Yangsi Rinpoche, president of Maitripa College, offering an  April public talk at University Congregational United Church of Christ.
Photos by: Brewbooks (Commons Wikimedia), Cristina Sarnelli, Sojourners (used by permission)

A unique interfaith collaboration in Seattle between a Tibetan Buddhist center and a Congregational church is evolving, with benefits for both.

Dharma Friendship Foundation (DFF), a 40-year-old Tibetan Buddhist center, has co-hosted three events at the University Congregational United Church of Christ (UCUCC). More such events are expected as the informal partnership evolves.

At the core of this collaboration is the surprising spiritual life of church Co-Pastor Michael Ellick, who earlier in his career was a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

Most recent of the events was the fall 2024 visit by the Jangchub Choling nuns of India, and their several-day creation of an Akshobya sand mandala in a complex ceremony.

Subsequent teachings at the church by Venerable Thubten Chodron in December 2024, and by Yangsi Rinpoche in April 2025, have been well attended and warmly received. Both teachers are skilled at explaining Buddhist ideas in down-to-earth terms that can be appreciated by audiences with diverse faith backgrounds.

There are ongoing discussions to host more Buddhist teachers in the future, with open invitations to Khensur Jhado Rinpoche, former abbot of Namgyal Monastery; and Khandro Tsering Kunga Bum-ma, a self-arisen yogini recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Launched by an unexpected email.

In the summer of 2024, DFF President Jordan Van Voast was searching for a venue to host touring Buddhist nuns from India, to build the first sand mandala constructed by female monastics in Seattle. The ideal location would have a spiritual presence without costing a small fortune.

One day Van Voast received a surprise email from Kiran Frank, a leader of the Gathering Ground spiritual community, and a person with roots in the Christian community and the local Drikung Kagyu community. Frank suggested that he contact the University Congregational United Church of Christ.

The response from church leaders was an enthusiastic “Yes.” While touring the church space Van Voast remembered that 35 years earlier, he had volunteered at the church in their Teen Feed program, underscoring the layers of karmic connections bringing these two organizations together.

Dharma Friendship Foundation, like many spiritual organizations, has downsized its physical presence over the years due to financial necessity. This makes it difficult to host qualified Buddhist teachers in accessible locations with adequate space, so the invitation to host events at UCUCC was extremely fortuitous.

Central to this was how UCUCC Pastor Michael Ellick embodies a unique ministry embracing collaboration across different faith traditions, for instance mixing Buddhist meditation and mantra chanting, with early Christian contemplative practices.

A former Tibetan Buddhist monk in the Sakya tradition, he leads a Monday evening class called “Practicing the Presence of God,” which draws from his Buddhist training as well as from Christian Centering Prayer. This latter evolved from the Hesychastic Eastern Orthodox Christian monastic contemplative tradition, and was later elucidated in the writings of Catholic monastics Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating.

As Pastor Ellick explains it, attendees at UCUCC are hungry for Buddhist teachings as a means for rediscovering “The Way” as originally taught by Jesus, before the influences of empire institutionalized and diluted the more contemplative aspects of Christianity.

I had the opportunity to speak with Pastor Ellick via Zoom recently. He was raised in a conservative Baptist-Evangelical environment but had questions from an early age:

“I began to rebel internally about things that were broken in the Christian tradition – for example, LGBTQ people weren’t welcome. This made me question Christianity very intensely, even though I always felt a kinship with Jesus,” he said. “So the question became for me, ‘Where are the places where you can learn not just a bunch of dogma, but how can you learn to live your life filled with compassion?’”

Naturally drawn to Tibetan Buddhism and Zen, he was exposed to Buddhist teachers through the University of Washington Southeast Asia project. These teachers included the late Dezhung Rinpoche – one of the first Tibetan lamas to settle and teach in the United States.

After graduating from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in comparative religion and philosophy, Ellick entered the master of divinity program at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. There Ellick quickly realized that, “Even the academic, intellectual route to theology was going to be insufficient for me. It was overly intellectual and not a practice route. They were going to teach me how to win arguments, instead of how to become a vessel for compassion.”

In New York City he met Clark Strand, a Zen teacher and an early editor of Tricycle Magazine, a Buddhist publication, who then introduced him to Lama Pema Wangdak of the Sakya tradition at a public talk. Wangdak was a close disciple of H.H. Sakya Trizin, Dezhung Rinpoche and other great Tibetan masters.

“I knew immediately that I would take refuge with this person,” Ellick said. “The very next day I visited his center and received the refuge vows, with an explanation of their meaning. I continued my studies at seminary school, but I lived with Lama Pema at the dharma center as his attendant for the next seven years, assisting with his charitable activities in Tibet and organizing teachings for Sakya Trizin’s visits to North America.

“Eventually I wrote a master’s thesis on Tibetan Buddhism, about how it has moved from the East to the West, and the challenges and dangers of transferring the Buddhism of Tibet – revolving around monasteries – to dharma centers in the West,” Ellick said. “His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often remarked that America is a Christian country, and that rather than converting to Buddhism, it’s often more practical for Americans to become better Christians rather than adopting an Asian religion.

“I moved to Seattle two years ago. Many churches wouldn’t hire me when I told them that I was loyal to both the Buddhist tradition and loyal to the Jesus tradition, though not to the Christian tradition of empire and conquest. When I came to UCUCC they were eager to embrace a new take on worshipping Jesus that was rooted in the teachings of Jesus himself. UCUCC continues the tradition of bringing the spirit of faith into political action on issues such as refugees, social justice, LGBTQ, etc.”

“Practicing the Presence of God,” the service led by Pastor Ellick, meets every Monday evening from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the chapel of UCUCC, at 4515 16th Ave NE in Seattle’s University District.