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Kung Fu, Star Trek and the Many Paths to Spirituality | Rainn Wilson | TED

Do you feel overwhelmed by the complex issues facing our world, not to mention your own personal problems? Spirituality is the key to staying grounded and hopeful — even for skeptics, says actor and author Rainn Wilson. He explains why it’s time for all of us to experience a spiritual shake-up and outlines two paths…

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Do you feel overwhelmed by the complex issues facing our world, not to mention your own personal problems? Spirituality is the key to staying grounded and hopeful — even for skeptics, says actor and author Rainn Wilson. He explains why it’s time for all of us to experience a spiritual shake-up and outlines two paths to tap into your innate wisdom, kindness and strength. The work begins within yourself. (This conversation, hosted by TED’s Carla Zanoni, was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. Visit ted.com/membership to become a TED Member.)

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46 Comments

46 Comments

  1. James Young

    June 27, 2023 at 12:39 pm

    I just want to say that I really loved this video. It was a random suggestion on YouTube but I’m glad I watched it. I’ve actually been binging the Star Trek Discovery series, the last of the Star Trek shows I have to watch. Ive been struggling, like most of us are, and I found this video to be uplifting. Ive had similar ideas and thoughts, when it comes to my own personal ideologies, but you word it soooo much better than I do. Kind of an all purpose human spiritual approach that works for atheists, agnostics, transcendentalists, and religious people (and aliens 🖖), alike.

    • Tiney_meee

      June 27, 2023 at 2:14 pm

      i⁸888⁸⁸⁸88⁸8888⁸⁸888⁸888⁸⁸8⁸888i8⁸8 28:27 ⁸888

    • Tiney_meee

      June 27, 2023 at 2:14 pm

      888

    • Tiney_meee

      June 27, 2023 at 2:14 pm

      28:27 28:27

    • Tiney_meee

      June 27, 2023 at 2:14 pm

      28:27 8

  2. Shy 444

    June 27, 2023 at 12:45 pm

    Rainn makes me love Dwight even more

  3. OBZOR 2.0

    June 27, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    Another woke celebrity sharing their ‘valuable’ knowledge 🙄🙄🙄

  4. flowertower

    June 27, 2023 at 12:52 pm

    Wtf is this Dwight talking about zen

  5. Jessie Gomez

    June 27, 2023 at 1:17 pm

    Thank you so much for these messages! I really needed this confirmation 🙏🏼❤🙏🏼

  6. Kendra

    June 27, 2023 at 1:17 pm

    Love him ❤

  7. Miriam Schaefer

    June 27, 2023 at 1:18 pm

    Very inspiring and fills my heart with new hope, thank you

  8. J B

    June 27, 2023 at 1:25 pm

    Totally agree with you, Rainn! Those two shows were food for my soul. They were a wonderful validation of my own spiritual journey in my teen years, late sixties, early seventies. (Sadly, the originator of the Kung Fu series concept, Bruce Lee, never got to be a part of it on screen, due to discrimination in the TV business.) One of my martial arts mentors, (1980’s) started a program in the elementary school his kids were attending, on how to breath and an easy form of meditation. He designed it to be totally kid friendly. Movement, resting, and focused breathing into one’s core (tantien) Naturally at the time it was groundbreaking. Now more than ever, these kinds of programs are needed in our education system, especially for kids going through early adolescence.
    Lastly, we are the waking/walking examples of how we want our world to be. It’s the small actions of kindness/compassion we do in our daily lives that when added up make the change.

  9. Douglas MacRae-Smith

    June 27, 2023 at 1:57 pm

    So exciting! we finally get to find out what spiritual means. And thanks for hinting at the difference between Scepticism and Cynicism

  10. Heca Tonecles

    June 27, 2023 at 2:01 pm

    spirit is for me the fluid inteligence of humens, a little bit of religion. but i think the fliud inteligence of human has to chage for more emotional “kungfu”, for more natural imaginagion “kungfu”. so i think religion is more like the magic that interfers us.

  11. Heca Tonecles

    June 27, 2023 at 2:03 pm

    religion is more like a dream that do a introduce a idee to your brain and then you have a “plan” to make the world bether.

  12. artisticbloodflow

    June 27, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    Very profound and insightful conversation, thank you so much!

  13. Aurick Biswas

    June 27, 2023 at 2:16 pm

    So he is Dwight Stifler from American pie ?

