Rainn Wilson

or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Rain Wilson, best known for his Emmy nominated role as Dwight Shrut on NBC's

The Office. Wilson also voiced the Alien Villain and Monsters Versus Aliens and starting the police procedural Backstrom. But today He's equally well known for the philosophy website he founded called Soul Pancake, which creates media about life's big questions, including a New York Times best selling book of the same name. He just released a memoir called The Bassoon King,

My Life in Art, Faith and Idiocy. Hey everybody, it's Eric And before we get started, I wanted to let everyone know that there is space in the one you Feed coaching program. This is about the time of year that everybody starts realizing that their resolutions are the goals they set for the You're aren't working out so great. So if you meet that description, go to one you feed dot net slash coaching to learn more about the program and I would love to work with you. And

now for the interview with Rain Wilson. Hi, Rain, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on your show. It's a pleasure to get you on. Obviously, I loved your character Dwight on The Office, which is where I got to know you. But as I explored some of your other work, Sole Pancake and your latest book, The Bassoon King, I'm excited to explore those great Yeah, it seems that way. It seems like there's a lot of

alignment here, yep. So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two Wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like

greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops, he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I love the parable, um, one of my very favorites. I spent a lot of years in my life feeding the wrong wolf, and that really dragged me down and I wasted a good decade or more.

And also, um, you know, the parable goes right to the center of spiritual discourse since the dawn of man. Not to sound too pretentious, but really it has to do with ourself overcoming ourselves. Because it's truly not. These wolves are a part of us. They're not something outside of us, or something even inside of us. They're They're a part of us. And there is a part of me that is ego driven that wants uh athletes, status,

material comfort, praise, power, um. And I want to do all of that effortlessly and not have to work for any of it, and have everything that I ever want to be given to me. And So when I've been in that pursuit of myself, of the ego, um, the illusion of self. Rather I should say, I've been just really unhappy, um, just by and large unhappy, destructive behaviors and haven't contributed positively to either the world or it's my own spiritual growth. You talk about spirituality a lot, um,

you're you've formed the hang on a second dog. Sorry you can, I don't know if you can hear that. Yeah, if we have dogs barking in the background, it's fine because there's I think it's New Morning Bob Dylan's album from seventy four year dog sparking in the background because he's recording hitting What's Back New York. So you talk about spirituality a lot, you've formed the new media company Soul Pancake that you know, to really focus on. I think the tagline is to chew on life's big questions.

What does the word spirituality mean to you? It's obviously much maligned in today's world, So help help me understand what that word means in your life. Thanks. I think

that it is much maligned. Um. It's been maligned by either being associated with um kind of born again uh religious kind of fundamentalism UM, or kind of associated with what something that really kind of turns my stomach, which is just kind of a really soft, vague, New age kind of hippy to be kind of very general kind of feeling that that doesn't really have any specificity to it, something having to do with crystals and yoga pants and incense and stuff like that. And so it turns a

lot of people off for that. But for me, spirituality is a huge part of just who we are as a human being, different aspects of us, and the spiritual is part of that aspect. I say in the book, Um, there's a little analogy a chemical that I'm really kind of proud of Eric the and that is spirituality is everything that we don't have in common with monkeys. So we have a ton of stuff in common with monkeys. You know. We like to groom ourselves, like to collect

shiny objects, we like social status. We'd like to eat, we like to poop, we like to fornicate. But spirituality

is really anything that is not that. So anything having to do with self improvement, altruism, creation of art um, trying to improve the world, make ourselves better, the world better, being of service, an act of selflessness, all of these things, an appreciation of beauty, pondering our existence, being still, meditating, praying, devotion, all of these aspects that make us separate from monkeys. To me, I would classify as spirituality. Yep, that's a

great way to put it. I really like that. I think I often talk about spirituality being the recognition that it's not the you know that there's an inner life, there's something that happens inside of us beyond just what's out there. But I like your I like your definition a little bit better. I think. So. I have heard you talk about happiness. You're not a huge fan of the word happiness, um, but you say something that I really like, and I think it's something we focus on

here a lot. But you say, happiness is not an if then proposition. Can you expound on that a little bit? Yeah, I think that. The way I'll put it in terms of a personal story, I talk about this in my book That Soon, And for myself, UM, my entire dream was to have a beautiful girlfriend and wife, UM and to be living in New York and being a professional actor. And that's my dream, and that's what I had wanted since I was a teenager. I worked super hard for it.

