tzu-jan (ziran 自然)

We have spent one week, in G’s class, reading texts from Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu in order to prepare ourselves for the Chinese Buddhism. In the readings, it says, “tzu-jan” is one of the key notions of Taoism. It took me a while to identify the term in Chinese due to the difficulty of recognizing the pronunciation in Wade-Giles. “Tzu-jan” is often translated as “spontaneity,” and that is what we learn in this class. (The translation makes it even harder for me to figure out the Chinese correspondence of it.)

We had some problems understanding the notion of “spontaneity” in the class discussion when it first came up in the Taoism session. The same issue comes up again today when we talk about Ch’an (Zen) enlightenment. For there is a sense in Ch’an that enlightenment is manifested by behaving “spontaneously,” and that is obvious a notion the Chinese Ch’an Buddhism absorbed from Taoism. But what does it mean by “behaving spontaneously”? The problems we got with this notion make me think maybe “spontaneity” is not a proper translation to catch the meaning of “tzu-jan” even it might be one of the ways to understand “tzu-jan.”

“Tzu-jan” (自然) is “nature” as a noun, or “natural” as an adjective in Chinese. In Tao Te Ching, it says “Tao follows the (laws of) nature” (道法自然). In other words, “nature” is the nutshell of Tao. Although “nature” can be as ambiguous as “spontaneity,” it cuts off the unnecessary confusions caused by the latter. Think of the Nature when you think of Tao; it would help a better understanding of Taoism.

So for Taoism, acting against what is tzu-jan is acting “unnaturally.” Freedom and peace only come through one’s knowing one’s own nature as well as capacity and being able to adapt oneself to the universal process of transformation. That is “wu-wei” (無為). Wu-wei is not not-acting but acting in accordance with tzu-jan, that is, with how things are, not how we want things to be. A good example of acting in the Taoist way is the fable of Chuang-tzu’s reaction to the death of his wife. It shows that acting in accordance with tzu-jan is more complicated than “so-called” acting spontaneously. It’s not like when you are sad you just cry. It goes deeper than that.

Chuan-tzu talked to his friend about the death of his wife (English translation quoted from here):

When she died, I could not help being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had already existed in a previous state before birth, without form or even substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. And while she is thus lying asleep in Eternity, for me to go about weeping and wailing would be to proclaim myself ignorant of these natural laws. Therefore I refrain from it.

A similar spirit can be found in Ch'an. Here’s a quote about enlightenment from Dōgen’s Shobogenzo (T. Kasulis, Zen Action Zen Person, 1981, 87) that we just read in class today:

To model yourself after the way of the Buddhas is to model yourself after yourself. To model yourself after yourself is to forget yourself. To forget yourself is to be authenticated by all things. To be authenticated by all things is to effect the molting of body-mind, both yours and others. The distinguishing marks of enlightenment dissolve and the [molting of the body-mind] causes the dissolving distinguishing marks of the enlightenment to emerge continuously.

This is, for Dōgen, the realization of one’s Buddha-nature, which is, at the same times, the nature of all things. It looks pretty much like what Tao points to in Taoism.