Small Beginnings
We started off as a small blog in 2005. Even though we remain small, we've been steadily and carefully crafting the concept of an everyday life monastery. We basically share experiences that have occurred along the path of being a student.
Milestones
1990 - Founder Mark Walter began his Jiu Jitsu studies and subsequently became a certified instructor (sensei) in Jiu Jitsu, a Reiki practitioner, and was also awarded certification as an Instructor in Consciousness Studies.
1997 - Mark’s early writings began, an outgrowth of his Great River Jiu Jitsu studies and lessons.
2005 - Mark turned to blogging and began posting his GRJJ experiences, cross-relating the principles of Great River into practical applications for everyday life. Our first site, Eternal Awareness, was inspired by Great River Institute classes on The Bhagavad Gita.
2005-2013 - We moved through various blogging platforms and also tried out social platforms. Leaving social media behind, we began our transition to web-based essay writing.
2012 - We officially formed the monastery, introducing it as The Monastery of Nothingness. Entirely virtual.
2013 - Our first ‘official’ collection rolled out on Medium, starting with a humorous Cast of Characters.
2013 - We met with the founder and started quietly supporting Dudeism - the world's slowest growing religion - which now has over 600,000 self-ordained priests worldwide. Our support simply means we are an informal monastic resource for Dudeism. Over half of our early members were Dudeists.
2017 - We changed the monastery’s name. Our first essays on Class Warfare were published.
2017 - Our Medium site underwent a massive expansion to include six related Medium sites. But we found Medium to be a difficult site in which to intuitively organize our growing content.
2018 - We slowly began adding writers, and hope to continue as we grow.
2018 - We rolled out a new home website and began moving our Medium content to our website.
2023 - We remain a 100% virtual monastery.
We'd love for you to join us. It's free. (We’ll never spam you or share your contact information. Contact.)
About
Background
The monastery was founded in 2012, as the Monastery of Nothingness. In 2017 we changed our name to Little Creek Monastery. Find out more about us here.
Our lineage and inspiration grew out of Great River Jiu Jitsu and the Great River Institute located in Virginia.
We believe we are the only Jiu Jitsu-based monastery in the world.
We are also Dudeism’s first monastery.
About the Monastery
Little Creek Monastery, located in Southern California, is 100% virtual. We are founded on the notion that you can be a monk or nun in everyday life, devoted to those things you hold sacred.
The monastery is in all of us.
We believe you can have fun in life. But there’s no reason we can’t also successfully explore the deeper parts of ourselves, including developing deeper eternal awareness. In our opinion, serious study needs to be offset with a good sense of humor and a willingness to laugh at yourself. Put another way: a ‘just-so’ mix of humor and humility.
The Little Creek name - 3 reasons
We like to think of ourselves as everyday life vagabonds, wanderers, seekers and philosophers. The kind of people who might find a quiet, (1) little creek somewhere, plop down and soak our bare feet.
Our lineage descends from Great River Jiu Jitsu, so we perceive our monastery as a quiet tributary or (2) little creek feeding the main river, an entirely suitable retreat for everyday monks and nuns.
Historically, in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area the U.S. Navy has an installation named the (3) Little Creek Amphibious Base. In the 1960s, our founder was in a Boy Scout troop sponsored by the base. He achieved his second class rank.
Lineage
Diato-ryu, founded 780–1200, reformed c. 1888
Hakko-ryu, founded 1941 (more)
American Kobe, founded 1975 (closed)
Chokken Shin-ryu, (unknown)
Great River, founded 1991
Little Creek Monastery, founded 2012
about our content
The Little Creek Monastery is our only website. Unless noted, all content is original. This is the only place we currently publish. (Some of our content is still on Medium, which is steadily being migrated here.)
Our first blog was published on April 29, 2005. Little Creek Monastery was formally established on July 4, 2012.