The Effortless Flow of Existence

Surrender and the Cosmic Drive

By: Cheng Tong - Dec 02, 2025

 

The moment we wake, the questions begin. They are the same questions we carry through life: Am I trying hard enough? What must I do next? How do I make myself live?

These questions are not trivial; they are the echoes of the ego, forever convinced that existence is an effort, a contest, or a project requiring constant, personal intervention. To be alive, we believe, is to strive. This conviction is the root of endless activity, rigid planning, and the exhausting compulsion to meet every external force with a greater force of our own—a practice that, as we learn in Taiji, is doomed to fail.

We are driven by an internal, anxious narrative that insists we must actively power our own existence. If we relax our grip, we fear, we will cease to be.

The Imperturbable Example of Nature

Yet, if we turn our gaze outward, a completely different narrative is being written, one of absolute, non-resistant existence. Consider the great Norway maple that stands rooted in the garden, a monument of effortless being.

Is the large Norway maple in my garden trying to be alive? What specifically is it doing right this moment to be alive?

The answer, if we are honest, is that the tree is doing nothing but allowing. It is not trying to push sap. It is not struggling to expand its canopy or striving to gather light. It is simply allowing the forces of the earth and sun to move through it. It exists in a state of perfect Wu Wei—actionless action. The tree does not resist the seasons; it receives them. It does not fight gravity; it uses it to sink its roots deeper. The tree is merely the physical expression of a much larger, impersonal, and inexhaustible force that has chosen it as a vehicle for existence. It is not generating the life force; it is channeling it.

This inherent, unforced presence is the great secret held by all of nature, from the simplest moss to the most distant star. It is the deep rhythm that all of our practices—Qigong, meditation, and the study of the Tao Te Ching—seek to reconnect us to.

The Universal Engine of Qi

What is this force that animates the maple without striving, and yet makes our own striving feel so vital? It is the Universal Qi, the singular energy that drives the cosmos itself to exist. This force, the Dao, is the source of movement and stillness, creation and decay. Crucially, the very same inexhaustible flow that causes a nebula to coalesce or a galaxy to spin is also flowing through our own center, pushing blood, regenerating cells, and beating the heart without any conscious effort on our part.

The grand drive of the cosmos to exist is mirrored in our own individual drive. Our life is not something we have to earn or power; it is something we are given and sustain by accessing a shared, universal resource. When we forget this—when we mistake the ego’s small, anxious will for the cosmic will—we begin to create the greatest obstacle to our own flourishing.

The Illusion of Resistance

This leads us to the core of the human struggle: resistance. Resistance is the belief that the flow of the universe is somehow against us, or that we know better than the current itself. It manifests as a tight knot in the chest, a chronic worry, or the immediate instinct to tense up and push back against perceived difficulty or pain.

If we look at the 49 Barriers to spiritual growth, resistance is the mechanism that activates them all. When we resist change, we become stagnant. When we resist vulnerability, we generate armor and fear. When we resist the present moment, we dwell in past regret or future anxiety. We spend the vast majority of our life resisting the very flow that is attempting to deliver us to our highest potential. We are perpetually standing in the doorway, blocking the gifts we claim to be praying for.

This understanding clarifies a fundamental truth: The moment you stop resisting, the cosmos will finally be able to deliver what you have been asking for.

What we ask for is often not a specific object or outcome, but rather peace, health, clarity, and unconditional belonging. These qualities are not earned by struggle; they are the natural state that arises when resistance is dissolved. They are the effortless byproducts of being in the flow.

The Practice of Allowing Life to Flow

The path to non-resistance is the path of Stillness. It is the conscious choice to release the ego’s small, frantic steering wheel and allow the Universal Qi to take the lead. This is the ultimate goal of deep meditation and the cultivation of Qi: to shift from the state of doing to the profound state of allowing.

• In Qigong and Taiji, we practice softness and suppleness. We learn not to meet force with force, but to adhere, yield, and listen. We train the body to become a flexible conduit for Qi, not a rigid fortress of resistance.
• In meditation, we practice sitting in the suchnessof the present moment. We stop the interior argument, the frantic planning, and the self-judgment. We simply allow the breath to breathe us, the thoughts to think themselves, and the current of life to flow through us without editing or control.

The universe does not need our effort to exist, and neither does our true, spiritual self. The call is simply this: Be in its flow. Stop resisting. Stop believing there is something you must do to make you live. Allow life to flow through you. When we truly surrender to the cosmic drive, we discover that our most profound state of living is one of effortless being. The life we have always sought is already here, simply waiting for us to step out of the way.

Or, as I said to students recently, “Your mind is trying to solve a mystery while your heart, quietly and patiently, is already living it."