I went to acting training school and paid my dues and etcetera. And I found myself in New York City with my now wife. We've been together twenty five years, and I was working professionally as an actor, and I wasn't happy, and it didn't make any sense to me because I kind of felt like culturally and societally, I was given this proposition, which was, if you do X, Y and Z, and you work hard for it and you arrive at Z, then you will be happy. You're not going to be happy now, not gonna happy in

high school. You had me happy working hard in college. You're not gonna happy early on in your career. But once you get to that point, then you're going to be happy, and I wasn't. I was more unhappy than ever, even though I was working as a professional actor, and it was beyond my wildest dreams. So this started. It launched kind of a long spiritical journey for me through

my life, artistic journey and spiritual journey. But but really one of the things that I have discovered in my life and then looking at her, you know, the bigger picture is that happiness is not an if done proposition, and happiness is not something around the corner. It's not around the band, it's not over the hill. It's not

something that you will eventually arrive at. It's a false dichotomy to think that I'm going to put in this terrible, grueling, horrible time so that I could be happy once I made k a year and I have a wife, or have kids, or live in this certain neighborhood or have achieved a certain status. So happiness is really to be found along the journey. And yes, I don't really like the word happiness because I think to me, it has to connotations of it's not lasting, like I'll feel a

lot of emotions through the day. Happiness is something that I'll feel through the day. Maybe four times for about eight seconds. But I do feel a deep, richer contentment, which I prefer to happiness, and sometimes I feel a

joyfulness or gratitude for much longer periods of time. If I hadn't stay in gratitude, then I can kind of align myself with a kind of a deeper, richer joy um happiness I associate with cotton candy and Loller coasters and video games and like a quick short attention span births or seeing uh, someone you haven't seen in a long time, running into woman at the Starbucks and giving him a hug, and you know, you might feel that nice happiness for a minute and a half and then

it goes. But I'm talking about something a little bit deeper. Yeah, I think what's so challenging is that idea of if I get this, then I'll be happy is such an illusion, and yet it is one of the most persistent illusions there is, because I think for a lot of time in my life I would I would say, well, if I get this, then I'll be happy, and then I would get it and I wouldn't be happy. And instead of questioning the entire thought process behind that, what I

would do is just assume that it's the next thing. Well, if it wasn't this job, then it must be the next job, and and that just goes on and on and on. So how for you are you able to break that illusion or is it really one that you kind of just like I do, have to keep kind of hacking away at I wish I had some magic bullet. There's a couple of things that I do in my day that helped me. So gratitude helps me a lot. Staying in glatitude because I had a tendency to get

very native and cynical quickly. Prior and meditation as a daily part of my day is super important and it helps align me with what's true and importance and in my face tradition as a member of the faith. Uh, there's something that we look at called a fofold moral purpose, and that is to make myself a better person and to also try and make the world a better place.

We often think about um moral purpose in terms of one or the other, but I really believe that all human beings have this obligation to try and improve themselves. I try and make myself work on my character defects, work on things that pulled me back my selfishness and patience, my my pride um and to become more honest and kind and humble and compassionate and at the same time to look at you know, what's my what's my greater

purpose in the world. Um. And when I'm in a line that on both of those things, that I feel a great deal of kind of purpose and contentment, contentment and richness in my life. And I think that service is a big part of that. I think that they are talking about happiness. I think the most satisfying feeling one can get sometimes is being a service to other people.

