Bonus Track # 1: Hungry Spirituality

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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.

Support the show

Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com

Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome back to the World Through Zen Eyes podcast
the bonus track.
The Bonus Track Introducing anew thingamabob.

(00:35):
We've elected to call it theBonus Track.
If you are of certain age, youknow what that means.
On the other hand, if you arenot, you might want to Google
this.
This word, cassette?
That's right, children.

(00:58):
Back a long, long time ago,there was a thing called the
cassette and it was a mechanicalmeans, spoken word or, frankly,
anything.
Artists used to use it to makeavailable their music the

(01:35):
entirety of an album availableto you in one place, the great
vastness of the entirety of the10 songs.
Now, if you were lucky enough,unbeknownst to anybody now,

(02:01):
gather around the LED campfire,children, and listen to this.
Sometimes, only sometimes,after all the songs have been
played, there was the bonustrack, sometimes called the

(02:23):
hidden track track, sometimescalled the hidden track, and the
way that it would work is youwould play your music, the final
song would come to an end, andif you either forgot which is
usually how you discovered saidbonus track then you would allow
your cassette to play.

(02:45):
Your final song is over.
You keep it playing.
All of a sudden, aha, a bonustrack, akin to the bonus french
fry at the bottom of your fastfood takeout bag.

(03:05):
You've eaten all your fries andthere is the one final french
fry, the bonus fry.
The bonus track was akin to thebonus fry, to the bonus fry,

(03:26):
and so we are introducing thisbonus track.
Bit of our World Tries.
A Nice podcast, as per usual.
Expect nothing from A bonustrack is simply that you never
know when, if and what.
A bonus track is simply a bonustrack, sometimes more coherent

(03:52):
than others.
Also, if you've been listeningsince the beginning of the
podcast, you might have noticedcoherence.
Coherency is never guaranteed.
Simply, what comes out is whatyou get, and so this bonus track

(04:16):
would and could be any of it,anything.
Perhaps a poem, perhapssomething more long form,
perhaps musings or questionsSimply a bonus track.

(04:38):
Sometimes it'll have a title, Isuspect.
Usually it won't anyway, bonustrack.
Welcome to the first,potentially first of, but then
again, maybe the only one whoknows.

(05:00):
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 onehungry spirituality.
How about that?
We, in our modern time, areliving in a lap of luxury and

(05:24):
abundance.
Abundance, in fact, is the newsuffering, as deficit used to be
.
We suffer from abundance, fromabundance, and if we juxtapose

(05:45):
and equate or superimposeabundance and deficit and make
it in a sense the same one thing, on the account of it being a
cause of suffering, we find aneed for spirituality, nay, a

(06:08):
dire need for spirituality.
The cavemen and ancient peopleswere Spiritual, that is.
And if you could find the timefor such an endeavor amidst of

(06:28):
constant struggle, it's onlyreasonable to conclude that it's
a thing of importance, suchimportance, in fact, that it'll
take time away from theprocurement of the
life-sustaining needs such asfood, defense, safety, survival,

(06:50):
etc.
This, to me, says something of afundamental recognition of a
human soul longing for itstranscendent self.
It says to me that spiritualityis survivalist on par with

(07:15):
other bare necessities of life,art too.
Art too, is an expression ofthat.
I'm not necessarily talkingabout the commercial art and its
artists having to produce, aspart of their job, sort of at

(07:42):
times forced art, forced that is, by well, by largely by bills
needing to be paid.
I'm talking about, and not inany way downplaying, the
previous art or its creator.

(08:03):
But I'm talking about inspiredart, the art where the artist is
moved by something, perceivessomething in the world around
them transcends the meresuperficiality of its external

(08:24):
appearance and aims to capturein art that which captured them,
that is to say the soul, notthe body of the thing, a
spiritual experience of amundane world.

(08:47):
If ancient peoples, amidst theirday-to-day practices, what
essentially amounts to intensesurvival event, took time for
the spiritual, we too must do so.
They must have found it, not asa hobby I think you do, when

(09:11):
the busy life lulls, but as adire need.
Lulls but as a dire need.
The deficit needing to betended to is suffering, and
suffering needs tending to byspirituality.

(09:35):
We need to tend to oursuffering of abundance the way
that ancient peoples tended totheir suffering of deficit.
Neither is a healthy state, Iconsider.
The majority of our physicalillness and psychological

(09:57):
afflictions nowadays are causedby abundance.
I see no other way to navigatethis state of abundance but by
means that, to a healthierdegree, untatters us from its
grip.
To a healthier degree,untatters us from its grip.

(10:26):
I'm not talking about castingaside and abandoning the new
gains in information, knowledge,technology, the advancement in
sciences and in medicine infavor of a return to some
prehistoric time.
Life is where it is here andnow.
I am suggesting that an oldmedicine can be useful for a new

(10:55):
disease, sometimes better Few,fewer side effects.
Enter spirituality as medicinefor suffering, in this case,
suffering of abundance.
Suffering of abundance Untilnext time, whether on the usual

(11:30):
podcast or via a bonus track younever know.
It's a bonus after all.
Until then, take care ofyourselves and each other.
You never know.
It's a bonus after all.
Until then, take care ofyourselves and each other.