Ziran · 自然 · the self-so

"Self-so," "of-itself-so" — spontaneity, naturalness: the way a flower opens or water runs, without plan, without a planner, exactly as its nature moves it. It is the Tao's way of acting, and the sage's: not the absence of order but order that no one imposes. Zhuangzi is its poet — the cook, the swimmer in the waterfall, the craftsman who forgets himself and the work does itself. The Tree has no single word for it, and the difference is telling: the Kabbalah's cosmos is shot through with will and intention — the divine ratzon, the kavvanah of the one who prays — an ordered world that is authored, addressed, and meant, where the Tao's is simply, gloriously, so.