The Bumping Game

There are no formulas, no prescription, nor a set of rules, which stand alone as sufficient to ensure fulfillment or realize our potential. The hope of all humankind is the same—to find our way, to make sense of our existence, discover the means whereby we can make a difference, reach the end of our days and say with honesty, “I did my best.” To simply eat food, grow fat, and move toward the end without examining our own life, as it is lived, rather than the way we think it might have been, is an utter waste. In such a case, we have ignored the ever-present voice that calls to us: “Who are you, and why are you here?”

None of us can live a life of abstraction or fantasy, even though what we imagine our reality to be is nothing more than an illusion we mistake for substance. Yet it is also the only reality we’ll ever have. Most all of us mistake this life of conditions as the sum total—all that exists. Others more fortunate understand life as the conditional and the unconditional. And a rare few go further and see these two as united, beyond our rational capacities. Such people enjoy peace, which passes all understanding because they have experienced no separation between one dimension and another.

Their lives are the lives of others as well as their own. They experience the ever-changing joy and agony of their fellow humans. In their bones, they know the true meaning of compassion and wisdom not as matters of an isolated individual who has constructed a philosophy or theory, which they propose as a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Instead, their knowing gets patched together one moment at a time. They flow like water rather than fixed like a stone.

We come into this world with no answers, not even aware of the questions. Then we begin. We move. We bump into life, and it bumps into us. We fall down. We get up. We’re hungry, and we seek food. Thirsty, we seek water. We are besieged by moving objects as if we were cueballs on a pool table. We remember and think to ourselves, “How can I avoid that?” or “How can I repeat that?”. We project, we plan, and the bumping continues. “That didn’t work. Try a different approach.” Then we try that different approach, and it too fails, or it succeeds for a time only to fail again—the cycle repeats. We learn, adjust, and adapt, or we become crusty, stodgy, and stuck.

The rulebook didn’t come along with our birth, and even if it did, there could never be a book that worked very long in this bumping, changing world. Clearly, there are no answers so long as we stay transfixed and wedded to the movement. The clue should be evident: The problem is seeing without clarity. The solution is seeing clearly. But it isn’t the ordinary seeing that matters. The ordinary way is the problem. The ordinary way leads us into further problems of bumping and getting bumped. 

It is what we don’t see that matters, not what we do. What we don’t see has no movement. We see movement, we respond and try to either get out of the way or gravitate toward a moving target.

Why do we care? What compels us toward one moving target and away from another? Why not stand still and let others do their own the bumping and getting bumped? It’s worth looking into and what we discover upon examination is that we either crave what attracts us (trying to retain it) or resist what we find repugnant. But why? What part of us needs, desires, and tries to avoid? Are we experiencing anxiety, fear, and incompletion? Is that what this is all about? Yes, it is. It’s seeing what’s here, and the presumption of insecurity and incompletion that drives the bumping and getting bumped.

So seeing what moves is the problem. Seeing what doesn’t is the solution: Seeing both the seen, the unseen, and understanding which part of us is experiencing the perception of problems where none exist. And once we understand that great matter, then it is time for the rest: Seeing the one doing the seeing—The unseen seer; the one always doing the seeing, the one who doesn’t move, allows movement and engages in the bumping game. Why? To tire of getting bumped and bumping so that we can discover the bumper.