This exhibition is a visual reflection on various ways of seeing water. It is an attempt to go beyond appearances to capture the direct experience of water in its myriad manifestations.
Photographed over a period of two years among the rivers and streams of Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, The Tao of Water explores the spirit and multi-faceted nature of water.

[Siddartha] looked lovingly into the flowing water, into the transparent green, into the crystal lines of its wonderful design. He saw bright pearls rise from the depths, bubbles swimming on mirror, sky blue reflected in them. The river looked at him with a thousand eyes, green, white, crystal, sky blue. How he loved this river!... It seemed to him that whomever understood this river and its secrets, would understand much more, many secrets, old secrets. —Siddartha, Herman Hesse

Master Dogen said: Water is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor hot, neither being nor nonbeing, neither delusion nor enlightenment.

Physically, water is made up of two odorless and tasteless gases that, when brought together, form H2O. But water is not oxygen, and it is not hydrogen. It is what D.H. Lawrence called “the third thing.” The third thing is not strong or weak, wet or dry, moving or still, cold or hot, being or nonbeing, delusion or enlightenment. Then what is the hidden universe of water? What is the Way—the Tao—of water? What is its reality?
• Sixteen 26.6 x 40” Lambda C prints on 1/4” sintra

Photography by Zen Master John Daido Loori
www.johndaidoloori.org