Balance between effort and surrender?

[Giulio Bevilacqua]

Hi guys. Would appreciate to know  from you how do you live/see the aspect of effort and surrender/grace.

I am really in the way of total surrender, going with less effort possible. But doubts are kicking in a lot. Just going with the flow of the river is sometimes hard to have faith in. 
If I do not make some effort I would not care for a job or Mooney or whatever else like making a career and so on. Maybe those things would come in naturally along the path…? 
I mean being in a state of utter and total spontaneity is wonderful, but I feel there is some fear and worry deep inside, and this confuses me a lot ! 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Giulio Bevilacqua
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[LastThursday]

It depends on what you mean by effort. I think most people regard effort as an unpleasant activity, usually some sort of activity that you would rather not be doing if you had a choice. So you practise avoidance of effort and then hope for the best. This doesn't work. If you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do something, something happens.

Sustained commitment is more important. Even low effort over a long period of time can bring results. The trick is to make the effort seem worthwhile. If you start seeing results from your effort, then this will sustain you. Or if your plan or vision is strong enough, then your efforts are for a good reason. Or you could just redefine what "effort" means to you. If you actually enjoy what you're doing, then it stops being effort and it becomes joy. Go find that thing.

[gettoefl]

effort is ego

leave ego at the door

[nistake]

Effortless effort is what you're looking for. 

Have a vision and get clear on what you'd like to achieve/manifest. Visualize it. Feel into it as if you've already achieved your goals. Then get on with your day and take the necessary actions. You don't need to think much about this, it should come naturally.

Of course a stable daily routine helps a lot. You know, the usual stuff. Meditation, exercise, journaling, etc.

[Tim R]

@Giulio Bevilacqua

I'm glad that you asked because you're confronted with one of the biggest misunderstandings in (Western) spiritual circles. Which is the duality of:

effort - effortlessness or you could say doing - non doing

People start listening to some spiritual teacher and will soon come across the idea of letting go - which will include letting go of desire, effort, struggle, etc. But this can be so, so easily misunderstood. 

In Chinese Daoism there is a very important principle called "Wu Wei" (無為), which is often translated as "not-doing". And people who first hear about this think that it literally means to "do nothing". But that's not at all what Wu Wei means. Wu Wei means rather something like "doing just as much as is needed, but in such a way, that all goals are fulfilled". 

Wu Wei doesn't exclude effort. You can put in a lot of effort in an effortless/surrendering way. Think of it this way:

What do you do when you are very skilled at something which requires effort?

I for example am very skilled when it comes to riding my bicycle. And when I do so, I am so engrossed in the activity (which does very often include a lot of effort!) that it becomes effortless. I become so one with what I am doing, that everything "I do" is the same thing as "me". I melt into riding my bike. There is no more "me" who forces the pedals to move, there is just pedaling. And that's Wu Wei. in the West, we call it "flow". 

You see, you don't exactly have to "balance" effort and surrender, because they aren't really any different from each other. But for you to understand this, you need to enter a state of flow (which I'm sure you already have at some point in you life). Because then, there is no more forcing, even though what you're doing may be very difficult or hard. 

It's easy to enter the flow state if, in the first place, you like what you're doing. Otherwise you will obviously have to force yourself and then it's very difficult to be in Wu Wei. 

So, in conclusion: surrender doesn't mean passivity. It doesn't mean to surrender activity itself. 

It means to surrender yourself into activity. 

[Giulio Bevilacqua]

On 4/8/2021 at 1:04 PM, Tim R said:

@Giulio Bevilacqua

I'm glad that you asked because you're confronted with one of the biggest misunderstandings in (Western) spiritual circles. Which is the duality of:

effort - effortlessness or you could say doing - non doing

People start listening to some spiritual teacher and will soon come across the idea of letting go - which will include letting go of desire, effort, struggle, etc. But this can be so, so easily misunderstood. 

In Chinese Daoism there is a very important principle called "Wu Wei" (無為), which is often translated as "not-doing". And people who first hear about this think that it literally means to "do nothing". But that's not at all what Wu Wei means. Wu Wei means rather something like "doing just as much as is needed, but in such a way, that all goals are fulfilled". 

Wu Wei doesn't exclude effort. You can put in a lot of effort in an effortless/surrendering way. Think of it this way:

What do you do when you are very skilled at something which requires effort?

I for example am very skilled when it comes to riding my bicycle. And when I do so, I am so engrossed in the activity (which does very often include a lot of effort!) that it becomes effortless. I become so one with what I am doing, that everything "I do" is the same thing as "me". I melt into riding my bike. There is no more "me" who forces the pedals to move, there is just pedaling. And that's Wu Wei. in the West, we call it "flow". 

