Ep. 3: Fr. Isaac Slater: Freedom, Love, Contemplative Prayer, and the Spirituality of Dying

Описание: Monastic wisdom on embracing limitations, discerning our path in life, letting go of judgments to grow in love, and healing the world through silence.

Fr. Isaac Slater has chosen a life of radical constraint, and within it, discovered radical freedom. Our truest desires, he says, may actually guide us Home, but only if we learn to discern true desire from its impostors. For Fr. Slater, contemplation is steeping in the Divine Presenceuntil we know in our bones that the essence of our being is love. Tending to his ill and dying brothers, he learns from them how to live. As a poet, he works with language until words become transparent letting something larger shine through. His life and practice weave together what many keep separate: he sits zazen while living as a Catholic monk; in solitude, he feels united with all; and he experiences God’s will not as a thundering decree but as a yielding Way--open, fluid, and free, like the Dao.

Fr. Isaac Slater is a Cistercian monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York, where he serves as novice master and infirmarian. He is the author of “Do Not Judge Anyone”: Desert Wisdom for a Polarized World (2025) and Beyond Measure: The Poetics of the Image in Bernard ofClairvaux. Under his secular name, John Slater, he has published the poetry collections Surpassing Pleasure (2011) and Lean (2016), co-translated The Tangled Braid: Ninety-Nine Poems by Hafiz of Shiraz (2010), and his upcoming book This and That: Selected Short Poems of Ryokan (March 2026).

Abbey of the Genesse: https://geneseeabbey.org/

"Do Not Judge Anyone": Desert Wisdom for a Polarized World: https://share.google/6MBl75IyeFt75cLYT

Chapters:

00:00 What is a monk?
01:28 From Sheer Desperation to the Spaciousness of Monastic Life
03:43 "You know you have found your vocation when you found the way of life in which it's easiest for you to love."
06:28 "God puts a spiritual desire in our heart in the measure in which he plans to fulfill it."
07:14 Discerning Spiritual Desire from Mere Impulse or Temptation
10:29 Monastic Life: Life of Prayer and Silence
13:59 Freedom in Embracing Limitations
18:50 Leaving the World to Become One with the World
21:13 The Closer We Are to the Center of Our Being, The Closer We Are to Everyone
23:55 Doing only the good one cannot not do
26:58 God in the world is Love expressed as willingness to suffer
28:45 Seeing how one is loved even in one's shortcomings
31:49 God's Will and Your Heart's Deepest Desire are Fundamentally One
36:27 God's Will is like the Dao
39:24 God's Judgment is the Non-Judgment of Love
40:38 Truth is Love
41:11 The Scandal of Particularity
45:14 Let go of attachments, not Love
48:04 Points of Commonality between Christianity and Eastern Religions
50:26 Marriage Vows and Monastic Vows
52:29 My faithfulness is an overflowing of God's faithfulness to me
56:52 Starting with God's Love
01:01:32 Contemplative Prayer: Steeping Oneself in Divine Love
01:03:02 Possible Difficulties in the Contemplative Life
01:05:35 "Let Through, Let Be, Let Go" & "Inhabit the Pain Fully to Be Free From It"
01:09:08 Judgment, Discernment, and Unconditional Love
01:15:20 When God's Presence Feels Unavailable
01:17:00 "If you are paying attention, it's impossible to be bored."
01:17:31 Poetry: When Language Becomes Transparent to Another Dimension
01:21:00" I sit zazen and live as a Catholic monk"
01:23:04 The Spirituality of Dying
01:28:03 "Often challenges in a relationship make you aware of your limits and your sore spots."
01:29:38 Surrender and acceptance rather than trying to feel better
01:30:36 An Autobiography of My Non-Existent Self

Transcript Edit Assistance: Brodie Martin
Music: Ben Bigelow (   / @benbigelow3  )