Gao Ling: 

While seated with the other panelists, she holds up her glass of water and says: “This water...Michael, could you wash this water?”

Michael Zheng: 

He takes the glass of water from Gao Ling. While murmuring “washing water...” he walks over to a station nearby and puts the glass inside a colander that is hung at waist-height. He picks up a big jar of water and, very slowly, starts to pour the water into the glass that contains the water to be washed. Soon the water in the glass rises to the rim, overflows and starts to spill out into the colander. But somehow the spilled water does not drain out of the colander immediately.  Michael continues to pour water into the glass. After what feels like 15-20 seconds, the spilled water finally starts to trickle down from the colander into a glass bowl below. The draining water gradually picks up speed and volume, coming down in multiple streams eventually. At that point, Michael stops pouring water, puts the jar on the ground, removes the glass bowl from the supporting copper plate and walks away.

The water from the colander continues to drip down onto the copper plate, making a distinct sound when it hits the plate, echoes in the room. The pace of the dripping gradually slows down.

When the water dripping finally seems to stop, the moderator announces the beginning of the panel discussion. 

Later when asked by the moderator for his interpretation of the live performance, the Zen Abbot responded:

“We use water to wash everything. But how do we wash water itself? We use our eyes to see everything. But how do we see ourself? We use our mind to judge everything. But what is mind itself?”