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喫茶喫飯 kissa kippan Drinking Tea, Eating Rice

A tenth-century Chan answer, the last words of Dōgen's chapter on everyday life, and the first line of Matsudaira Fumai's death verse.

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Japanese Scroll of Drinking Tea, Eating Rice (kissa kippan) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Drinking Tea, Eating Rice喫茶喫飯kissa kippan

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

喫茶喫飯, kissa kippan, drinking tea, eating rice, is an answer Chan masters gave in the tenth century to questions that seem to ask for more: how the Buddha-sickness is cured, what the ultimate is, what the ordinary mind is that accords with the Way [1][2][3]. Dōgen closed his chapter on everyday life with it in 1243 [4][5], and the tea master 松平不昧 opened his death verse of 1818 with it, a verse a family biography of 1917 says he wrote ahead with his age left blank [6][7]. In English, Drinking tea, eating rice is D. T. Suzuki's, printed in 1927, the earliest known in the Internet Archive's full text and Google Books [8]. The history reads it kissa kippan, the everyday round taken as the Way, and on a tea scroll it carries Fumai's verse.

Overview

The words. 喫 to take in, of drink and of food alike. 喫茶 kissa, to drink tea: the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 enters it as kitcha, 茶を飲むこと, drinking tea, with kissa as the same word, first from the 正法眼藏; the デジタル大辞泉 enters it as kissa, drinking tea, and as short for the tea house [9]. 喫飯 kippan, to eat a meal: 飯を食べること。食事, eating rice; a meal, first from the diary of the monk 成尋 in Song China, 1072–73 [10]. Word for word: drink tea, eat rice. 飯 is cooked rice and so a meal; both translators below say rice, and one says meals.

The same words in ordinary Japanese. The phrase's kin in the everyday language are 家常茶飯 kajō sahan, the daily meals of a household, and so something ordinary (first example 1705, with the Chinese 五燈會元, which kotobank prints 五燈会言, cited beside it) [11]; 茶飯事 sahanji, 茶を飲み飯をたべるように、珍しくもない日常普通のこと, a thing as common as drinking tea and eating rice (first example 1908) [12]; and 日常茶飯 nichijō sahan, the commonplace [13]. The Zen phrase says the same pair of acts, and says they are the Way.

The reading. kissa kippan: in the National Diet Library's full-text index, the ruby きつさきつぱん is found from 1907 on, and the modern きっさきっぱん in books of 1930 to 1998; きつさきつはん, unvoiced, from 1898; きつちやきつぱん, kitcha kippan, from 1891 on, is the older minority reading (the record's I3). A school dictionary of 1911 enters キツサキツパン among its plain words (a search window) [14].

The historical record

952: an answer in the Chan books

The 祖堂集, a collection of the sayings of Chan masters dated 952, has the phrase as an answer of two masters. 齊雲靈照, a man of the eastern country (東國人), Korea, and an heir of 雪峰 (the entry's heading at CBETA), was asked about an old saying; he answered that the Buddha-sickness is the hardest to cure, and was asked how it is cured [1]:

師曰：「佛病最難治。」進曰：「師還治也無？」師云：「作摩不得？」僧曰：「如何治得？」師云：「喫茶喫飯。」

The master said: "The sickness of the Buddha is the hardest to cure." "Can you cure it?" "Why not?" "How is it cured?" "Drink tea, eat rice." 報慈光雲, who taught at Fuzhou, gives it three times in one chapter: as the daily work of the man who does not assent; for a monk who had answered meeting tea, drink tea (遇茶則喫茶) and then had no answer, as the word the master spoke in his place; and, asked whether 維摩 reached the ultimate and what the ultimate is, 「究竟作摩生？」師云：「喫茶喫飯。」 [2].

1004: the ordinary mind

The 景德傳燈錄 of 1004 gives the line to 報慈文欽 of Fuzhou [3]:

問如何是平常心合道。師曰。喫茶喫飯隨時過。看水看山實暢情。

Asked, "What is the ordinary mind that accords with the Way?" the master said: "Drink tea, eat rice, let the hours pass; look at the water, look at the hills, and the heart is truly glad." The question is the ordinary mind of 平常心是道, the ordinary mind is the Way, whose history this library gives [15][16]. A sermon in the same book's last chapter, by an elder of 華嚴 in Weifu, says the Buddha's teaching is in the place of daily use: where you walk, stand, sit and lie down, where you drink tea and eat rice, where you speak and ask one another [17]. In the Chinese canon at CBETA the four characters stand in 41 works, and the paired saying meeting tea, drink tea; meeting rice, eat rice (遇茶喫茶) in 64 (the record's I7).