And it's not something that comes naturally to me. I there, we are narcissistic and you know, want to just serve myself in my career and my you know, my pocketbook and my self esteem. So but it's something that I've worked on. Yeah, And I'd like to come back to the High Faith in a little bit more detail later in the conversation. I want to explore this theme in a slightly different way because you talk about you've been very successful professionally, Um, You're you have some ambition in

that regard. You talk about the ambition to become a better person. The ambition to improve the world in a positive way, and yet at the same time, you know, a lot of spiritual teachings are about kind of being accepting, of, grateful for and happy with what we have in the moment. And I'm always interested in that balance of I want the world to be a better place, I want to be a better person, and I'm okay with the way things are. I'm content in the present moment. How does

that contradiction play out in you That's a great question. Um, I haven't really thought of it in those terms before, you know, I just think that because I believe in God, and I believe in a higher power, and I believe that God has a plan for me and for every person and wants us to achieve everything that we can achieve our our maximum potential. Every person is given a potential. Everyone has a different potential, and our kind of our job on this planet is to lise to our highest potential,

whatever that is. That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, being a celebrity or making a millionaire, or being achieving greatness on this or winning awards or anything like that could just be in one's life, and so acceptance in the spiritual tradition is a tricky thing because oftentimes, like for instance, in the caste system of the Hinduism um the lowest cast which is like half a billion people, they're taught, well, this is your law in life, this is what you inherited,

and so you should just accept it and be a humble service in that lot of life, and maybe in your next life you'll come out ahead or be farther. And even in the Christian tradition early on, it's kind of like, well, lower caste people and lower level people are are meant to be that way, and it's God's will. So just you're serving God's will by being a peasant or a surf or a slave or what have you. I think it can be used in a in a negative sense. I think we can all improve ourselves and

we can always improve the world. Um, And there's but it's a tricky balance. I see what you mean about accepting you are given circumstances and where we are and the difficulties of life, realities of life, and at the same time striving to make things better. Yeah, it's certainly

one that I wrestle with trying to strike that. I guess it's one of those paradoxes that they talk about in spirituality all the time, that there's a little bit of a paradox there, and becoming comfortable with those is useful. And here's the rest of the interview with Rain Wilson. You say that um, I heard you say wants something to the extent of that Cynicism is the disease that robs people the gift of life. You know how easy it is for us to be negative, sarcastic and cynical

than it is to be hopeful. This is something else that I've learned. Cynicis it comes very easily to me, sarcasm, negativity. It always has. And I had a great acting teacher in Andre Gregory. He's one of the great theater directors and teachers and philosophers of all time. Is the subject of that movie My Dinner with Andre, and he talked about how one of the biggest battles for any young person. I'm no longer young, but at the time I was

is cynicism and that society wants you cynical. And he said, you know that the bravest act that one can have in life is to be positive and uplifting and hopeful and and that really stuck with me because I saw so many of my friends sinking into cynicism and despair and it's such an easy fallback position to kind of to know better about things and to be sure they're all not going to work out and all it's the

pile of ship and what's the use? And it's very easy to be that way, and it's certainly on the internet everything to read is just in that in that position. So I attempted to try and um, fight that tendency to try and be more positive and uplifting and speak about my faith and speak about hope and speak about universal education and and international development. And that's what we do. And so pancake, Um, I'm attempting to be brave by being positive. I think it is easier to be cynical.

Irony is such a big, big thing seems to be these days. But but being hopeful and positive is I think a harder to do. And like you said, I think there is a social risk to it. There is. It's um, you get made fun of a lot. I mean, people really don't know what to think about me. And here I am this comedy character actor. We're looking dude and at the same time, my faith is very important to me, and and service, spirituality, positive impactful media, and

so I participate in that. So people don't know what to think, because especially in the world of Hollywood m and in comedy, in Hollywood, it's the most cynical place on earth, and no one shares their feelings or their hearts, or their struggles or wanting to make the world a better place, or talks about faith or devotion or God or any of that stuff. So it's uh real. The community here in Los Angeles have no idea what to

do with me. You know. One of the things that I read your book that I was struck by was even in the midst of having success, how many rejections or things that don't go the way you want occur? Um. You know, you tell this sort of story after story of of a you have a minor success, you're playing Hamlet uh at school, and then when it comes for auditions to for more of a professional career, you know, no one, no one reaches out to you. You get cast into a movie, and then you get cut out

of the movie. You are very successful as Dwight, and then maybe the next spot that you have isn't so successful. It seems like that is a theme that we all wrestle with, and I think it goes back to some of that of if I get to ex point, then I'll be happy. But what I think is really fascinating about it is for most of us we do look to that like if I got that one big thing, like if you know you're being is that one big thing that you know? Everybody looks for that one big break.