  14. Mohd Norzaihar

    June 27, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    we’ve been ‘alive without breathing” in our mothers womb and this realm gave us some clue about “alive without breathing realm” hereafter

  15. m2po

    June 27, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    Nonsense! The US was anti-foreigner just like everywhere else. Just as against Irish and Italians as Chinese and Africans. So what! The Kung Fu show embarrassed brutality and ignorance. The entire art of Kung Fu teaches effortless defense against out of control aggression.

  16. musknoer89

    June 27, 2023 at 2:40 pm

    Wow TED used to be a great channel, sad to see how far it has declined in quality.

  17. Hey from Heather

    June 27, 2023 at 2:47 pm

    Why do we have to steer through Spitituality? We honestly do not have to. You can choose to pay feilaty to no god, godess, gods, or human especially if you would be lying to say otherwise. Had to stop watching when you made that statement. And for you a poem well two. No god, gods, or godess I would serve would have me done armor to spread their word and look at the heads of your major religons tell me are there women in authority positions?…will continue now.

    • Aaron N

      June 27, 2023 at 3:28 pm

      I wouldn’t get hung up on those terms if you could. Scientific materialism while it can make new and amazing discoveries isn’t the end all be all. We just have too much evidence about near death experiences, out of body experiences, and children recalling past lives at this point to shy away some sort of spirituality. Doesn’t have to be organized religion because I know people like to subscribe to those things as a status symbol that makes them feel okay about judging others. But just opening up and realizing we are all connected is a start.

  18. Nothing Really Matters

    June 27, 2023 at 4:54 pm

    Star Trek is a world that has solved all its problems because it has moved beyond believing in the spiritual and instead acted rationally.
    Did you know that hundreds of millions of people live under the threat of death if they decide to leave their religion for another religion or atheism? America sells arms to Saudis who execute its citizens if they become Christians. They execute gays – why? Because the old testament clearly says gays should be put to death.
    Google “Stubborn Children Law”. Did you know the Massachusetts Bay Colony introduced a law allowing parents to kill their children if they were disobedient? What could compel humans to think allowing parents to kill their children for talking back was a good idea? SPIRITUALITY!
    Yes, the Bible says parents can kill their kids and as they felt spiritual instead of rational they make crazy laws like that.
    Deuteronomy (the Bible at its spiritual best) “When a man has a stubborn son, a real rebel who won’t do a thing his mother and father tell him, and even though they discipline him he still won’t obey, his father and mother shall forcibly bring him before the leaders at the city gate and say to the city fathers, “This son of ours is a stubborn rebel; he won’t listen to a thing we say. He’s a glutton and a drunk.” Then all the men of the town are to throw rocks at him until he’s dead. You will have purged the evil pollution from among you.”
    “Spitual” men read this and make it law. Spirtual gave us smashing babies’ heads against walls at the Crusades and more recently it gave us the Holocaust. Killing Jews because Christian Germans thought Jews killed Jesus and as spiritual men, they thought they needed to do it for Jesus. And then afterwards try and blame atheists for it.
    Spiritually driven men fly planes into buildings.
    That’s why I am a humanist. I believe in love and humanity. I don’t believe in magical thinking.

  19. Stuart Fox

    June 27, 2023 at 4:54 pm

    Pie-in-the-Sky thinking leads to train wecks The Constitution has brought us through wars, pandemics, depressions and natural disasters. Mostly due to the balance of the various “branches” of the government’s strutcure. No one is likely to control all of the govenment’s branches at one time. Hense a relatively stable form of a republic.

  20. Cloaking

    June 27, 2023 at 5:30 pm

    It’s the man from the podcast!

  21. RONIN

    June 27, 2023 at 6:03 pm

    So dwight actually does know martial arts

  22. Tariq Ahmad

    June 27, 2023 at 6:14 pm

    Dwight has grown so much🥹

  23. CollinsCorp

    June 27, 2023 at 7:59 pm

    I love it! ❤ Thank you!
    Some tv & movies have been trying to help teach us these things for a long time. I’m surprised more people haven’t pick up on that, and we’re not further along than we are right now.
    At the same time, I think we’re further along than we would have been without them❤

    • Gord Gonzola

      June 28, 2023 at 4:15 pm

      History repeats itself came from somewhere……Reruns…..perhaps.

  24. D K

    June 27, 2023 at 9:06 pm

    So to be clear- you are saying human spiritual maturity does not require a “faith” in a named formal religion, correct?