1243: Dōgen's everyday life

Dōgen 道元 gave the 家常 chapter of the 正法眼藏, everyday life, to his assembly in the twelfth month of 寛元1 (1243), and its last sentence is the phrase: シカアレハ佛祖ノ家常ハ。喫茶喫飯ノミナリ, so the everyday of the buddhas and patriarchs is only drinking tea and eating rice [4]. The chapter and its close are told in this library's history of 喫茶去 [5].

The Sōtō saying: when you meet tea

The Sōtō line tells that 瑩山紹瑾 (Keizan, d. 1325), its second founder, awakened at his teacher 徹通義介's lecture on the ordinary mind is the Way; asked what he understood, he said a black ball runs in the night, and pressed for more, when I meet tea I drink tea; when I meet rice I eat rice. This library's history of 平常心 tells the awakening and why a modern scholar reads it as a story built later [16]. A book published in 1909 for the title 常済大師, which it shows granted to Keizan by imperial decree, tells it with 「茶に逢ふては茶を喫し飯に逢ふては飯を喫す」 and then glosses the answer with the four characters: 喫茶喫飯は尋常の活計にして此活計其儘が至道の全體大用なり, drinking tea and eating rice is the common way of living, and this living just as it is is the whole working of the supreme Way [18]. 大内青巒's Zen talks of 1915 tell the same answer, 茶に逢ふては茶を喫し、飯に逢ふては飯を喫す, and read it as holding the whole of the way toward parents and children, brothers, husband and wife, friends, society and the nation [19].

1818: Fumai's death verse

松平不昧 (治郷), the daimyō of Matsue and the great collector and tea master of his age, died on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month of 文化15 (1818), aged sixty-eight by the Japanese count. The biography compiled by his family's editorial office (松平家編輯部) and issued in 1917 tells the death verse this way [6]:

是より先き、公自ら辭世の偈を作り、喫茶喫飯、六十〇年、末後一句、有傳無傳の文字を書す。又別に六より九に至るまでの文字を書し、我もし死せば六十と年との間に歿年に相當する數字を入るべきを命ず。

Before this, the lord had made his own death verse and written out the words 喫茶喫飯、六十〇年、末後一句、有傳無傳. On a separate sheet he wrote the figures from six to nine, and ordered that when he died the figure for the year of his death be set between 六十 and 年. The circle in 六十〇年 is printed in the book. On his deathbed, lying on his side, with a boy holding the paper and two men holding its ends, he took the brush and wrote the verse whole:

喫茶喫飯　六十八年
末後一句　有傳無傳

Drinking tea, eating rice: sixty-eight years. The last word: handed down, not handed down. The spare figures, the biography says, went unused; the autograph, it says, is kept at 孤篷庵 (the book writes 孤蓬庵), and the brush is so strong it hardly looks like the hand of a dying man [6]. Another life of Fumai of the same year gives the verse the same way, says it was written lying down as he died, and places the autograph at 孤篷庵 within Daitokuji, the temple of his memorial rites (菩提所) [7]. These are the tellings read, a century after the death, from his family and his admirers; the story of the blank and the spare figures is the 1917 biography's [6].

In 1917, the centenary, the Mitsukoshi store held an exhibition of Fumai's things that showed the verse (an index window) [20]. A portrait of Fumai at 月照寺 in Matsue carries an inscription by the monk 漢三道一 that opens 喫茶喫飯六十年, drinking tea, eating rice, sixty years: a play on the death verse, with a round sixty [21]. The city report that prints it dates the painting 1827 and gives the monk the dates 1757–1825, which do not square; that is the report's, and the inscription is not read here at the painting.

1907: Sōseki and the ordinary

夏目漱石 used the phrase in his Theory of Literature (1907), after quoting the first chapter of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: of a novel whose matter is the plain world we get up and lie down in, he writes that one who says he cannot enjoy it speaks as one grown used to the ease of drinking tea and eating rice, who has forgotten the great merit of the ordinary (喫茶喫飯のやすきに馴れて平凡の大功德を忘れたるものゝ言なり), and two sentences on he writes 日常茶飯 [22][23]. The collected works of 1918 print the same page [23]. The phrase had passed from the Zen books into criticism.

The dictionaries

A Zen dictionary of 1915 explains the ordinary mind is the Way with the phrase: 善惡を思はず、是非を論せず、喫茶喫飯、平常坦然の心卽ち是れ大道なりとの義, not to think of good and evil, not to argue right and wrong; the mind level and at ease in drinking tea and eating rice is itself the great Way; and it warns that this holds only after the Way is reached, and taken wrongly it denies cause and practice [24][15]. 望月信亨's Buddhist dictionary (the volume of 1911) quotes, under 屙屎送尿, a line it gives to the 臨濟錄: 「開單展鉢、屙屎送尿、搬柴運水、喫茶喫飯、皆是れ衲僧家本分の三昧王三昧なり」, spreading the mat and opening the bowls, relieving oneself, carrying firewood and water, drinking tea and eating rice: all of it is the monk's own samādhi of samādhis [25]. The 臨濟錄 in the Taishō canon does not read so: its line is 秖是平常無事——屙屎、送尿、著衣、喫飯、困來即臥, just be ordinary, with nothing to do: relieve yourself, put on your clothes, eat your rice, lie down when tired, and 喫茶喫飯 is not in it [26].

