Ziran

Ziran means literally “self-so”: what is so of itself, without outside cause or interference. In the Daodejing it names the spontaneous way of things when they are not forced. One chapter says that humans follow the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows ziran, what is so of itself.

Ziran is not a separate principle above the Dao, but the Dao’s own character: it does not command, and things become what they are of themselves. The sage, accordingly, does not impose but lets things be; when the work is done, the people say, “we did it ourselves”, which is ziran.

In later Chinese thought, the Neo-Daoists of the third century, such as Wang Bi and Guo Xiang, made ziran central to their philosophy, and in modern Chinese it is the ordinary word for “nature”. It has been compared with the Indian idea of sahaja, the “natural” or “innate” state praised by tantric and devotional poets.