But I think what's so fascinating is even after that, life just still goes on as it always does and can still hurt and be challenging in all the same ways. Absolutely, Um, it's a constant struggle. I think even if you looked at people who you know from the outside, they looked like they've got it made, you know, Brad Pitt or something right that I'm sure Brad Pitt has its struggles and he's like, why am I not as respected as Leonardo DiCaprio, you know? And and why was my casting

the new Coen Brothers movie or whatever it is? Who knows what that is? But you know, you're absolutely right, and it's been That was one of the reasons I wrote the book. One of the central lessons that I wanted to dig into in the book was about to really share my failures and my learning experiences as I went through those failures. For instance, thing you referred to, there's a chapter called I Bombed on Broadway where I got my first Broadway play and I thought, Oh, this

is it. I'm gonna get a Tony nomination, I'll get a new agent. Casting agents will be calling me in to put me in movies, and my whole life's going to change. Well, I sucked. I got stuck in the role. I stunk, and I got bad reviews. And but coming out of it and I and I had a horrible time doing it. I was in terrible, excruciating pain. I knew I was bad. I was weeping on the phone to my wife and h But when I finished it, I felt really free because I was like, you know what,

I'm never going to do that again. I'm never gonna be this false idea of what I think an actor is, or what a Broadway actor is or theater actor. I just have to be myself. And so ultimately I never would have gotten Dwight. I never would have played Dwight had I not gone through sheer hell, you know, in

my first bad Way play. And I think that's how life experiences can work, is that you, uh, you learn by going through the fire and hopefully come out the other side, um wiser and when you look back on it. I suggest everyone to write a memoir because it's a it's fascinating what you learn as you're writing it and kind of looking back on your life. It's it's very interesting. But even now, you know, yes, I'm well known for

Plains White. I tried to do another TV show, Backs from which bombed, done a bunch of movies which bombs, and people don't really know what to do with me as an actor or how to cast me. So I do a lot of little indie films that I think are really smart and cool. None of them have really hit yet. Um now I'm going to go do a play, and I wrote this book, and I'll do other pursuits. But it's, uh, you know, it's I have my own

challenges right now. Now, you know, I have the perspective to know, like, look, I've got a lot of money in the bank, and you know, people know who I am. I'm very lucky and I'm very I'm super grateful for what I have, but that being said, I still have my challenges professionally, artistically, spiritually moving forward. Yeah, and I there's so many There's so many points in in what

you made there. I think one of them is exactly what you said, like, there are far more actors out there, countless the vast majority of them would be thrilled to be in the place that you're in, And yet you can always find somebody that's a little bit further ahead wherever, wherever you are in life. And and I think it's I just I really like that lesson of because I think so many of us have this idea that we're going to get to a certain point and then it's

like it's over, life becomes easy, everything is perfect. And it's just my experience has never been that way, and the experience of people I know who have been successful has not been that way. And then the second piece of it is sort of I was just talking a little bit, but that idea. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said that comparison is the thief of joy. Right.

If you've got Brad Pitt comparing himself to Leonardo DiCaprio, right, you can always find somebody to sort of look up to or say I wish I had what that person has, and you can always find someone to look down on and go, well, I'm better than that person. But there's never a connection. There's never a connection with other humans, which is one of the things that you talk about in your book is being. One of the key ways to derive satisfaction out of life is the connection that

we make with other people. Absolutely well said, very well said. Really nothing to add to that, And again, that connection that make is something that monkeys don't do. You know, they have a certain measure of connection in terms of their social hierarchy, but connection with community, a larger sense of purpose and belonging is part of spiritu reality exactly. Let's talk now a little bit about your faith, the

