Xing 性 and ziran 自然 are both commonly translated into English as “nature”, but the two terms have no semantic relationship to each other in Chinese. The translation “nature” has implications (such as laws of nature, mother nature, and so on) from the Western conceptual scheme of a transcendent reality that was nonexistent in ancient China. In ancient Chinese thought, there is a concept of an order that we may call natural. However, in the context of this natural order, the earth di 地 is spoken of as mother in a dual relationship with the sky or heaven tian 天, which plays the role of father. There is no concept of “nature” as a distinct entity that may act in accordance with “law” or that may be called “mother.”

Xing is also interpreted as “human nature,” which refers to Confucius' saying that “men are close in nature but far apart in practice.”[1] The focus here is wholly on “making oneself good” rather than on the “ontological” discussions of the original nature. Benjamin Schwartz remarks that this “moral pragmatism or existentialism” does not preclude a stress on “inwardness.”[2]

Recent scholarship recognizes that xing is an “inborn” or “innate” quality that a man or a plant is endowed with at birth, and it is a dynamic, not a static, term.[3] From a Confucian viewpoint, this “inborn” or “innate” nature can be cultivated if the first shoots of a plant or a human mind/heart are nurtured and allowed to develop into full maturity.

A. C. Graham contends that the first reliable recorded usage of xing is found in statements describing the doctrine of Yang Zhu 揚朱, which do not simply refer to innate “natural” propensities in general but to the particular propensity of human beings to pursue their own natural “desires” for health, long life, and freedom from anxiety.[4] On the other hand, in Zuozhuan 左傳, it assumes how the question of human nature can be related to questions concerning the Way of Heaven. It correlates all sorts of natural phenomena to human phenomena in numerical categories, or the “correlative cosmology” of the Warring States Period.

Ziran is also translated as “spontaneous” or “spontaneity,” “nature” or “natural.” Zi means “self,” ran is a general verb meaning “be so,” or “it is so,” thus, following A. C. Graham, ziran may be translated as to “be so of oneself.” On the contrary, the Taoists do not cultivate the “inborn nature,” or mind/heart, nor hack it away. Zhuangzi advises us, “Let your heart/mind roam in the flavorless, blend your breath (qi) with the featureless and accord with the manner in which living things are so of themselves, not leaving room for self interest, and all under heaven will be in order.”[5]