Every day is a good day

日々是好日 (nichinichi kore kōjitsu): day after day, a good day. The line is an answer. The Chinese master Yunmen, who died in 949, asked his monks for one phrase about the days that had not yet come; nobody answered, and he answered for them. A twelfth-century commentator adds that whoever hears it as every day is nice has missed it, and outside the hall it became exactly that: the peaceful days going on, and today the resolve to live each day with care. Both lives are real. It is read kōjitsu in the dictionaries and kōnichi in the Zen hall.