Behidh faith. I think I said that correct, right, If you did so, tell us some key things about the Behigh faith. Maybe you know just the short two minute version where it came from. You know, a couple of the key beliefs. I'll give your you can you can go three, you can go three minutes, No, I'll do no, I'm gonna do two, two minutes and ten seconds. Here we go. So the High Faith basically believes that there is only one God, that all humans have always worshiped

this one God. You might be called Allah or God or yah Away or Jehovah or the Great Spirit or whatever, but there's one God. And that how God makes himself or herself or it'sself known to humanity are through these divine features that come down every five thousand years or so. And so God's message to humanity is gradually unraveling, is

gradually unfold through these divine teachers. And we know their names as Krishna and the Buddha, and Moses and Abraham and Zoroaster and Jesus and Muhammad h that they essentially when you look at the essence of their message, it's the same. It's one of love and unit detachment from the material world, service to others. The Golden rule is

prevalent in every single faith tradition. And behind our followers of a man named Blah, and that name means the Glory of God who behinds believed that Paula, who is a real human being, lived in Iran in Persia in the eight hundreds. We believe that Paula is the turn of the Spirit of Christ, that he's the fulfillment of these divine teachers, he's the latest divine messenger or teacher or prophet or manifestation of God for this day and age, and that he brings a message of love and unity

peace for all of humanity. And that's essentially. And then there's a lot of social teachings like the harmony of science and religion, the equality of men and women, universal education, the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, fighting for social justice as a special act. And this is about a million behind all of the world. There are a few things that caught me right away. One was sort of all races equal, men and women equal, um, you know,

having to honor both science and religion. A couple of others that I thought were very struck me was one is there's no priests or whatever you know, reverence, call it what you want in the faith. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah. So when Bahawilah came, he spent his whole life being tortured and persecuted and jailed and sent some land to land, from jail to jail, exiled. And part of the reason this was is he taught

that there's no need for any clergy anymore. We don't need a class of people, um who have gone to a certain amount of schooling to be able to be intermediaries between humanity and God. That the bid faith is very democratic, so there's no clergy. Um. It's kind of like a twelve step meeting. It's kind of like the inmates are running the asylum. You know, it's it's uh, it's uh, you know, elected positions and without anyone who has any kind of higher status at all, which is

super important for me. I think there are some brilliant and beautiful and effective clergy people being one of them, UM, but uh, we could feel the damage that the clergy and the power of clergy has done humanity and to

faith traditions throughout history. One of the things I think is interesting when you talk about um that the idea that God sends these people periodically to just things is I'm always struck by how many other people there are who may not be given that designation, that are teaching truth and wisdom and guidance all the time. Kind of all around us. There's so much wisdom coming out of

human beings. I'm always sort of thinking about, like is it really just these few individuals that we name, is these great spiritual teachers or is it sort of a almost constant flowing forth of wisdom and Um, I guess wisdom would be the word I would use. I think that that's very true. And I think that that good divine, the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call it, is always speaking to very wise individuals who are sharing that.

I mean, whether it's Eckartole or Fema children, or the pope or the Dali Lama or whoever you want to turn to, or people even on a on a smaller level that we've been inspired by. UM. Certainly wisdom speaks to all people in the high tradition, in the high way looking at things, these special divine teachers looking there, specifically at Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, the Buddha, Krishna. That

these they have a very special higher station. And you can see that whole civilizations have been created based on their message, based on a book, but based on their teachings. So they are, according to behinds, they have a kind of higher station than a regular wise person. But that's not to say that the divine doesn't speak through UM. Lots of incredibly wise and affective people, and some of the I'm reading Thomas Burton right now. I love Thomas Burton.

You know, he's a Catholic monk, and but he speaks to me so deeply. I spend every morning reading um reading his work. Yeah, he's great. You actually had a quote in your book from him. You were talking about how he said that he described himself as loving God and yet hating him, born to love him, living instead in fear and hopeless self contradictory hungers, which is such a great phrase. Yeah. I was reading The Seventh Story Mountain by Merdin while I was writing my book and

really touched by that. But his battles between faith and you surrender to a spiritual path, which he ultimately did and the world benefited from it. Um. But I read there's a beautiful book he wrote called New Seeds of Contemplation. You know, even the Catholic who really studied the Eastern tradition, so it's very well versed in Buddhism and to that and Buddhism, Suism and and Sikhism and all the more bistical uh Eastern states and wrote about them and wrote

