Naturalness

Naturalness is the Taoist tzu-jan, the "self-so": acting from one's original nature rather than from calculation. Tao Te Ching 25 sets it at the summit of things, for the Tao models itself on what is naturally so, and chapters 19 and 28 give it the emblem of the uncarved block, the simplicity that precedes all shaping. In the Book of Changes its hexagram is 25 Wu Wang - Innocence (The Unexpected), whose commentary defines the innocent man exactly: "His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. For wherever conscious purpose is to be seen, there the truth and innocence of nature have been lost." The second line draws the practical consequence: "We should do every task for its own sake as time and place demand and not with an eye to the result. Then each task turns out well, and anything we undertake succeeds."

Growth supplies the theme's images, because a plant cannot pretend. In 46 Shêng - Pushing Upward, "Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest." In 53 Chien - Development (Gradual Progress), "A tree on a mountain develops slowly according to the law of its being and consequently stands firmly rooted." Each thing has a law of its being, and naturalness means growing by it rather than against it.

The same test applies inward. 52 Kên - Keeping Still, Mountain warns the meditator that "calmness must develop naturally out of a state of inner composure. If one tries to induce calmness by means of artificial rigidity, meditation will lead to very unwholesome results." And 60 Chieh - Limitation extends it to constraint itself: a natural limitation, "as for example, the limitation by which water flows only downhill," leads to success because "it means a saving of energy," while forced limitation consumes the very strength it should conserve. Naturalness, in the Changes as in Lao Tzu, is not laxity but the perfect economy of a life that does not fight its own grain.