About

Rev. Trent J. Thornley

Trent is the Executive Director and ACPE Certified Clinical Pastoral Educator at the San Francisco Night Ministry. He is an ordained Buddhist Dharma Leader in a Dzogchen Nyingma lineage and an ordained minister in the Metropolitan Community Churches, a progressive denomination with an outreach to the LGBTQ+ community.

Trent has been teaching and working with the Enneagram for over ten years. He is past president of the International Enneagram Association (IEA) and an IEA Accredited Professional, and he serves on the faculty of the online Buddhist Chaplaincy course at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies.

He holds a J.D. from Indiana University, an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union, and a Certificate in Buddhist Chaplaincy from the Institute of Buddhist Studies. He lives in San Francisco.

About Living Enneagram

Most people know the Enneagram as a map of nine personality types. But the symbol is older than that. As taught by G.I. Gurdjieff, it is a living diagram of transformation, a map of how any process unfolds, stalls, and comes to completion.

Living Enneagram brings these two streams together: the personality types as points within a living process, and the process Enneagram as a guide for the inner work the types point toward. The teaching draws on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way, Buddhist contemplative practice, and years of spiritual care as a chaplain and educator.

Begin here

Start the free Wake Up series → Ten conversational talks on a pilgrimage around the Enneagram with Gurdjieff.

Join the mailing list → Hear first about new talks and the Gurdjieff workshops coming in 2027.