Nature (Ziran or Tzu-jan) 自然
The Tao “exists by and through itself” (Chuang-Tzu)
- “of itself so”
- Spontaneous. Not controlled
Alan Watts – The order of the Tao is not an obedience to anything else. As Chuang-tzu says, “It exists by and through itself.” It is sui generis (self-generating), tzu-jan (of itself so), and has the property of that forgotten attribute of ‘God’ called aseity… that which is a (by) se (itself). But in the case of the Tao the form of its order is not only free from any external necessity; also, it does not impose its rule on the universe, as if the Tao and the universe were separate entities. In short, the order of the Tao is not law.
Lao-tzu would go on to say that since man is an integral part of the natural universe, he cannot hope to control it as if it were an object quite separate from himself. You can’t get outside of nature to be the master of nature. Remember that your heart beats “self-so” — and, if you give it a chance, your mind can function “self – so,” although most of us are afraid to give it a chance.
In Chinese, the word for spontaneous and the word for nature are the same – translated into English: “what is so of itself.” (Just So, by Alan Watts).
To have intention and to act simultaneously… this is the way through ‘now’.
Li – The order of nature
“An organism and its environment are a single system of energy… one activity”
– Alan Watts
The Li of Tao is the course, the flow, the drift, or the process of nature. The flow of water is its principal metaphor.
Alan Watts…
The order of the world is very different from the order we create with the rules of our syntax and grammar. The order of the world is extraordinarily complex, while the order of words is relatively simple, and to use the order of words to try to explain life is really as clumsy an operation as trying to drink water with a fork. Our confusion of the order of logic and of words with the order of nature is what makes everything seem so problematic to us.
And so the difficulty that we encounter in trying to make sense out of life is that we are trying to fit the very complex order of life itself into a very simple system that is not up to the task.
Li may therefore be understood as organic order, as distinct from mechanical or legal order, both of which go by the book. Li is the asymmetrical, nonrepetitive, and unregimented order which we find in the patterns of moving water, the forms of trees and clouds, of frost crystals on the window, or the scattering of pebbles on beach sand.
