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日々是好日 nichinichi kore kōjitsu Every day is a good day

日々是好日 (nichinichi kore kōjitsu), day after day, a good day, is a Zen phrase now said of a good and peaceful life. It is the answer the Chinese master Yunmen, who died in 949, gave for his monks when none of them spoke. This study follows it through the 碧巌録 of 1125, whose commentator warned against reading it by its words, to Japanese household use.

Japanese Scroll of Every day is a good day (nichinichi kore kōjitsu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Every day is a good day日々是好日nichinichi kore kōjitsu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

日々是好日, day after day, a good day, is the answer the Chinese Chan master 雲門文偃 (died 949) gave for his monks when he asked them for one phrase about the days to come and none of them spoke. The exchange is in his own record and became the sixth case of the 碧巌録 of 1125, where the commentator warns that making sense of the line from its words has nothing to do with it, his own lecture included. In Japan it is in the records of fourteenth-century Zen masters, among them 大燈国師, whose record, dated 1426, gives the national dictionary its first Japanese citation; a haikai poet set it on his own painting in the eighteenth century; a Shin preacher of 1880 called it an old saying and used it against picking lucky days; and by the twentieth century it had become a household phrase for a good and peaceful life, day after day. Its reading turns on two choices, nichinichi or hibi for 日日 and kōjitsu or kōnichi for 好日, and the choices do not sort by sect.

Overview

The sense. The line has two lives, and the witnesses show the second growing out of the first. In the Zen texts it is the answer to a question: I do not ask you about before the fifteenth; about after the fifteenth, bring me one phrase [1]. The commentators from 圜悟 in 1125 to 本高 in 1890 spend their breath keeping it from turning into a mood: it cuts off past and future at once, and later readers who make sense of it from its words have, in 圜悟's words, nothing to do with it, his own lecture among them [2]; it is a line the master sold and bought himself, and a reader is not to be fooled by it [3]. Outside the hall it became exactly the mood. A Shin preacher of 1880 uses it to say that no day is unlucky [4]; the modern dictionaries define it as good, peaceful days going on, and one adds the moral, a resolve to live each day with care [5]. Both lives are real.

The words. 日日, nichinichi, is day after day, every day; the design writes it 日々 with the repeat mark, a modern convenience for the canon's doubled character, and the same word. 是, kore, is the copula, read これ in the Japanese reading of Chinese. 好日 is a good day, and 好 is good, fine, not only pleasant: a commentary of 1890 glosses the whole line in the vernacular as 昨日モ今日モヨヒ天氣ヂヤ, yesterday and today, fine weather, the day's weather standing for the day [3]. The reading turns on two choices: 日日 as nichinichi or as hibi, the native reading of the doubled character, and 好日 as kōjitsu or as kōnichi; JMdict, below, gives all four combinations. The modern Japanese dictionaries give nichinichi kore kōjitsu first, with hibi kore kōjitsu beside it; the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives 好日 both ways; and the one remark they make about Zen is on the first word, which the 故事成語を知る辞典 says the Zen world reads nichinichi [5]. For 好日 the witnesses go both ways inside and outside the hall. Kōnichi: a lecture on the 碧巌録 of 1934 sets コウニチ over 好日 in the case's title, 雲門日日好日, which drops 是 [6]; the English book of the Rinzai capping phrases gives Nichi-nichi kore kōnichi [7]; and a Shin tract of 1880 marks 好日 カウニチ, kōnichi in the old spelling [4]. Kōjitsu: the 2018 film's title is read so [8], and it is in print by 1913 from a Zen master, in a book of daily counsels by the Sōtō abbot 新井石禅 that marks the line にち〱これかうじつ [9].

The phrase in English. The earliest English rendering in any English book read for this page, and the earliest the Internet Archive's full-text index returns, searched to 1941, is R. H. Blyth's, in 1942: Every day is a good day, as Unmon said, every day is the best day, every moment is the best moment [10]. In 1950 he set it, with its characters and 碧巖錄第六, beside a New Year verse of 涼菟, それも應是も應なり老の春, That is good, this too is good,— / New Year's Day / In my old age [11]. In 1964 he gave the case whole: This can hardly be called Zen, though it forms the 6th Case of the Hekiganroku. However, though it must be called a trick, it is a Zen trick, and just as we must not be deceived by the words, "before the fifteenth," "after the fifteenth," so we must not be deceived by the days themselves, which appear as sacred, or ominous, or amiable, or hateful, or reproachful as in Emerson's poem, Days [12]. The two translations of the 碧巌録 of 1977 render the answer the same way, Every day is a good day, Sekida's as And he himself gave the answer for them [13], Cleary's with 圜悟's commentary: People coming after him merely followed his words to produce interpretations; but what relevance has this?, and on the verse, Can it be called "Every day is a good day"? Fortunately, there's no connection [14]. JMdict gives every day is a good day; enjoy every day, and marks it a proverb, with all four combinations of the readings [15]. 森下典子's essay came into English in 2019 as Every Day a Good Day [16]. What an English rendering has to keep is day after day, which is the doubled character, and good, which is plain.

