 If we take no-being as indeterminacy, then the problem of a first cause is not getting many from one nor getting something from nothing but rather how differentiation emerges from the undifferentiated. The common explanation appeals to another key metaphysical concept—ziran 自然. The character zi 自 is a reflexive pronoun, and ran 然 means to be in a certain way. Thus ziran means to be so-of-oneself or to be “self-so”. Ziran excludes appeals to purpose, deliberation or design, and the rise of the term paralleled a displacement of heaven by terms such as dao. Using ziran to explain how things arise may seem like an evasion, not much different from replying, “that’s just how it is.” If we are to avoid an infinite regress of causes, though, the only possibility is to stop at something that just is the way it is from its own being. The role of ziran (self-so) is similar to the role of causa sui (self-caused) in European philosophy. While classical European metaphysics attempts to isolate self-causality in a transcendent God, the Chinese took it as the very nature of existence. In this approach, there are similarities with Spinoza’s identification of being and conatus (striving) and even with Nietzsche’s “will to power”.