Who is standing by the river side?
You come to a place of no occupation.
There is free time, you allow the free creative flow to manifest by itself, without your guidance, planning, control.
And the question, who is there, is one of great significance.
It cannot be answered, and that's the significance of it.
Of course, in a shallow way, you can say, "I'm here," or if you look at it from a third party, you can say, "A human being stand by the river side."
But this is very descriptive.
This is very artificial.
It doesn't touch the reality of the place where you are at.
The river is immensely alive.
It is not imagined.
Calling it a river, looking at it in comparison to some other time where it was seen, all that is imagination.
But the river is immensely alive now.
And there is that which stands by the river side, that share presence with the ground, with the weeds, with the insects, with some birds.
Who is it?
The question is so important to you as you stand, because it takes you right to the core of that immense aliveness.
That which stands... that which stands is immensely alive.
But you don't know what it is, what that is.
You don't even know how to ask the question.
You don't try to answer it.
Any answer will be very, very external to the question.
The question is asked by the presence of that which stands by the river side now.
As long as you try to make sense of a question like that, you are caught in the game of question and answer.
But if the question become the lens of presence, the river is immensely alive.
You are there, immensely alive.
Not knowing what it is, not knowing what you are, not knowing what to even ask.
The question is the ground of that aliveness.
It is not held by the words.
It's a demand of total presence.
Who is standing by the river side now, immensely alive?
Exactly as the river is immensely alive, undescribed, unknown, fully present, now.