Read in Japan

The National Diet Library's full-text index, read oldest first, finds the phrase in a Japanese commentary of 1634 on the letters of the Song master 大慧, glossing the 華嚴 elder's sermon (an index window) [27], and from the 1880s in a flood of Zen lectures, sermons and books of self-cultivation; the same years print it plainly for taking tea and meals in prefectural rules for tea houses (the record's I3). Read newest first, it is an entry in Zen phrase books: a Sōtō young priests' book of 1989 gives it two entries, kissa kippan, one opening on 日常茶飯事 [28], and a phrase book of 2000 glosses it 日常茶飯事 [29]; a collection of 2000 lists it among phrases for a funeral address [30]. These are read in the index's windows.

In English

The earliest known English near the phrase, on the shelves and indexes read, is E. J. Harrison's The Fighting Spirit of Japan (1913), which tells Keizan's awakening and his second answer, "When I meet tea I take tea, and when I meet rice I take rice" [31]: that is the paired Sōtō saying, not the four characters. Drinking tea, eating rice is D. T. Suzuki's, in the essay On Satori in his Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series (Luzac, 1927, p. 248), rendering 文欽's couplet [8][32]:

'Drinking tea, eating rice,
I pass my time as it comes;
Looking down at the stream, looking up at the mountains,
How serene and relaxed I feel indeed!'

His note names the master Pao-tz'u Wên-ch'in [32]. Chang Chung-yuan's Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism (1969) gives the same lines in nearly the same words, without naming Suzuki [33]; that is one witness with Suzuki, not a second. Dōgen's chapter came into English later: Kazuaki Tanahashi (1985) titles it Everyday Activity and opens it In the domain of buddha ancestors, drinking tea and eating rice is everyday activity [34]; Nishijima and Cross close it the everyday life of Buddhist patriarchs is nothing other than drinking tea and eating meals [35]. In the Internet Archive's full text and Google Books, every drinking tea, eating rice before 1927 is a traveler describing a meal (the record's I4). Suzuki's preface says the essays first appeared in his journal The Eastern Buddhist, revised; this essay's journal printing (1921) was not read, so the floor is 1927 in print, possibly 1921.

What is not a source, and what is not claimed

A reading

I read it kissa kippan, with the index's commoner ruby and the modern Zen books [14][28]; kitcha kippan is the older reading and not wrong, and the 1917 life of Fumai rubies the verse きつちや, kitcha [7].

The phrase says that nothing has to be added to the day. Each of its early uses answers a question that seems to ask for more, the cure for the Buddha-sickness, the ultimate, the ordinary mind that accords with the Way, and each answer hands back the plainest acts there are [1][2][3]. Dōgen ends a whole chapter on it [4], and the Sōtō books of 1909 and 1915 make it the common way of living [18][19]. That is the sense I sign: the everyday round, done fully, is the practice.

On a scroll in a tea room it also carries Fumai. A tea master who had spent his life on the bowl and the meal wrote these four characters at the head of his last words, and filled in his own age, sixty-eight years, at the end [6][7]. I take the verse as he left it: a life of ordinary days, and the last word left open, handed down or not.