  25. Jason Edwards

    June 27, 2023 at 10:13 pm

    I’ll have the unpopular opinion here, but I’ll echo a few that have commented it already. There are a lot of paths, no argument there, however there is only one true path or truth however you chose to look at it and that is Jesus Christ. Fully God the Son and fully man , lived, sacrificed and resurrected to provide a new covenant for a way back to God the father for fallen humanity. If you have questions, find the answers. If you have doubts do the work and find the facts. This earthly life is not our true purpose its an opportunity to learn and live out a greater purpose than 1 person can. There is something freeing in that. God Bless!

  26. la bemba verde

    June 27, 2023 at 10:43 pm

    Suffering and Loneliness are so much vilified… yet, these are at the gates of self discovery & wisdom.

  27. Arturo Corella IV

    June 27, 2023 at 11:22 pm

    Great human being, this Rainn Wilson !

  28. Tyler Gilmore

    June 28, 2023 at 1:15 am

    You think Rainn Wilson has a good talk about spirituality, you should listen to Jesus’ message!

  29. Heather Knowles

    June 28, 2023 at 2:19 am

    Your book was a fantastic read! This discussion was profound! Truly a learned man.

  30. Tennessee Jed

    June 28, 2023 at 2:19 am

    I talk about whirled peas a lot.

  31. jiayu zhu

    June 28, 2023 at 4:40 am

    没有字幕

  32. Natalie P

    June 28, 2023 at 5:12 am

    This guy has definitely done a lot of LSD or Shrooms, maybe even DMT during a phase in his life. (Which I do not think is a bad thing at all)

  33. Saleh Javaid

    June 28, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    Rainn Wilson… Talking foolish and presenting foolish stuff with decent words will never prove foolish stuff as right…

    Have you ever read spirituality? i dont think so, as your discussions are just like a child getting basic questions in his mind on spirituality and then while watching TV he starts looking for answers in his surrounding without any guidance.

    Have you ever studied Abrahamic Religions explaining spirituality in perfect and complete manner.

    Dont try to misguide humanity with foolish ideas and references.

  34. Meh Pluribus Unum

    June 28, 2023 at 3:03 pm

    FWIW, Rainn is a member of the [Baha’i] faith community.

    It is always helpful to have some added context about someone’s personal context when they’re offering their views as a form of counsel or advice.

    My own view of [Baha’i] shares everything with my own view of all religion, again, to give my own atheist personal context, as I offer what’s clearly counsel or advice.

  35. Clint Thomas

    June 28, 2023 at 6:59 pm

    Great talk, makes me want to remain on the pagan path. I agree that nature, science and the sense of wonder is important to humans. A walk in the woods does more good than absorbing negative energies from social media and the monsters on there.

  36. Muvhusi Ningi Mmbara Afterhours

    June 29, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    The way im chucklong to myself SO EVILLY

  37. Marco A

    June 30, 2023 at 3:46 am

    The Beet King!

  38. Jadi June

    June 30, 2023 at 4:38 am

    Our dear Dwight😍😍😍

  39. Jon Holstein

    July 1, 2023 at 2:25 am

    We are spiritual doorways into this world. There are forces of good and evil that battle to get to use that doorway(us/mankind)to effect changes in this world. For whatever reason we seem to have been given the sole ability to shape this dimension/realm/existence-whatever you like to call it-this world. The other beings-the good and the bad forces-seem to defer to our actions rather than intervene or act directly themselves, as if to acknowledge our place in tending to this world. They act by convincing Man to take certain actions, exhibit behaviors,or pursue specific lifestyles and identities. Beginning to understand this macro-reality that encompasses our micro-reality here in this physical realm is the beginning of spirituality. Realizing we are more than just the dominant animal on this planet of other animals. While animals like humans have a soul, unlike animals humans are spiritual beings. We are the spiritual beings put in charge as the caretakers of this realm. Beyond just what we do and how we live in these physical bodies, we also affect this world spiritually. Our words and our focus, our will also changes the nature of this world. We can plant and grow cops, we can cut down trees and move dirt and mountains through our physical labor. But we also impact things through our spiritual being. Most have lost sight of this. They are ignorant of their higher-selves, they live essentially as animals driven completely by their physical natures and the instincts, urges, lusts, and desires generated within the physical function. But for others, they’re given an opportunity to glimpse the spiritual reality of our existence, and for a select few, we are granted an even deeper understanding of why and how it all really works together.

  40. Invox

    July 1, 2023 at 6:14 am

    Probably NOT the best idea to start the video advertising your own book… Just saying.

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