Life is like a bowl of cherries.

NOT.

I just walked outside and life was in no way like a bowl of cherries. In fact, it was so unlike a bowl of cherries I can’t even list the differences between life and a bowl of cherries.

All the world’s a stage…

Ummm… not really.

As far as I can tell, the world does not exist in a theater, there’s no audience whining about how “People used to get DRESSED to come to the theater.” No scalpers outside the world giving people access for a hefty “surcharge,” and no intermission.

Now, I know you don’t believe these metaphors are literal. But, man, I’m getting tired of spiritual sales-people who don’t know when they SHOULD be using a metaphor or, worse, don’t know when they ARE using one.

My more specific bitch-and-moan of the day refers to the use of the utterly meaningless phrases: “Your True Nature” and “Who you REALLY are.”

Want to fill a room with eager-to-spend-money spiritual seekers? It’s simple. Tell them that, in your presence, thanks to your woo-woo technique, or due to the grace of your guru they can “experience their true nature,” and “discover who they REALLY are.”

We all have a sense that something’s not quite right in our inner Denmark, and these phrases offer the promise of making it all okay.

Frankly, once you make this sales pitch, you could take money from the people that show up, keep them in a stuffy hotel room for 48 hours straight, do NOTHING else and, guaranteed, some people would end up giving you testimonials like, “I released thousands of years of karma, got my chakras spinning at an octave of the frequency of the universe, reclaimed my soul energy from 2,300,000.38 past lives, and met my soul mate… oh, and I discovered who I really am. I give this workshop 4 Pleadian stars! Two chi-filled thumbs up!”

But, if you feel guilty taking money for letting people have a weekend projection-fest, here’s what you do instead to assuage your guilt (and win this episode of American Guru-Idol):

1) Lead them to a paradoxical experience

2) Tell them that what they’re experiencing is THEIR TRUE NATURE, who they REALLY are

Don’t know how to do #1? Then, see a urologist.

(Sorry, I was channeling Bart Simpson for a moment.)

Here’s how to give someone a paradoxical experience. It’s simple. Give them these instructions:

a) Look straight ahead.

b) Place your hands near your ears; about 2-3 inches away from the side of your head.

c) Notice that BASED ON WHAT YOU SEE in front of you, you have no hands. You can see your elbows, you can see your forearms, but because your hands are behind your eyes, you can’t see them. It’s as if they’ve disappeared into space.

So far this is pretty straightforward, right? I mean, it’s not news to you that you can’t see something that you’re not looking at, is it? It doesn’t keep you up at night that you can’t see the back of your head, does it?

Okay, here’s the “paradoxical part”:

d) Now notice that you are aware of the “space” where your hands are.

e) Without moving your eyes or head, look for the location of that awareness. Notice that “the part of you which is aware of seeing” seems to be in the same space as  your now-invisible hands.

All you’ve done there is looked at something physical, so you know how to look. Then you used that same tool to “look” for something that isn’t a “thing.” It’s not possible to see a not-thing. Trying to do so creates a neat, spacious feeling, a paradoxical experience. A “feeling of knowing” without an object.

Okay, ready to lock your attendees into your new religion? Proclaim: “That spaciousness is WHO YOU REALLY ARE. That is your TRUE NATURE.”

Bow to the applause, put out the collection plate and take your saffron robes to the dry-cleaner.

Let’s check this out again, in slow motion. TRYING to LOOK at something you cannot see can generate a feeling of spaciousness, of emptiness. Realizing, then, that you cannot see your SELF transfers that feeling of spaciousness and emptiness to your sense of “me.”

The idea that this IS who you are, or that’s the TRUTH of you… is just a metaphor (and not even a good one).

Our 100,000+ year old brains are constantly searching for the answer to the question, “What do I need to do in order to be happy in the future?” Tell people that their suffering comes from not knowing who they REALLY are and convince them that a paradoxical experience is the TRUTH, and you’ve got a new seeker. Give them a more elaborate cosmology to go with the experience and you’ve got a convert.

The more accurate way to describe the experience would be, “When you look for yourself, doesn’t it SEEM LIKE you are invisible, spacious and empty? Doesn’t it SEEM AS IF you are a big void?”

If you say that, though, people will respond, “Well, yes, it seems that way. That’s interesting and cool, I guess.”

But, for experiencing a metaphor or an analogy, nobody will reach into their wallets to buy your books and CDs, they won’t come back the next week complaining that they LOST the experience of who they really are and need you to give them another hit, they won’t beat themselves up for having their regular ole’ feelings and thoughts and see you as the solution to humanity.

And without that, you don’t get to be the special amazing person who introduced them to who they REALLY are.

Damn.

I loved bowling when I was a kid. If I couldn’t get a ride to the lanes from my parents, or the mom of a sometimes-friend (the time being “when I wanted to go bowling”), I would walk the 5 miles to the alley.

And if I didn’t have any money, I’d pick up trash around the parking lot in exchange for a couple of games.

And I’d watch bowling on TV whenever it was on — this was when bowling got prime time coverage.

Earl Anthony was one of the greats playing then. Earl was the first bowler to earn $1,000,000. He won 41 Professional Bowlers Association titles. I watched a lot of interviews with Earl… and not once did anyone ask him “How do you get bowling to carry over into your daily life?”

Bowling was something Earl did during the day, like eating, washing, driving, talking, and many other verbs. But I never heard Earl say anything like:

“Well, I was having a fight with my wife, but thanks to the replacement of the thumb-hole in my ball, and some added swing strength, I was able to resolve the tension faster than one of my perfect 300 point games!”

The idea that bowling would actually carry over into the other area of his life seems silly.

So, why do we think that it makes sense when people ask meditation teachers, “How do I integrate meditation into my daily life?”

The technical answer to the question is simple: Just meditate every day.

But that answer won’t suffice because it’s not addressing the real question, the question under the question, which is:

“Will meditating fix the parts of my life I don’t like?”

I want to have more money, have fewer fights with my family, and have a better job.

I want to get stuck in the grocery store line behind a guy trying to pay for each of his 25 items with a different credit card, and feel nothing but boundless love and compassion, rather than imagining how far up his colon those cards could go with the right broomstick to push them.

And I want to make these changes in my real life by using a technique developed by celibate monks who left the real world because it was an obstacle to their practice.

There was a period in Western meditation history, about 20 years ago, when many of the articles in magazines were from the teachers who were asking, “How is it that I’ve been meditating for decades, and had all these incredible experiences, and I still can’t hold a job, have a happy relationship, or enjoy good health?” I know more than a handful of meditation teachers who spent as much time in therapy as they did on their cushions.

I have a friend who is a big-deal Tibetan monk (btw, everyone should have a friend who’s a big deal in some religion — you get to hear first-hand about how the religion biz is not what most people think). He recently said to a group, “If you take almost all meditators out of their cave or monastery and put them in a shopping mall, they can’t calm their minds either.”

This notion that meditation is a cure for what (you think) ails you, rather than simply a skill, like bowling, seems to create a rash of unrealistic expectations… which will have to lead to disappointment when you’ve spent an hour in the Bliss of Emptiness, and then blow up at “Robert,” the Dell Tech Support guy who takes another hour asking you to repeat your service code before he can incorrectly diagnose your hard drive problem.

And, frankly, after talking to Robert, rather than meditating more with the hopes that you’ll handle it better next time, you might want to go hurl some bowling balls down the alley as hard as you can! There’s nothing like the sound of a strike.