Notes

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Drinking Tea, Eating Rice (kissa kippan) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
喫茶喫飯VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Drinking Tea, Eating Rice (kissa kippan) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
喫茶喫飯VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Drinking Tea, Eating Rice (kissa kippan) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
喫茶喫飯VD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Drinking Tea, Eating Rice (kissa kippan) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
喫茶喫飯VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 『祖堂集』 卷11, 齊雲和尚 (靈照), 952, at CBETA, B25n0144, p. 519a. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0519a08
  2. 『祖堂集』 卷13, 報慈和尚 (光雲), 952, at CBETA, B25n0144, p. 549a–b. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0549b02
  3. 『景德傳燈錄』 卷22, 福州報慈院文欽禪師, 1004, at CBETA, T51n2076, p. 382c. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T51n2076_p0382c29
  4. 道元, 『正法眼藏』 家常, T82n2582, p. 232b, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database. https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2582_.82.0232b01:0232b12.cit
  5. Takase Studios, Philology library, 喫茶去 kissako. https://takase.com/library/philology/kissako
  6. 松平家編輯部, editor, 『松平不昧傳』, 1917, pp. 七六–七七, National Diet Library pid 926952, scan 62. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/926952/1/62
  7. 高橋梅園, 『不昧公』, 1917, p. 2, National Diet Library pid 948590, scan 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/948590/1/23
  8. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, London: Luzac, 1927, p. 248 (search view), Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=HsIKAAAAYAAJ
  9. 「喫茶」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉 and 普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%96%AB%E8%8C%B6-474720
  10. 「喫飯」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, デジタル大辞泉 and 普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%96%AB%E9%A3%AF-474845
  11. 「家常茶飯」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AE%B6%E5%B8%B8%E8%8C%B6%E9%A3%AF-462357
  12. 「茶飯事」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%8C%B6%E9%A3%AF%E4%BA%8B-511660
  13. 「日常茶飯」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%97%A5%E5%B8%B8%E8%8C%B6%E9%A3%AF-592048
  14. 国民教育研究会, editor, 『小学自習辞典』, 1911 (search window, scan 52), National Diet Library pid 813852. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/813852/1/52
  15. Takase Studios, Philology library, 平常心是道 heijōshin kore dō. https://takase.com/library/philology/heijoshin-kore-do
  16. Takase Studios, Philology library, 平常心 heijōshin. https://takase.com/library/philology/heijoshin
  17. 『景德傳燈錄』 卷30, 魏府華嚴長老示眾, 1004, at CBETA, T51n2076, p. 466b. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T51n2076_p0466b17
  18. 一喝社, editor, 『諡常済大師』, 1909, pp. 二–三, National Diet Library pid 823033, scan 5. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823033/1/5
  19. 大内青巒, 『青巒禅話』, 1915, p. 一九〇, National Diet Library pid 943877, scan 106. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/943877/1/106
  20. 『三越』, November 1917 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 1524536. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1524536
  21. 津山市教育委員会, 『津山市文化財保存活用地域計画』, 2020, p. 107, National Diet Library pid 12360093 (the city's PDF as archived by the library's WARP). https://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/20210905/20210905063618id_/www.city.tsuyama.lg.jp/common/photo/free/files/13462/202007311641350405392.pdf
  22. 夏目漱石, 『文學論』, 大倉書店, 1907, p. 四五七, National Diet Library pid 871770, scan 247. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871770/1/247
  23. 夏目漱石, 『漱石全集』, 1918, p. 三五八, National Diet Library pid 957312, scan 200. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/957312/1/200
  24. 山田孝道, 『禅宗辞典』, 1915, p. 九七五, the headword 平常心是道, National Diet Library pid 936741, scan 623. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936741/1/623
  25. 望月信亨, editor, 『佛教大辭典』, the volume of 1911 (colophon 明治四十四年九月廿四日發行), p. 15, the headword 屙屎送尿, National Diet Library pid 817247, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/817247/1/22
  26. 『鎭州臨濟慧照禪師語錄』, T47n1985, p. 498a, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T47n1985_p0498a16
  27. 『大慧普覚禅師書抄』, 1634 (search window, scan 8), National Diet Library pid 2583402. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2583402/1/8
  28. 全国曹洞宗青年会, 『四字禅語』, 1989 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 13201624. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13201624
  29. 青山社編集部, editor, 『すぐに役立つ新編禅林名句撰』, 2000 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 14066825. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14066825
  30. 青山社編集部, editor, 『活用自在引導法語集』, 2000 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 14086017. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14086017
  31. E. J. Harrison, The Fighting Spirit of Japan and Other Studies, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1913, p. 185, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/india.history.resource.91404
  32. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, the Rider text in the Souvenir Press reprint of 2010, p. 264, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/dt-suzuki-essays-in-zen-buddhism-1
  33. Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism: Selected from The Transmission of the Lamp, New York: Pantheon, 1969 (Vintage edition, 1971, p. 141).
  34. Kazuaki Tanahashi, editor, Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen, San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985, p. 124.
  35. Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross, translators, Shōbōgenzō: The True Dharma-Eye Treasury, vol. III, BDK America, 2008, ch. 64, Kajō, p. 297. https://bdkamerica.org/download/1894

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-31, citations — every reference with a web address opened where a script could open it and the quoted words looked for at each; of the four rows that differed, three were right and corrected (the temple of his memorial rites stands in the second 1917 life, not the first; Sōseki's 日常茶飯 stands two sentences on; Chang names the master, not Suzuki) and one was the machine reading of a two-page spread (the Zen dictionary's entry is on p. 九七五) · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-31, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 PASS, both, no wrong fact; wordings applied (the meaning kept apart from this history's signed reading; the English floor scoped to the Internet Archive and Google Books; the 1917 biography as compiled by the family's office and its account of the autograph in its own tense; the Keizan story as a Sōtō tradition; the older reading kitcha kippan, as the 1917 life prints it)

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 喫茶喫飯 (kissa kippan)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kissa-kippan.