The historical record

Tenth century. 雲門文偃, in his own record, the 雲門匡真禪師廣錄, the middle fascicle. The master addressed the assembly and, when no one answered, answered for them [1]:

示眾云：「十五日已前不問爾，十五日已後道將一句來。」代云：「日日是好日。」 He addressed the assembly: "I do not ask you about before the fifteenth; about after the fifteenth, bring me one phrase." Answering for them, he said: "Day after day, a good day."

The fifteenth is the middle of the month and the full moon; the 故事成語を知る辞典 takes it as the fifteenth of the seventh month, the day the summer retreat ends [5]. Either way the question is what a person says about the time that has not happened yet. 雲門 died in 949. The modern reference works give his birth as 864, one as 862 or 864 and the 日国 as 869 [17]; a lecturer of 1934, finding no birth year or age in the records he read, put it about 853 and reckoned from 852 [6].

1125. The 碧巌録, case 6. 雪竇重顯 chose the exchange as the sixth of his hundred cases and wrote a verse on it; 圜悟克勤's lectures on the verses are the 碧巌録, completed in 1125 [18], and it is the source the Japanese dictionaries give for the line [5]. His first note under the answer is one character, 收, gathered in. In his commentary on the case he says that 雲門 did not say tomorrow is the sixteenth, and that 後人只管隨語生解。有什麼交涉, later people only make sense of it by following the words; what has that to do with it? Then: 此語通貫古今。從前至後。一時坐斷, this phrase runs through past and present; from before to after, it cuts everything off at once; and at once he turns on himself, 山僧如此說話。也是隨語生解, my talking like this is also making sense of it by following the words. 雪竇's verse ends in a scene, 草茸茸煙羃羃, the grasses grow thick, the mists hang, which 圜悟 says 雪竇 added because he feared people would settle in the realm of nothing-to-do; and of that scene he asks, 且道是什麼人境界。喚作日日是好日得麼。且喜沒交涉, whose world is this? Can it be called "every day a good day"? Happily, no connection [2].

1252. The 五燈會元, fascicle 15. The exchange in 雲門's chapter, 眾無對。自代曰。日日是好日, the assembly had no answer; he answered in their place; and four leaves on, a monk quoting the line back at another master with a second line grown onto it, 日日是好日。年年是好年, every day a good day, every year a good year [19].

Fourteenth to eighteenth centuries. The Japanese Zen libraries. The line is in the Japanese printings of the Chinese records, the 碧巌録 printed in 1400 [20] and 1677 [21] and the 五燈會元 in 1635 [22], and, as the National Diet Library's full-text index of its classical books returns it, in the records of the fourteenth-century Japanese masters 虎関師錬 (in a print of 1415) and 徹翁義亨, both pairing it with 年年是好年 at the New Year, and in 東陽英朝's 宗門正灯録 of 1630 [23].

1426. The 大燈国師語録, the record of 宗峰妙超 (1282–1337), known as 大燈国師, the first abbot of 大徳寺, compiled by his attendant 性智. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 dates it 1426 and takes its first Japanese citation from it [5][24]. The line is in it three times [25]. At the opening of a summer retreat a monk raises 雲門's question and presses him: 只如道日日是好日。莫有坐斷千差底麽, and "every day a good day": is there nothing in it that cuts off the thousand differences?, the word 圜悟 had used; 大燈 answers with 雲門's name, 韶陽得儞不墮風規. At the year's end comes the passage the dictionary quotes:

大底鼻孔向下垂。多年暦日不相干。所以道日日是好日。時時是好時。交頭結尾。別有生涯 For the most part the nose hangs downward, and the calendar's days have had nothing to do with it for years; so it is said, every day a good day, every hour a good hour; from head to tail there is another life to be lived.

And on New Year's Day a monk offers him the pair the Chinese records had grown, 與麽則年年是好年。日日是好日, then every year is a good year, every day a good day [25].

Eighteenth century. 松木淡々 (1674–1761), a haikai master of Osaka [26]. Among the inscriptions on his own paintings in his collected verse, 日々是好日 stands beside a verse, and a note after the next verse ends 日ゝ是好日ハ年中の語なり, every day a good day is a phrase for the whole year. The two copies read set it differently: 正岡子規's manuscript copy in his 『俳家全集』, undated, under the heading 富士の山の自画賛, my own inscription on a picture of Mount Fuji [27], and the printed 『名家俳句集』 of 1913 after a verse on a painting of plum, with the note reading 手中, where 子規's hand writes 年中 [28].

