Rose (TM - National flower of Turkmenistan): China World Univ & Sch, not yet in Chinese languages and https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/China and https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/China_Medical_School_at_WUaS planned in Traditional Chinese + * Sat 2/3/24 on the Slippery Rock Gorge Trail near Pittsburgh * * * Excited w pot. 1st #WUaSBookstore #WUaSBusinessPlan on #WalnutStreetPghPA w #WUaSstudents matric. in w #WUaSLegoRobotics for free https://OCW.MIT.EDU +centric accrediting #WUaSdegrees ANYTIME from home that #GoogleClassroom https://classroom.google.com/u/5/c/MTcyMjMzOTcz for document sharing + is up

Britannica text

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Ziran

Ziran is a concept in Daoism that literally means “self so; so of its own; so of itself” and thus “naturally; natural; spontaneously; freely; in the course of events; of course; doubtlessly” (Slingerland 2003, p. 97; Lai, p. 96). This Chinese word is a two-character compound of zi (自) “nose; self; oneself; from; since” and ran (然) “right; correct; so; yes”, which is used as a -ran suffix marking adjectives or adverbs (roughly corresponding to English -ly). It is worth mentioning that in Chinese culture, the nose (or zi) is a common metaphor for a person’s point of view (Callahan, 1989).

The word ‘ziran’ first occurs in the Daodejing (17, 23, 25, 51) and refers to the structure of Dao, which cannot be referred back to anything else.

D. T. Suzuki, in a brief article penned in 1959, makes the suggestion of ziran as an aesthetic of action: “Living is an act of creativity demonstrating itself. Creativity is objectively seen as necessity, but from the inner point of view of Emptiness it is ‘just-so-ness,’ (ziran). It literally means ‘by itself-so-ness,’ implying more inner meaning than ‘spontaneity’ or ‘naturalness’”

If you look this up in a contemporary Chinese dictionary, you’ll find ziran as meaning something like “at ease, natural, free from affectation”. Also, a slightly different pronunciation, but same characters, ziran, you’ll get nature or natural, or naturally, in the ordinary course of events; or “of course”. It has in any case, a fundamentalness, which is what we are trying to achieve (through wu wei, which can be described as “non-assertion.”). 

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