  The critique of value demonstrates the way in which desire (yu) perverts the mind—xin, literally, “heart,” but understood as the seat of both cognition and affectivity—and colors our judgment and experience of reality. Desire is a complex concept. Fundamentally, it depicts the movement of the mind as it is drawn to things it finds agreeable (e.g., pleasure) or away from things it dislikes (e.g., pain). Phenomenologically, the mind is always in motion. Calmness or tranquility of mind does not mean the cessation of all cognitive or affective movement. Rather, from this perspective, it is the act of desiring that transgresses the order of nature, resulting in a plethora of desires pulling the mind in different directions, that is seen to be at the heart of the problem. Nonaction contrasts sharply, according to the Laozi, with the way people typically act in a world in which the rule of Dao no longer prevails, with profit motives, calculated steps, expectations, longings, regrets, and other expressions of desire. Put differently, nonaction would be “normal” action in the pristine order of nature, in which the mind is at peace, free from the incessant stirring of desire.