Mission
The ‘monastery’ is a metaphor, a reminder to carry the values of calmness and stillness into our everyday lives. The monastery is in all of us.
Focus
The monastery is an informal Order.
We are non-religious, although it might be said that some of our philosophies are comparable to aspects of Taoism and Stoicism. The monastery’s deepest influence is from the martial arts of Jiu Jitsu.
Our core focus is on learning about and sharing a better way of living within ourselves including with each other and the world. While life often doesn’t seem fair, we should try our best to be fair with ourself and each other.
Our approach
Little Creek Monastery is a singularly unique representation of the emerging monastic model called The New Monasticism. Our founding was not based on New Monasticism (which is based in Christian thought and tradition). That movement, however, may help provide some intellectual framework for gaining an understanding to our approach, which is focused on everyday life integration.
When you have too many thoughts, you can't think.
We are a virtual monastery. So while we respect the traditional monastery's approach, they have their goals and we have ours.
Our Writings
The monastery's writings focus on practical philosophical and experiential essays, including supportive insights from the martial arts, consciousness research and science. Check out Ways of Scientific Knowing.
Everyday Life
One point of view we clearly share with New Monasticism is the notion that monastic 'cells' have typically changed from being caves and remote huts. Instead, our monasteries are now our homes, offices, apartments and even our vans, tents and RVs.
The original monastics, The Desert Fathers, left the cities and relocated to the wilderness. Today’s everyday monastic, however, is doing just the opposite, discovering that urban and suburban settings are in a sense the new wilderness. This form of immersive monasticism seems very congruent with ‘small living’. And as economic constraints continue to pressure many people, the concept of ‘living small’ will increase in popularity.
We believe small living persuasively moves people to clear the clutter from their lives, which is highly compatible with the mindset of an everyday-life monastic clearing or emptying his or her heart and mind. One way of looking at monasticism is incorporating the idea of getting rid of the baggage, living cleaner, and striving for a life of improved clarity and balance.
Our main concept is that we are integrating our practices into everyday life.
From our point of view, it's one thing to study books, train with a teacher, or sit in a meditation class. But it’s another thing altogether to cross-relate deeply meaningful concepts into seamless, unobtrusive, everyday practices.
Check out The Continuum of Improvement.
"‘Mysticism’ is about doing, rather than about thinking or feeling (some might say it is about being, which is true, but in the sense of how one’s state of being is transformed by exposure, experience and practice, rather than through trying to be a certain way, which is just imitation)."
— James Souttar, Founding Writer, London
Main Project - A FIELD GUIDE
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.
Having said that, one problem with our current approaches to ‘instant gratification’ lifestyles is the presumption that there are shortcuts to so-called enlightenment or experiences of ‘oneness’. Trying to somehow brain hack our way into deep realizations is like bypassing the need to build a strong foundation for a 40-story building.
Generally speaking, we don’t see a planet that is improving. Instead we see life-threatening global warming, and a further rise of concentration of wealth, power and continued glorification of greed and selfishness.
Regarding historic monastic efforts - and not to disrespect all the hard work, sweat, persistence and realizations which are occurring - we need something more scalable and readily repeatable.
As you read our essays and articles, you may glimpse - emerging between the lines - the basic foundational premises of our slowly emerging Field Guide.
We believe that the way to overcome the tyranny of greed and divisiveness is to find ways for all of us to develop higher perspectives, to become more deeply aware and conscious of the more fundamental nature of life, and to be even more engaged in the attributes of fairness, compassion and responsibility.
from our writers
The Parasite - mystical experience, by James Souttar
Paul Ellis' film review of 'Her' - Ain't Got No Body
Poem by Maurice: Night
SciFi short story, The Thinking Man's Guru, by Mark Walter
Book Reviews and Reviews