in a Catholic way uh. But also he was like a Buddhist Catholic, I don't know, a bath like a Buddhist, I don't know, but just fantastic and a great poet as well. So a question for you about your faith you bring up on soul pancake, you know, chewing on life's hard questions. Here's one that that I wrestle with because I am I would I think I'm, you know, pretty spiritual in the sense of I'm really trying to

play to the higher things in life. But the concept of a God that has a plan, I always get stuck, and I get stuck when I look at all the awful things that happen in the world. And I know there's a lot of classic responses to that, but I'd be curious, from a bi high perspective, how did the Bhaigh answer the question of wealth, God's all loving and has a plan, how do we account for just the horrid things that happened in this world? Well, I think

there's two parts of that question. I thinks a great question. That's one of my very favorites. I don't have answers. I guess I would just have in my in my very limited perspective, I would say there's two parts of that. One is so a divine teacher like Jesus comes along with a beautiful, pure message, and he sends his When his death, he's got a handful of apostles and he sends them far and wide and says, you know, preach

my gospel. And the early on in Christianity, it was the first time in human history where people came together under in an open tent, where there were Roman centurions and Jews and Samaritans and slaves and women and uh in, regular workers and rich merchants, all praying together, acknowledging the vividity of the Christ and the Fatherhood, and this spreads

our wide. Slaves became Christian. That's why they were thrown in front of the lions, because it was his faith of the slaves and the lower classes and the upper class. Roman didn't like it. But then Constantine becomes a Christian and it's even more. But then it has, you know, a few hundred years into it, all of a sudden it really gets collopted by the priests um and the administration,

and Christianity loses its purity. And this happens with all the faith traditions so they lose their essential message and it gets mired down in the muck of humanity. And so to look at these faith traditions and and and it's it's so hard because they do they cause so much disunity and pain in the world when you look

at them by and large. But if you look at the essential teacher and the message, and you look at maybe the first few hundred years of the of the faith tradition um, you can see what a what a glorious effect it has on and changing the uh the spiritual evolution that humanity. I believe that God wants the spiritual evolution of humanity and that it is it is his plan that we either evolve spiritually or we die,

we destroy our planet or blow our planet up. You know, the second part of your question has to do with suffering. Why is it suffering? Why all of a sudden would there be an earthquake in Haiti and you know three or four thousand people die in a matter of a minute and a half. You know, what what is that about? But you know, when you look, when you take a step back and you look at at life, and you see that suffering is a part of life and death is a part of life. Either they're not. These are

not nasty, horrible, bad, terrible things. They hurt and they suck, but it's a part of this material plane that we live on. We're all going to die, We're all going to experience pain, We're all going to suffer to some larger extent, some to a lesser extent. What we have to do is humanity is decrease that suffering that we can control. We can outlaw slavery and child labor. We can bring women up to a standard of of equality

with men. We can get rid of racial prejudice, and classism and and and the and the economic disparity that that holds you a billion, two billion people down. We can change these things and reduce suffering greatly. And links are spiritual acts in doing that, myself and and too and two behind. Are there still gonna be earthquakes? Is there's still going to be cancers? Absolutely, It's unfortunate, but

it's part of this world. Because if you believe that there are more spiritual worlds after this one, this is our material plane and our eternal self, our soul, whatever you want to call it. We move into another plane of existence that is harmonious and beautiful. There's not a heaven and a hell. We just we continue on our spiritual journey towards meeting the Creator. Then, you know, losing, having pain or death or suffering in this world is

isn't seen as such a necessarily such a terrible thing. Sorry, I went on a little rant. There, No, no, it's good, that's good. It's it's something I'm I wrestle with a lot, that idea of why are things the way they are? And and if you know, I think it's another paradox. There's that old Buddhist there's a Buddhist temple apparently where when you approach it it's got confusion as a guardian

on one side and paradox and the other. And those are considered the guardians of truth, which seems pretty apt to me when I look at try and sort these things out. One of the things that hides talk about that you talk about in your book, and I really like it, is that you talk about morality in the Behidh faith is a bit different than morality and other faith traditions. Can you explain that a little bit morality

is something that's that's a tough one. People don't like to really hear about morality because it has such a terrible history. You know, of sin, it's it's incorporated with sin. It's equated with sin, and it's people telling you what to do and what's good and bad. And you know, if you don't anoint yourself with water from left to right as opposed to right to left, then you're going

