人法地，
地法天，
天法�，
�法自然。

People follow Earth
Earth follows Heaven
Heaven follows Dao
Dao follows its own nature

So Dao is placed at the top of the hierarchy but what Dao follows is pure spontaneity. Other chapters containing ziran are: 17, 23, 51, and 64 (based on a search of an online Chinese text).

As for books, scattered mentions mostly. I no longer have it to check, but take a look at Feng Youlan’s “A History of Chinese Philosophy”. If you are in a serious mood, you might like to read A C Graham’s “Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China”, although I think a good translation of Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), such as Sam Hamill’s, would be a more enjoyable way to spend the time.

(Note that ‘ziran’ is pinyin; in the older Wade-Giles system this is given as ‘tzu jan’.)

I have studied Daoist ideas for many years and generally manage well without the need for there to be a creator, yet when I sit in the garden reading a book and watching the flowers come up and the clouds passing by and the insects going about their business, all on their own according to their own natures, I can’t help wondering whether this world, this universe, has tried to be itself many many many times and we are just seeing one particular instance in which many things have apparently organised themselves rather spectacularly well. Then I think, but what is it that is trying to manifest itself that we are a witness to?

Spontaneity has much in common with fate, when you look deeply into it. Perhaps when what is spontaneously happening has finished happening it will have created God. Thankfully, it will never stop happening so we will never have to address that particular question. However, some of us, I am sure, realise who and what we are when we look out of these eyeslits and needn’t be too concerned about the debates of apes. How much, after all, do we need to know about bananas?

I have to agree with Fuller though, when he’s saying that he cannot conceive of a design without a designer. How could there possible be a design without a designer?
However, extrapolating on Alan Watts way of thinking
On what side is the designer?
On the front side or the back side?
Inside or outside?
In a flow marked by a high degree of spontaneity, the mutual interdependent reshaping of the inside/outside of the [b]whole[/b] environment happens at such a rapid rate that both sides virtually go together. But still, the designer must be there for the design to be perceived.
The more they both go together, the more of the primordial roar/silence from the center outwards into infinite chaos the [b]whole[/b] experience becomes. Random and order arise interdependetly, as two different aspects of the [b]whole[/b] experience.

“In Iatmul thought, sorting will occur if randomization is prevented. In Genesis, an agent is invoked to do the sorting and dividing.”
Equally here,
both ways of looking at it could be right.
“If randomization is prevented” - by which agent is it prevented I then ask? By Kevembuangga or Kavwokmali?
The question is:
Is the agent static, or shifting?
Could it switch from outside to inside, inside to outside?

And not just Chinese thought either. If I may quote a bit of Gregory Bateson…

Among the Iatmul of New Guinea, the central origin myth, like the Genesis story, deals with the question of how dry land was separated from water. They say that in the beginning the crocodile Kavwokmali paddled with his front legs and with his hind legs; and his paddling kept the mud suspended in the water. The great culture hero, Kevembuangga, came with his spear and killed Kavwokmali. After that the mud settled and dry land was formed. Kevembuangga then stamped with his foot on the dry land, i.e., he proudly demonstrated “that it was good”.

Here there is a stronger case for deriving the myth from experience combined with inductive reasoning. After all, mud does remain in suspension if randomly stirred and does settle when the stirring ceases. Moreover, the Iatmul people live in the vast swamps of the Sepik River valley where the separation of land from water is imperfect. It is understandable that they might be interested in the differentiation of land from water.

In any case, the Iatmul have arrived at a theory of order which is almost a precise converse of that of the book of Genesis. In Iatmul thought, sorting will occur if randomization is prevented. In Genesis, an agent is invoked to do the sorting and dividing.
- Gregory Bateson, “The Science of Mind and Order”

It’s not actually a concept I have a big problem getting my head around funnily enough.

By the way, if you’ve not already got a copy, I’ve come into possession of a spare “Steps Towards An Ecology of Mind”. I was going to send it to you (I can’t think of anyone who would possibly get more out of it than you — in a good way) but won’t if you’ve already got it…… so…..?