heart of the gay and lesbian community. His efforts reflect the statement–although the body may be diseased, one can continue to give abundantly and tirelessly, articulated by Vimalakirti in the Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra (Sutra on the Teaching of Vimalakirti).

Type
Special Section: Compassion: What Does It Really Mean?
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 488 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. Issan Dorsey was born Tommy Dorsey in Santa Barbara, California. “Issan” is his Buddhist name. He was the oldest of 10 children born to a working class family. Before his conversion to Buddhism, he served in the United States Navy and was part of the San Francisco flower culture. An expressed homosexual, he worked for a time as a female impersonator. He studied Zen meditation with Shinryu Suzuki Roshi (1905–1971), the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. Richard Baker Roshi(1936– ), the successor to Suzuki Roshi, and the first American leader of the Zen Center, confirmed Issan to be an authentic teacher and a living representative of the Buddha's linage in 1972. Issan became the abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center on November 4, 1989. At that time the Center was renamed, Issanji, One Mountain Temple, in his honor. Issan died on September 5, 1990 from complications related to AIDS.

2. Kehoe, S, Silberberg, B. [Producers]. The Story of Maitri Hospice [Videorecording]. San Francisco, CA: A-Productions, 1990.Google Scholar

3. Buddha-Dharma. Berkeley, California: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1984:320.Google Scholar

4. The Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra expounds the essentials of early Mahayana thought and practice through a series of conversations that Vimalakirti, who feigns illness, has with other Buddhist personalities who come to wish him well. Except for fragments, the original Sanskrit version is lost. Thurman's, Robert A.F., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, a Mahayana Scripture, was published in 1986 by the Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar A translation by Charles Luk appeared in 1972 in a Shambhala Publications book. This article relies on a translation that appears in the Buddha-Dharma (see note 3).

5. See note 2. Kehoe, Silberberg. 1990.

6. Schneider, TD. Accidents & calculations: the emergence of three AIDS hospices. Tricycle 1992; Spring:80.Google Scholar

7. See note 6. Schneider, . 1992:83.Google Scholar

8. See note 2. Kehoe, Silberberg. 1990.

9. Nagarjuna, . Mahaprajnaparamita-Sastra, Taisho shinshu daizokyo [Tripitika in Chinese], Vol 25. Takakusa, J, Watanabe, K, Eds. Tokyo: Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo Kanko Kai, 1927:256.Google Scholar

10. Buddhaghosa, a fifth century commentator and translator, defines suffering to include all afflictions, physical, psychological, and emotional. Spiritual affliction, however, is the most serious. The awareness of living in a transient world generates the greatest unease. Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya, Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) [Trans Nanamoli, B]. Colombo, Sri Lanka: R. Semage, 1956:568.Google Scholar

11. Quoted by Ikeda, Musin Pat, Dorsey, Issan. Buddhism at the Crossroads 1990;Fall:40.Google Scholar

12. See note 2. Kehoe, Silberberg. 1990.

13. Manjusri is regarded as the personification of wisdom. This Bodhisattva is often depicted riding a lion.

14. See note 3. 1984:319.

15. Cook, F. Hua-Yen Buddhism, The Jewel Net of Indra. University Park, Pennsylvania and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977:117–8.Google Scholar

16. See note 2. Kehoe, Silberberg. 1990.

17. Issan Dorsey, lecture delivered at Santa Fe, July 1985.

18. According to Buddhist lore Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, preached the Four Noble Truths at his first sermon. The Four Truths include the Truth of Suffering, the Truth of the Cause of Suffering is Illusion and Desire, the Truth of Nirvana, and the Truth of the Eightfold Path to Nirvana. Many scholars believe that the Four Noble Truths were fashioned after a medical model for diagnosing a disease, determining its cause or etiology, stating the possibility of its cure, or health, and prescribing the method to health or therapeutics. Whereas the corporal physician is concerned with physical ailments, the Buddha is a spiritual physician.

19. Rahula, W. Zen and the Taming of the Bull, Toward the Definition of Buddhist Thought. London: T. Fraser, 1978:38.Google Scholar

20. See note 3. 1984:319–20.

21. See note 3. 1984:320.

22. See note 2. Kehoe, Silberberg. 1990.