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Snowmass Interreligious Conference

  • Rick Bonetti
  • Jul 14
  • 2 min read

The Snowmass Interreligious Conference was held from 1984 until 2015 by Father Thomas Keating (1923-2018) at the St. Benedict's Monastary in Snowmass, Colorado.


The Conference invited "deep practitioners" from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, and Islamic traditions to compare notes, connect, and clarify. One result has been to distill out eight profound points of agreement shared by each of the participants:

  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. Discliplined 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.

Until 2006, few people even knew about these Conferences, so the publication of The Common Heart, An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue, was "a great gift to the world in providing a window into this rarefied spiritual think tank." With a forward by Ken Wilbur, the book Includes the thoughts of eight participants: Fr. Thomas Keating, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Swami Atmarupananda, Dr. Ibrahim Gamard, Imam Bilal Hyde, Pema Chödrön, Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman, and Grandfather Gerald Red Elk.


Initiated in 2016, with the blessing of Father Thomas Keating, the Charis Snowmass Dialogues continue the spirit of the original Snowmass Interreligious Dialogues. These week-long, invitation-only dialogue retreats are held in a relaxed, contemplative atmosphere with an intimate group of twelve teachers, thinkers, and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. Each dialogue highlights an aspect of spiritual life, with topics such as The Future of Religion, Spiritual Practice, The New Monastery, Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Community.


The Dawn of Interspirituality Conference in 2013 brought together a reunion of attendees from 30 years of the Snowmass Interreligious Conference.


The Interfaith Observer (TIO) thrives in the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) at Seattle University, alongside CEIE’s Theolab, Religica.


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