What does Zìrán (自然) mean? & How does it relate to animacy?

Zìrán (自然), literally “self‑so” or “what is so of itself,” is one of Daoism’s core principles. It’s made of two characters—zì (自), “self,” and rán (然), “so” or “thus”, and points to the idea that everything has its own innate way of being.

Zìrán, also translated into English from Mandarin as ‘natural’, describes how things unfold when left to their own accord: rivers carve their courses, plants reach for light, birds migrate without a map. There’s no forced drive or contrivance; each phenomenon simply follows its inner nature.

Where wú‑wéi (無爲) teaches “deliberate action through non‑action”, zìrán shows us what that looks like in practice: behaving as the world behaves, moving with its rhythms instead of against them. It’s magic without applied force; power born of alignment rather than manipulation.