The True Path: Shaseki shū 56–A talk by Chisō Robb Hasty

Chisō Robb Hasty is a Zen student at One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois, under the guidance of Sensei Michael Brunner, and currently serves as the Mayor of Ottawa. This talk was delivered October 11, 2025.

Some time ago, Sensei asked me to read through a collection of 101 Zen stories and to choose one I would want to give a Dharma talk on. The instructions were simple: pick any story that speaks to you—though, as Sensei added with a small smile, I might want to pay special attention to one in particular. That was well over a month ago, and I remember thinking at the time that I had the perfect witty introduction for this talk.

I was going to compare Sensei to the great industrialist Henry Ford who famously said, “You can have any color Model T you want, so long as it’s black.” So I began reading. I traveled. Time passed. I finished the collection once, then again, cover to cover, and found myself thumbing through various stories a third time. Somewhere in that process, I managed to lose—or perhaps forget—the very story that Sensei had suggested.

Looking back, I suspect I may have spent a little too much time staring at the finger instead of where it was pointing. But something else happened during those readings. As I made my way through those stories, one in particular kept catching my attention. It stuck out like a ragged limb and I just couldn’t ignore it.

I tried setting it aside. I thought, “It’s too short. Maybe it’s too easy.” But it wouldn’t let me go. It kept resurfacing. It kept making itself known. And I think in the end it’s because the story speaks so directly to what first brought me here, and why I continue my practice day to day.

Before I read the story itself, I’d like to share a personal moment that came to mind as I reflected on it. Some years ago, my family and I took a trip to see the Redwood forest. Some of you may know that feeling when you step onto the trail beneath those towering trees—it’s like crossing into another world. Everything slows down, the air thickens, the sound softens. You can feel something ancient moving quietly beneath it all. We hiked together, the four of us, winding our way through those old groves. Every so often I would stop, reach out, and place my hand on the trunk of one of those massive trees.

And if I stood there long enough, listening, I could swear the tree was breathing. It felt alive in a way that wasn’t just biological—it was spiritual. If I listened carefully, it felt as though it might be speaking. This, of course, became a bit of a running joke. One of my daughters would always mutter, “There goes Dad talking to the trees again.” But for me those moments were profound. Time seemed to loosen. The sense that I was just walking along a path gave way to something more spacious, more still. The trees, the air, the light, the earth beneath my feet—it all felt like one living presence. There was no coming or going. It was just this.

It’s that feeling—that stillness beneath movement, that shared breath with something larger than myself—that returned to me when I read the story I’ll now share.

Just before Ninakawa passed away, the Zen master Ikkyū visited him. “So I lead you on?” Ikkyū asked.

Ninakawa replied, “I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?”

Ikkyū answered, “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path in which there is no coming and no going.”

With his words, Ikkyū had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled—and passed away.

It’s such a short story—just a few lines—and yet it goes right to the heart of how we understand ourselves. Ninakawa’s response is striking: “I came here alone and I go alone.” On the surface, it sounds noble. It sounds self-reliant. And in many ways this is how we’re taught to face life’s greatest moments. We live in a culture that prizes individualism, that says we must handle things ourselves, that our journey is solitary. Death, perhaps more than any other moment, dramatizes this belief. We imagine death as something each of us must face alone. It is the ultimate solitary act. “I came here alone, I go alone.” It is a story that sits so deeply in our bones that we rarely question it.

But Ikkyū does. He doesn’t offer comfort, and he doesn’t argue. He simply says: If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. What a statement. He’s pointing beyond the idea of an isolated self moving along a timeline—born here, dying there. He’s pointing to a reality where coming and going are illusions, stories we overlay on top of something much more vast.

When I think back to standing among the Redwoods, hand on the trunk of a tree, I catch a glimpse of what Ikkyū is pointing to. In that forest, nothing lived in isolation. The Redwoods’ roots are intertwined beneath the soil through vast fungal networks. They share nutrients, water, even warnings. Their breath is mingled with ours. Nothing comes; nothing goes. And in those quiet moments, my sense of “me walking through a forest” softened. The usual story—Rob hiking along the trail—faded into the background, and what was left was simply the path itself: still, vast, alive.

Ikkyū is offering Ninakawa the same path—not a road leading somewhere else, but the clear seeing of what has already been right here. A path where there is no coming and no going because the one who supposedly travels it was never separate to begin with. And Ninakawa smiles. He doesn’t debate Ikkyū. He doesn’t ask for clarification. He just smiles. The dude abides. It’s the smile of someone who finally sees through the story of solitary coming and going. And then he passes away.

I think many of us, whether facing death or simply navigating daily life, carry that same quiet belief: “I came here alone; I go alone.” It can make us feel isolated, like we’re walking some private road no one else can touch. But if we pause—if we place our hand on the trunk of this moment and truly listen—we may discover what Ikkyū revealed to Ninakawa: a path that has always been here all along, beneath our feet, shared, vast, unmoving.

So in closing I offer you this: Where in your life are you still holding onto the idea of coming and going, of being alone on the path? And where—if you pause and listen—does that story start to dissolve?

May we all, like Ninakawa, discover that smile—the quiet smile that comes when we see clearly the path of no coming and no going. Thank you.