1749. 白隠, 『槐安国語』, his lectures on 大燈's record, printed the next year [29]. The record as 白隠 had it carries the same two exchanges in other words: the retreat, with 雲門's case raised whole, and the New Year's question, 僧問年年是好年日日是好日 (read in the edition of 1886) [30].

1877–1879. 『魯文珍報』, a comic journal, issue 25. The NDL's full-text index shows the line, いや〓それい迷ひなり日々是好日とある, no, that is a delusion; it says, every day a good day [31].

1880. 野村淳清, 『帰命字訓勧誘録』, a Shin tract. Against choosing lucky days, the preacher says there is no difference between lucky and unlucky days, and goes on: 古語ニモ日々是好日トアリテ天道サマニ替リハナイ, the old saying has it, every day a good day, and the heavens do not change [4]. The line is already a 古語, an old saying, in the mouth of a preacher of another school, and the print marks its reading ニチ〱 コレ カウニチ, nichinichi kore kōnichi [4].

1889. 『禅林句集』, the Zen phrase book whose compiling the tradition gives to 東陽英朝, in its 文光堂 printing. 日日是好日 in the five-character section, between 佛殿裏燒香 山門頭合掌, burning incense in the Buddha hall, joining palms at the mountain gate, and 風來樹點頭, the wind comes and the trees nod [32]. The neighbors carry source notes; this line carries none.

1890. 本高, 『碧巌録耳林鈔』, a vernacular commentary. The trap, in the vernacular: 昨日モ今日モヨヒ天氣ヂヤト自賣リ自買レタ雲門ノ語ニダマサレルナ, "yesterday and today, fine weather": do not be fooled by a line 雲門 sold and bought himself; and then, for the other side, 世尊四十九年ノ說モ日々好日ヨリ外ノ說ハナカツタモノ, the Buddha's forty-nine years of preaching had no sermon outside "every day a good day" [3].

1895. 鳥尾得庵, 『禅林消息』. The case, and the question asked of it: 是レ正位カ是レ偏位カ, is this the absolute or the relative? [33]

1906. 大内青巒, 『碧巌集講話』, lectures on the 碧巌録. On 圜悟's one-character comment: 日々是好日の下に收とある只この一句に無始劫來未來永劫を皆收藏して, under "every day a good day" is written "gathered in": this one phrase gathers in the beginningless past and the endless future [34].

1910. 藤井乙男, 『諺語大辞典』. The standard proverb dictionary of its day has no entry for the line under either reading of 日日: read nichinichi it would stand between 似タルヲ友トス and 二挺替ヘナラ步トモシロ, which follow each other on p. 750, and read hibi between 響ノ聲ニ應ズル如シ and 日比谷ノ蛙, which follow each other on p. 867 [35]. The proverb dictionary of 1910 did not count it one.

1913. 新井石禅, 『精神修養日日の心得』. A book of counsels for each day by a Sōtō abbot sets the line under a saying it gives to 常濟大師, 人々悉く道の器なり日々是れ好日なり, and marks its reading にち〱これかうじつ, kōjitsu [9].

1934. 井上秀天, 『碧巌録新講話』. 第六則雲門日日好日 ウンモンニチニチコウニチ: the case's title, which drops 是, with its reading in katakana, 好日 as kōnichi [6].

Today. デジタル大辞泉: 《「碧巌録」から》毎日毎日が無事でよい日であるということ, from the 碧巌録: that every single day is an uneventful, good day, with the reading ひびこれこうじつ beside it. 精選版 日本国語大辞典: 来る日も来る日も、楽しく平和なよい日が続く, day after day, pleasant and peaceful good days go on, with the readings こうじつ and こうにち and the 1426 citation. 故事成語を知る辞典 adds the moral, 一日一日を大切に生きる心構えをいう, it speaks of a resolve to live each day with care, tells the story of the question and the answer, and quotes 岡本かの子 in 1940 and 久保田万太郎 in 1953 [5]. 森下典子's essay of 2002 on twenty-five years of tea lessons took the line as its title [36][37], and the 2018 film made from it was released as 日日是好日, read にちにちこれこうじつ [5][8]. The house title, Every day is a good day, is the plain rendering.

What is not a source. The dictionaries cite the 碧巌録 [5]; the line is older, in 雲門's own record [1], and the 碧巌録 is its most famous address rather than its origin [2]. 年年是好年, every year a good year, is a second line that grew onto it in the Chinese records [19] and that the Japanese masters used at the New Year, 大燈 among them [25]; it is not part of the text brushed. The popular sense, a resolve to make each day good, is a reception, not a source.