to guide hell or whatever. You know, all kinds of different aspects of morality that people find distasteful, but um from a high perspective morality. The word sin, by the way, is um uh. It comes from the Greek. If it's a marchea, I'm forgetting it. I need, I need to look it up. And it's it's fun though it's a word of it's an archery term to miss the mark. So to sin is to miss the mark. And I really love that idea. So if you take hell out of the equation, there's not a fiery pit we're going

to burn for all eternity. The morality is simply trying to be a better person and actually helps us and guidance and protects us from ourselves. Behides, don't drink or use drugs. Um there's not any judgment about that. There are some behinds who do probably you know, no, no comment,

but there's not any judgment about that. It's just simply as a protection to ourselves because um, oftentimes alcohol and drugs can lead us down some really bad paths and can dull the spirit and dull the mind and dull the heart and dull the progress of the soul. So from my perspective, we all live in morality. There are things we will and won't do. You know, Hitler was a vegetarian and didn't want to hurt animals. Um you know,

did these other horrible things. We don't have a series of rights and length Where do we get that from there? We're just gonna get it from society. You know, when I was growing up, smoking top was only the really bad kids did that, and the people know it. Now everyone doesn't. It's on every corner. It's not a good thing. I don't know. I'm not going to comment on at it's like. But why are we deciding a morality? What kind of what society at large is determining to be

what is right and what's wrong? You know? Um uh in the hind fate moral guidelines are there as that as a protection from yourself and a protection in your life to help your soul grow and flourish. And that's really all it is. And if you miss it, you sin. It's Smartia. You've missed the mark, and you try again, like an archer to get closer to the target, and you try and just do better next time. Yeah. I love that concept of morality. The Buddhists talk about things

as being skillful or unskillful actions. I also really love that that interpretation. It's funny because we do this parable and they talk about a good and a bad wolf, which sounds very moral, and it's not really the way it's intended. But to talk about a skillful or unskillful wolf sort of takes the teeth out of the out of the parable, so to speak. But I would say, I would go farther. I would say it is moral.

It is more like, why can't we be moral? Why can't we decide what is good and what is that and what is right and what is wrong? But we do. We do. We put down to other people know, but we make those decisions all the time about what is and what is not acceptable for us. And we all need to go on that journey, our spiritual journey of deciding what's right and wrong and um, what feeds us and what doesn't feed us? And um I think more

the word morality in it. By the way, read the writing I know you have, and you read the writings of the Buddha and study Buddhism. You know, you talk about the the eightfold path. You know, there's a ton of moral writings of the Buddha. We don't like to go into that so much, you know in Western in the West, we like to pick and choose our Buddhism. And you know, there's kind of a smart disport of Buddhism, but not really diving into the writings of the Buddha

himself and the saides tradition of Buddhism. Um. But there's a ton about morality in the right of um. You know, of right action. You know, right action is is a huge part of Buddhism, and that determined that there's wrong action. Yep. And there's the basic precepts which sound very similar to you know, some of them behind no drinking, you know, no drugs again because of the reasons you mentioned, the distance at places it's us from our our true selves

you know, no no killing, no murder. Those are all generally pretty pretty solid ideas. Jack Cornfield has this joke about you know they talk about right right work or right vocation. He's like, Oh, it's hard to be spiritual after a day of selling guns and drugs. That's right, that's right, that's well blued. Well put, we're getting near the end of the time. But just a couple of

last small things. One of the things that you talk about that I really love and I've always I've always felt as a fundamental truth, but never here articulated very often, is the idea that when you create some thing, you are emulating the creator that you are. You are doing sort of what is it the heart of the energy that drives the universe. Yeah, I I stumbled in this when I had left my faith for a long time.