You see, you don't exactly have to "balance" effort and surrender, because they aren't really any different from each other. But for you to understand this, you need to enter a state of flow (which I'm sure you already have at some point in you life). Because then, there is no more forcing, even though what you're doing may be very difficult or hard. 

It's easy to enter the flow state if, in the first place, you like what you're doing. Otherwise you will obviously have to force yourself and then it's very difficult to be in Wu Wei. 

So, in conclusion: surrender doesn't mean passivity. It doesn't mean to surrender activity itself. 

It means to surrender yourself into activity. 

Good.  Thank you

[Giulio Bevilacqua]

On 4/8/2021 at 0:16 PM, nistake said:

Effortless effort is what you're looking for. 

Have a vision and get clear on what you'd like to achieve/manifest. Visualize it. Feel into it as if you've already achieved your goals. Then get on with your day and take the necessary actions. You don't need to think much about this, it should come naturally.

Of course a stable daily routine helps a lot. You know, the usual stuff. Meditation, exercise, journaling, etc.

But what i think is... routine must imply effort ! A river that flows effortless  is always in change state, flowing,

Or can you have a routine without effort ? 

It's crippling my mind

 

[sara373]

@Tim R when I first heard of daoism and Wu Wei it sounds so lovely and even listsining the audiobook was of itself wu wei

[sara373]

16 minutes ago, Giulio Bevilacqua said:

But what i think is... routine must imply effort ! A river that flows effortless  is always in change state, flowing,

Or can you have a routine without effort ? 

It's crippling my mind

 

first I think routine requires effort and then it becomes routine without effort. There is Wu Wei in this I think, in a sennse the difficult tasks became like nothing.. it became easy (?)

[AdamR95]

@Giulio Bevilacqua when you surrender, then your inauthentic motivation goes away but authentic motivation remains. You still make an effort but not because you want to achieve something that will make you happy but you make an effort because that is the most authentic expression of who you are. You surrender to the universal flow of energy.

Listen to your intuition, sometimes you will make a lot of effort and sometimes less but thats ok.

Edited August 6, 2021 by AdamR95

[saif2]

be on the look for laziness!

[Aaron p]

there isint really any way you can *do* a full, dead, do nothing style, surrender (the likes of which would be ideal for a psychedelic) you even have to give up surrendering 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Aaron p

[RickyFitts]

@Tim R Excellent post, beautifully articulated!

[Mason Riggle]

@Giulio Bevilacqua for me, I like to recognize that everything I do is effortless.  I'm always 'being me' and I never have to try to do that.  How hard are you trying to 'be yourself' right now? Not at all.. you just 'are being yourself'.  In fact, you can't 'not be yourself', because any 'effort' to 'not be yourself' is just more 'you effortlessly being yourself'. 

How hard are you trying to grow your hair right now? Not at all, yet you are growing your hair.

How hard are you trying to read this sentence? Not at all.. yet you are reading this sentence. 

Being you is already effortless.  You suffer because you want to know how to put effort into doing what you are already always doing effortlessly.  How do I be myself without trying? Well, you already are.  What you are asking is, 'how can I effortlessly grow my hair, without trying to effortlessly grow it?', but you've got it all wrong.  You're already effortlessly growing your hair.. there's nothing more for you to do.  You are already doing it, and you never have to try. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[Tim R]

@RickyFitts Thank you

[Nahm]

@Giulio Bevilacqua

When dreaming, and there is effort & surrender, who is efforting, who is surrendering. 

Who is dreaming. Who believes to the contrary. Who is dreamt. 

Who sleeps.

[Endangered-EGO]

@Giulio Bevilacqua Stop referring it as effortlessness, you don't want effortlessness, you want equanimity. When you drive on the highway, very relaxed, you are constantly focused on the road, but there's the equanimity that makes it seem more "effortless", than sitting in a waiting room.

I wouldn't surrender in "doing" or "thinking" but surrender to control of doing or thinking. You can call it resistance. re-training the nervous system not to interact (graps or push away) with objects of awareness. I love Shinzen Young's mindfullness approach to that. 

[RickyFitts]

3 hours ago, Tim R said:

@RickyFitts Thank you

You're welcome 

[Hulia]

@Mason Riggle Don´t you see , that your theory is leaking? 

8 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

How hard are you trying to grow your hair right now? Not at all, yet you are growing your hair.

No effort for hair growing

8 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

How hard are you trying to read this sentence? Not at all.. yet you are reading this sentence. 

You made quite a lot of effort in an elementary school to read the sentence effortlessly today.

[Surfingthewave]

@Giulio Bevilacqua

The balance between effort and surrender IS the way. It's both sides of the same coin. 

Rather than effort versus surrender - they come together. See it as a dance, you do every day. If you can balance between the two, you can become conscious. If you're applying too much effort, surrender. If you're surrendering too much, apply a little effort. The magic is knowing the dance.