A reading

The story is short and better than the moral. A tenth-century master asks his monks for one phrase about the days that have not come; nobody answers, and he answers for them, day after day, a good day. A twelfth-century commentator adds that making sense of it from its words has nothing to do with it, and counts his own lecture in that; a Japanese master says the calendar has had nothing to do with him for years; and Blyth in 1964, having called it a trick, ends where the commentator does: not to be deceived by the words, or by the days. The line is an answer, and it belongs with its question: without the question it is a greeting, and with it it is a koan. The popular reading, that each day can be made good, is a twentieth-century reading, defensible as such; it is a sense made from the words, which is what the twelfth-century commentator said was beside the point. The reading of the last two characters does not sort by sect: kōnichi in a Zen lecture of 1934 and in a Shin preacher's tract of 1880, kōjitsu in a Sōtō abbot's book of 1913 and the film, and both in the national dictionary.

Sources not seen

『魯文珍報』, issue 25, of 1877–1879; held by the National Diet Library and served to readers in Japan only [31]. It would settle how the line was used on the page and the issue's date.

松木淡々's collected verse beyond the two copies of the inscription read here, and the paintings themselves; not located. They would settle which painting carried the line, where 子規's copy and the printing of 1913 disagree.

R. D. M. Shaw, The Blue Cliff Records, 1961, an English translation of the 碧巌録; at the Internet Archive as a lending copy only. It would give the case's English sixteen years before Sekida and Cleary.

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

References

  1. 『雲門匡真禪師廣錄』卷中, Taishō vol. 47, no. 1988, p. 563b17–18, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T1988&juan=2
  2. 『佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄』卷一, 第六則, Taishō vol. 48, no. 2003, pp. 145c14, 146a29–b07 and 146c22–25, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2003&juan=1
  3. 本高『碧巌録耳林鈔』, 1890. National Diet Library pid 823482, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823482/1/20
  4. 野村淳清『帰命字訓勧誘録』, 1880. National Diet Library pid 820245, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/820245/1/28
  5. 「日日是好日」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · 故事成語を知る辞典 · デジタル大辞泉プラス, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/日日是好日-592061
  6. 井上秀天『碧巌録新講話』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1909179, scan 68. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1909179/1/68
  7. Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practice, University of Hawai'i Press, 2003, p. 212, entry 5.301.
  8. 「日日是好日 (映画)」, Wikipedia (Japanese). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日日是好日_(映画)
  9. 新井石禅 述『精神修養日日の心得』, 鴻盟社, 1913. National Diet Library pid 909688, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/909688/1/7
  10. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido, 1942, p. 51.
  11. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido, 1950, p. 7.
  12. R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, vol. 2, Hokuseido, 1964, p. 136.
  13. Katsuki Sekida, Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku, Weatherhill, 1977, p. 161.
  14. Thomas and J. C. Cleary, The Blue Cliff Record, Shambhala, 1977, pp. 37, 40 and 43.
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  17. 「雲門文偃」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 · 日本大百科全書 · ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/雲門文偃-35743
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  24. 「宗峰妙超」, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/宗峰妙超-77410
  25. 『大燈國師語録』卷上, Taishō vol. 81, no. 2566, pp. 201b29–c05 and 207b27–c05, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database. https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT2018/T2566.html
  26. 「松木淡々」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus · ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/松木淡々-136519
  27. 正岡子規 編『俳家全集』, volume 2, a manuscript in 正岡子規's hand, undated (the catalogue gives the Meiji era). National Diet Library pid 2546171, scan 226. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546171/1/226
  28. 佐々醒雪, 巌谷小波 校『名家俳句集』, 博文館, 1913, 『淡々發句集』. National Diet Library pid 950165, scan 304. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/950165/1/304
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  31. 『魯文珍報』 第25号, 和同開珍社, 1877–1879, scan 6, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=日日是好日&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  32. 『禅林句集』 (the compiling given to 東陽英朝), 文光堂, 1889. National Diet Library pid 899715, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899715/1/69
  33. 鳥尾得庵『禅林消息』, 1895. National Diet Library pid 823269, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823269/1/20
  34. 大内青巒『碧巌集講話』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 823474, scans 54–56. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823474/1/54
  35. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, pp. 750 and 867. National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 392 and 451. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/392 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/451
  36. 「森下典子」, Wikipedia (Japanese). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/森下典子
  37. 森下典子『日日是好日 「お茶」が教えてくれた15のしあわせ』, the publisher's description in the National Diet Library Search record of the large-print edition, 2022. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000001-I01211008001678136

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 日々是好日 (nichinichi kore kōjitsu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/nichinichi-kore-kojitsu.