An Interspiritual Dialogue
The 20-year experiment in Snowmass, Colorado
““The most precious value that we have in common is the accumulated experience of the spiritual journey.” (Father Thomas Keating)
NOTE: It may be helpful to read my previous post, An Interspiritual Perspective, before this one.
About the Snowmass Conference
It was the summer of 2004. A group, formally known as the Snowmass Interreligious Conference, had gathered at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado to celebrate twenty years of dialogue together.
This group originally arose from an idea generated by Father Thomas Keating in the 1980’s following his participation in several Christian-Buddhist dialogues. From those experiences, he wondered whether this type of dialogue could be meaningfully expanded to include other traditions. In response, he invited a group of spiritual teachers from a variety of the world’s religions to meet.
They were Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic. The religiously “unaligned” were also represented. The intention for the group was to engage in shared meditation and to offer their personal spiritual journey narratives with one another. Father Keating was especially interested in hearing about elements from their religious and spiritual experiences that had proved most helpful along the way.
The Snowmass Conference met annually, with individual members changing occasionally over the years. No records were kept, and no films of the meetings were created. As a result, a sense of safety and sacredness was imbued into each gathering. It allowed the members to honestly open their hearts, minds, and spirits to one another.
Dialogues were described as “wonderful, intense, difficult, playful, and respectful”. Discussions on points of disagreement only contributed to the bonds that were forming within the group. It forced members to be more honest about what they believed and why, without trying to convince others to concur.
Group members found that, despite differences, several significant points of agreement began to form regarding what they collectively agreed to call Ultimate Reality. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the group, Ed Bastian (a later Snowmass member and founder of Spiritual Paths Institute) suggested that a book be written to capture the collective wisdom of the dialogues over the decades. This book materialized as The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue.
Points of Agreement
In the book’s introduction, Father Keating stated that its intent was to present the finalized Points of Agreement -- as a gift to all who would welcome and use them to promote understanding.
In turn, I present them to you in the hope that, through reflection, you might discover whether they align with what you believe, or hope, is True. And in doing so, you might welcome and find use for them too.
1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.
2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
4. Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith, in this sense, precedes every belief system.
5. The potential for human wholeness – or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness – is present in every human being.
6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices, but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.
7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.
Practice: Essential to the Spiritual Life
Related to the eighth agreement above, members of the group shared some of their traditions’ rituals within the context of these sessions. Member, Tania Leontov, in response to this sharing, felt that it fostered an understanding of how specific practices led people to connect to something vaster than themselves. Admittedly, there were some individuals in the conference who found it difficult to participate in certain rituals due to personal religious beliefs. It was understood in the group, however, that no one need participate in anything that was uncomfortable in this regard.
Again, related to the last agreement, Common Heart’s editor, Netanel Miles-Yepez, noted that the potency of the Snowmass dialogues hinged upon the “contemplative depth” of each of its members. Thus, the eighth point calls practice essential to the spiritual life. Members of the group found that the single contemplative practice that they all had in common and could do together, while maintaining the integrity of their own traditions, was to sit in silence. So, they meditated this way twice a day, each day, for an hour at a time, usually before breakfast and supper.
“Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.”
Father Thomas Keating
Reactions of some members to these shared silent meditative experiences (or to silent sittings in general) included these:
“…Connections happen in the silence that couldn’t happen any other way.” (Henoch Dov Hoffman)
“…Something profound is shared in that meditative space.” (Ed Bastian)
“There was truly a profound connection without words.” (Donald Postema)
“The practice of stillness…of body, mind and heart…is an entrance into interior space that opens up to the Divine Presence as It manifests Itself. The silence permeates the mind, the brain, the wholeness of one’s being, and transforms it.” (Father Thomas Keating)
“I worship through the four dimensions of my being: doing, feeling, thinking and being…. Being is worship in stillness.” (Rabbi Rami Shapiro)
“[Helpful] is the sitting practice of meditation emphasizing the basic nowness… this moment being all there is.” (Ana Pema Chodron)
What Can We Learn from Snowmass?
It has been twenty years since the 20th anniversary of the Snowmass Conferences. As we look back, we see there is much to learn from this unique group and ones like it.
For the sake of the nation and the world, an ability to listen and dialogue respectfully, within the context of diverse religious and spiritual communities (and political ones as well), will be a crucial skill for a critical mass of us to master as we move forward.
Here are a few 2004 interview responses from members in response to “What makes the Snowmass Conference work?”
We all started with a degree of open-mindedness; there were no hidebound traditionalists.
· We discovered the need to get acquainted at the level of friendship before sharing the deeper meaning of the terms and concepts of our respective traditions.
· In sharing and listening, one’s own experience and spiritual practice became deepened.
· We started out trying to see if there was anything we agreed upon as elements of our respective traditions.
· We learned the importance of language, especially through the difficulty of communication between impersonal, nontheistic traditions and deeply personal, theistic traditions.
· Meditating or sitting in quiet together for extended periods was… beneficial in uniting us at a deeper level.
· We have been enriched by participating in the rituals of the various traditions.
· We invited a nonaligned member, an independent seeker not on a traditional path, into the group. This helped keep us honest and challenged.
· It was exhilarating to hear hard questions about one’s core beliefs.
· We learned that we could be totally committed to our own traditions, and open at the same time to teaching from other traditions.
· There was a [common] commitment to a path of transformation…
· What we have accomplished has been carried back into our everyday lives and directly affects our lives and communities.
· We learned to speak of the experience of Ultimate Reality, rather than speaking about ideas [of Ultimate Reality].
Final Thoughts
Perhaps there are pieces of inspiration and wisdom that you too can carry into your everyday life from the Snowmass “experiment”, especially as you encounter people from other spiritual and religious communities who cross your path this coming year.
I especially appreciated the last comment above. So, in that spirit, my parting wish for you this holiday season is this:
May you find moments when the experience of Ultimate Reality becomes your own.
(Perhaps you’ll find it in silence.)
Before You Go: A Reminder
If interspirituality sounds intriguing, or you wish to deepen your current knowledge and lived experience, consider this special invitation to explore it with like-minded travelers on their uncharted paths.
Starting on January 10th, I will be co-leading an 8-week, online class on Interspiritual Meditation (ISM) with Don Chatfield (pastor of All Souls Interfaith Gathering in Shelburne, Vermont).
For details about this opportunity, offered by Spiritual Paths Institute, follow this link: https://spiritualpaths.net/ism/