I left the behind faith and I was on my long kind of spiritual journey which I talked about in the Bassoon King um I. When I came back to the explorings of the High Faith, I found all these quotes that talked about how the act of being an artist is also the act of the spirituality. It's an act of devotion, and I dug deeper and realized like, yes,

God is the creator. Here's this blank endless of an empty space, and then there's a big bang and there's all of this incredible beauty with its own set of rules. And what greater emulation, what greater um devotion to the creative force of the universe than to create our selves. There's a blank piece of paper and we make a beautiful picture, and we write a beautiful poem where there's there's silence and stillness, and we create a beautiful song

in that. And Uh. That is one of the teachings of the by faith that I find most beautiful is that um art is synonymous with devotion. Uh. And it's the same as prayer. Um the creation is the same as prayer. And I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I love that concept. And I think for me that is one of the ways a lot of times, spirituality, a lot of these things can be very much a head

concept for me. They happened in my head. But creation for me is an absolute like I get the I don't know if you want to call it the heart sense of it, the experienced sense of it, but it's a real experience to me of feeling more in touch with the divine or the timeless or the all powerful. That's that's one of the places that I feel it more than just sort of think about it or uh, strive towards it. Go with that. That all means the

last question I'll ask you. And I just thought this was really interesting because I've been thinking about this lately. I phrased it a little bit differently. I've been I've been contemplating what if we took one percent of the time that Americans spend on football, just one percent, and

spend it on something else. And you say, if one on the energy that our country spent on entertainment, we're focused on service to the planet and or humanity, we could make an incredible difference in the world and be remembered as the greatest, most altruistic culture that the Earth has ever produced. I wrote that you did that sounds pretty good. I think that should be your your your your next campaign, because it is staggering when you think

about that. Like, I just did some rough I don't remember how I did the numbers, but I was like, well, which one percent? I'm not, you know, not trying to be like a fuddy duddy right, and take everybody's fun away. Right. It's not like you have to devote all of your life, you know, just give one percent of the time that you spend on that stuff. And the numbers are staggering, the amount of volunteer work that would happen. It it's it truly is to your point, it would be transformative

in the most unbelievable way. Right, Yeah, absolutely, You spent a hundred hours a year watching football. If you spent one hour being a service to other people and spent that one hour not watching the Cleveland Browns game, if everyone did that, we would be a great shape. Now that it's it's kind of hypocritical coming from me, a TV actor in a media company that makes YouTube videos, you know, saying, hey, then less time and entertainment, Um, how do joke about that in the book. But uh,

it's but I'm talking about. All I'm talking about is less. I'm not talking about I think entertainment is great. That I think lightless entertainment can be great, and comedy is great and looking at your phone is is great and that's all and that's all good. But it's just it's just a perspective. I think our culture like ancient Rome right out. We want diversion, and we want to be

diverted and entertained all the time. Like children. My son is eleven, and he would just love there to always be a video game or something or a movie playing. He would just be so happy if that was always the case. So we just have to slow him down and limit the screen time and have him read and go outside. And I think humanity is in the same in the same states, Like humanity just needs a little

less screen time. I agree, It's something I personally try and do and uh, and sometimes I am more successful than others. But I definitely notice a difference in the quality of my life when I am not gazing at some screen all the time. I think about my consumption to creation ratio is a big one for me. I feel like I'm just you know, even if that creation is just assimilation, right, it doesn't have to be like painting.

But like I just mindlessly gobble all this information all the time, all this stimulus, but very little of it comes into me and transforms me. And you know, I think we had a guest on who said, you know, if you spent for every hour you spent reading, if you spend an hour assimilating that. You would be a different person in six months. I mean you would, just

you know, because that's where the growth happens. It's taking these ideas, you know, the great Soul Pancake videos as a great example, instead of watching fifteen of them, you know, like take the gratitude one you guys did. If you if we all took that and did something with it, that's where so much power would come. Yes, indeed, Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It it means a lot for us to get you on, and I've really enjoyed the conversation.

I really enjoyed your latest book will have links to it in the show notes, as well as the other places people can find you out there, and links to Soul Pancake and all that great stuff. So thanks so much, rain Well, thanks for doing this this great podcast and for talking about these big questions and ideas and the stuff a lot of people are afraid to you can get into. I really admire that and appreciate it so much, and it's really a pleasure having a conversation with your

great Thanks so much. Okay, thanks all right, y'all can learn more about Rain Wilson and this podcast at one you Feed, dot Net Slash Wilson