About the Founder
Mark Walter, founder. Photo taken at The Huntington Library by James D. Coleman
From the Founder
I’ve devoted decades of my life to studying Jiu Jitsu as well as what is often called esoteric studies. Emerging out of my studies have been innumerable experiences. Along the way I’ve taken prodigious notes. In the beginning I started filling volumes of handwritten and typewritten notebooks. After a few early web-based attempts, I began to create a comprehensive written account. An Opus, if you will.
Our primary project has a single-minded objective: to find a way to put into words a practical and universally effective how-to guide for deeper conscious awareness and experiences. Something so universal, and so plainly laid out, that anyone could read it, comprehend it and do it.
I’ve dedicated the remainder of my life to trying to somehow bring those notes, experiences, ideals and ideas into written form. The main element of this goal is to create a Field Guide, It is a huge undertaking, hence the decision to found a monastery.
The question might be, “Why?”
That’s a bit difficult to answer but in a few blunt phrases it’s a combination of obsession and of concern. Obsession because of what I’ve practiced and experienced and concern because of what I have consequently realized.
Occasionally we hears stories about people who were rattled into life changing perspectives because of Near Death Experiences, NDEs. A single such experience, we’ve heard, has fundamentally changed their lives. Well, I’ve had hundreds, probably thousands of such experiences, although none of them were NDEs. From a young age I felt a peculiar sense of obligation to our planet and its citizens. Those many experiences eventually cemented that childhood feeling into a strong sense of obligation and responsibility.
Who does what?
While the monastery does, in fact, have a number of real life members besides me, I’m the main person contributing essays to the site. Why’s that? Well, being a virtual monk or nun is similar in a lot of ways to slipping into an actual stone-walled monastery - because each individual tends to be rather devout, isolated and private. And each individual has his/her own practices.
Overall, our philosophy is something of a continuation of Taoist, Zen, Stoicism and martial arts traditions. Our membership is informal, and includes atheists, agnostics, Dudeists, Native Americans, Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants and those from the Jewish tradition. Our members decide, each in their own way, the extent of their personal involvement with respect to the monastic life, as well as within the context of social justice and awareness issues. Some members may prefer to express their practices through work, business, family, music, poetry, art, cooking, gardening, solitude or meditation.
Writing and essays
While my studies began as a teenager, I’ve been writing essays since the early 1990s, including on the web since 2005. Overall, it’s a lot of work. Well over 30 years worth. I have a more than full time job in my one-man business and I’m also the cofounder of a software startup. I live in a small home. I help cook, run errands and do chores like we all do. My point is that to find the time to found a monastery takes a certain commitment. But also that the monastery represents something extraordinarily valuable to me.
I recall my sensei repeatedly encouraging his hundreds (if not thousands) of students to take notes, and to perhaps find ways to share them, with the idea being to document in writing the results of their studies. When I first heard that, it made sense. I liked the idea of placing value on what I was learning and being able to look back at timely reminders. I also liked the reinforcement that note taking and writing provided. Anyway, I ran with it and as a result the monastery has a story to tell.
Regarding stories, I am sympathetic as to why so few people write about these things. The significance of certain kinds of mystical experiences and realizations can be difficult to convey. Sometimes that’s due to shyness but it can also be founded in the fear of being misunderstood or perhaps being marginalized. I’m certainly not a one-off. In other words, I know many other people who have had realizations and experiences similar to mine. Why aren’t we hearing about all that more often?
Well, writing is itself a skill that doesn’t come easy to many of us. If someone’s not a strong writer or maybe dislikes writing, then it is reasonable that they aren’t turning to writing. My point is that we often don’t hear from the advanced martial arts student not because they haven’t been sufficiently aroused. To the contrary, in my opinion, I often observed my fellow students being deeply and profoundly moved.
In a way, profundity can render us speechless.
Who can we talk to about things that defy describing? What can we say when trying to convey experiences which, through the centuries, have been described as ‘that which cannot be described’? And who will listen, without marginalizing the experiencer as well as neutering the experiences?
Frankly, the weight of certain realizations can make a person miserable. There have been countless times I’ve heard the refrain, “Well, Mark, I don’t doubt for a moment that you truly believe what you are telling me.”
Belief is tricky. There’s danger in belief, in part because once we start sprinkling belief powder into the water of conversation, strange concoctions can bubble up.
Beliefs aside, the inner journey is both amazing and deeply disturbing. The gnostic Gospel of Thomas put it this way:
“Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.”
The realization of experiences
The relationship of teacher/apprentice is not widely discussed. First-hand accounts of students who have gone through the so-called mystical sciences are not readily available. There’s also a similar dearth of accounts from those who have emerged out of the more advanced martial arts experiences. Irina Tweedie wrote her Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master. Dan Millman wrote The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Koichi Tohei wrote Ki in Daily Life. But these books are not in the mainstream. Of course, neither is the Little Creek Monastery.
For my part, I’ve always taken the approach that deeply subjective experiences should be viewed objectively. This whole notion of subjective versus objective needs to cease being a stand-off. The two perspectives are companions, not adversaries. Subjectivity and objectivity is really about finding a way to balance in the center of those perspectives. Actually, it’s about finding a way to move further away from duality and closer to unity, or toward what the physicists might call “a unified field theory.”
With all this as a bit of a backdrop, I hope you find some value here. I’m not much of a marketer or promoter, so I can only hope that this work will someday, somehow land in the right place, and stir minds and hearts in ways that are meaningful. To be candid, I will persist even if the monastery gains little to no traction during my lifetime or beyond. Either way, I hope it means something to you. I’ll keep doing my best. And I’ll keep hoping that we finally stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated into the deeply unbalanced behaviors of divisiveness and hate.
A bit of a disclaimer: While I have teaching certifications for Jiu Jitsu and Consciousness, and while I have formally taught, I don’t really consider myself a teacher. Rather, I am simply a practitioner. I practice. The essays and articles we share are primarily based on our own practices and experiences.