Bonus Track # 1: Hungry Spirituality

Remember finding that hidden track on a cassette after you thought the album was over? That unexpected delight inspired our new "Bonus Track" segment - unpredictable, unplanned content that might appear when you least expect it.

In this first Bonus Track, we explore the concept of "hungry spirituality" - a fascinating paradox of modern life where abundance, rather than deficit, has become our primary source of suffering. While our ancestors struggled for basic survival needs, they still prioritized spiritual practices, suggesting something profound about human nature. If people fighting daily for existence made time for spiritual connection, shouldn't we recognize its essential value in our lives of comparative luxury?

The suffering of abundance manifests in our physical illnesses and psychological afflictions - obesity, heart disease, anxiety, depression - conditions rarely seen in societies of scarcity. Our spiritual hunger grows even as our material needs are met with unprecedented ease. Like the artist who captures the soul rather than just the appearance of their subject, we need to look beyond the surface of our comfortable lives to address the deeper longing within.

This isn't a call to abandon modern conveniences for some romanticized prehistoric existence. Rather, it's an invitation to consider how ancient spiritual medicine might treat our thoroughly modern disease. How might traditional practices help untether us from the grip of excess without requiring us to sacrifice genuine progress?

Join us as we explore this tension between material wealth and spiritual poverty. And remember - you never know when another Bonus Track might appear. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the Bonus Track Concept
• 3:08 The Cassette Era's Hidden Gems
• 5:14 Hungry Spirituality: Suffering from Abundance
• 7:04 Ancient Wisdom for Modern Problems
• 10:14 Spirituality as Medicine for Today

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Welcome back to the World Through Zen Eyes podcast the bonus track. The Bonus Track Introducing a new thingamabob. We've elected to call it the Bonus Track. If you are of certain age, you know what that means. On the other hand, if you are not, you might want to Google this. This word, cassette? That's right, children.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Back a long, long time ago, there was a thing called the cassette and it was a mechanical means, spoken word or, frankly, anything. Artists used to use it to make available their music the entirety of an album available to you in one place, the great vastness of the entirety of the 10 songs. Now, if you were lucky enough, unbeknownst to anybody now, gather around the LED campfire, children, and listen to this. Sometimes, only sometimes, after all the songs have been played, there was the bonus track, sometimes called the hidden track track, sometimes called the hidden track, and the way that it would work is you would play your music, the final song would come to an end, and if you either forgot which is usually how you discovered said bonus track then you would allow your cassette to play. Your final song is over. You keep it playing. All of a sudden, aha, a bonus track, akin to the bonus french fry at the bottom of your fast food takeout bag. You've eaten all your fries and there is the one final french fry, the bonus fry. The bonus track was akin to the bonus fry, to the bonus fry, and so we are introducing this bonus track.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Bit of our World Tries. A Nice podcast, as per usual. Expect nothing from A bonus track is simply that you never know when, if and what. A bonus track is simply a bonus track, sometimes more coherent than others. Also, if you've been listening since the beginning of the podcast, you might have noticed coherence. Coherency is never guaranteed. Simply, what comes out is what you get, and so this bonus track would and could be any of it, anything. Perhaps a poem, perhaps something more long form, perhaps musings or questions Simply a bonus track. Sometimes it'll have a title, I suspect. Usually it won't anyway, bonus track.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Welcome to the first, potentially first of, but then again, maybe the only one who knows. No one can tell. Certainly I I'll call this one, only one who knows. No one can tell. Certainly I I'll call this one hungry spirituality. How about that?

Speaker 1: 5:14

We, in our modern time, are living in a lap of luxury and abundance. Abundance, in fact, is the new suffering, as deficit used to be. We suffer from abundance, from abundance, and if we juxtapose and equate or superimpose abundance and deficit and make it in a sense the same one thing, on the account of it being a cause of suffering, we find a need for spirituality, nay, a dire need for spirituality. The cavemen and ancient peoples were Spiritual, that is. And if you could find the time for such an endeavor amidst of constant struggle, it's only reasonable to conclude that it's a thing of importance, such importance, in fact, that it'll take time away from the procurement of the life-sustaining needs such as food, defense, safety, survival, etc.

Speaker 1: 6:53

This, to me, says something of a fundamental recognition of a human soul longing for its transcendent self. It says to me that spirituality is survivalist on par with other bare necessities of life, art too. Art too, is an expression of that. I'm not necessarily talking about the commercial art and its artists having to produce, as part of their job, sort of at times forced art, forced that is, by well, by largely by bills needing to be paid. I'm talking about, and not in any way downplaying, the previous art or its creator. But I'm talking about inspired art, the art where the artist is moved by something, perceives something in the world around them transcends the mere superficiality of its external appearance and aims to capture in art that which captured them, that is to say the soul, not the body of the thing, a spiritual experience of a mundane world.

Speaker 1: 8:47

If ancient peoples, amidst their day-to-day practices, what essentially amounts to intense survival event, took time for the spiritual, we too must do so. They must have found it, not as a hobby I think you do, when the busy life lulls, but as a dire need. Lulls but as a dire need. The deficit needing to be tended to is suffering, and suffering needs tending to by spirituality. We need to tend to our suffering of abundance the way that ancient peoples tended to their suffering of deficit. Neither is a healthy state, I consider. The majority of our physical illness and psychological afflictions nowadays are caused by abundance. I see no other way to navigate this state of abundance but by means that, to a healthier degree, untatters us from its grip. To a healthier degree, untatters us from its grip.

Speaker 1: 10:26

I'm not talking about casting aside and abandoning the new gains in information, knowledge, technology, the advancement in sciences and in medicine in favor of a return to some prehistoric time. Life is where it is here and now. I am suggesting that an old medicine can be useful for a new disease, sometimes better Few, fewer side effects. Enter spirituality as medicine for suffering, in this case, suffering of abundance. Suffering of abundance Until next time, whether on the usual podcast or via a bonus track you never know. It's a bonus after all. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other. You never know. It's a bonus after all. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.