I am sitting on rocks wet with spring water near my home in Nelson, B.C. I do not know the name of this river so I will call her Elizabeth Creek.

When I think about water my mind takes me to H2O: two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. This label allows me to describe water and to tell you about it. But it does not tell me what water means? What does water mean? This is the more difficult question. It is the question that really matters.

D.H. Lawrence in his Poems put it this way:

“Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one
but there is also a third thing that makes it water
and nobody knows what that is.
The atom locks up two energies
But it is a third thing present which makes it an atom.”

What then is this third thing?

According to 13^th century Zen teacher Dogen Zenji:

“The river is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor hot, neither being nor non-being, neither delusion nor enlightenment.”

According to Dogen the river is none of these, but a third thing – the river seeing the river. This third thing is not me seeing the river, but the river seeing the river. “The river practices and verifies the river. Hence, there is a study of the river speaking river.”

When I am here at river’s edge, I practice and verify myself. This is the third thing. At the river’s edge mind and body drop off. This is what H2O does not capture. How could it?