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常に思念工夫せよ tsune ni shinen kufū seyo Always Be Creative

常に思念工夫せよ (tsune ni shinen kufū seyo), always think and work it out, is the last of Funakoshi Gichin's twenty precepts of karate. In the National Diet Library's full text, its phrase 常に思念工夫 first stands in a kendo manual, Takano Sasaburō's of 1920. The 1938 commentary on the list calls this precept the conclusion of all twenty.

Japanese Scroll of Always Be Creative (tsune ni shinen kufū seyo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Always Be Creative常に思念工夫せよtsune ni shinen kufū seyo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

常に思念工夫せよ, always think and work it out, is the twentieth and last of Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍's twenty precepts of karate, a list in print by December 1934 and printed in 1938 with a commentary by Nakasone Genwa 仲宗根源和 that Funakoshi approved. Its compound, 思念工夫, thinking and devising, is older than the list and older than any martial use: the National Diet Library's full text finds it in a commentary on a Chinese anthology of 1885, and in sword practice from a fencing school's manual of 1893. Its phrase 常に思念工夫, always think and devise, first stands in the kendo manual of Takano Sasaburō 高野佐三郎 (1920), under a section heading on the need for 思念工夫. The 1938 commentary reads the precept as the conclusion of all twenty and illustrates it with two swordsmen's lifetimes of practice.

Overview

The text. 常に思念工夫せよ, tsune ni shinen kufū seyo, always think and work it out. The twenty precepts are given by the Japanese Wikipedia article on Funakoshi, citing a photograph in a 1938 book, as a numbered list [1]; this is item 20.

The sense. No dictionary at kotobank has the precept; read from its words, it tells the student to keep thinking and finding a better way. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 思念 as 思い考えること, thinking, and 工夫 first as よい方法や手段をみつけようとして、考えをめぐらすこと, turning a thing over in the mind to find a good way or means [2][3]. The 1938 commentary, in its English of 2003, reads the precept as the sum of the list: This principle encapsulates all the principles that come before it. It illustrates it with two swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi, who writes that he came to the Way around the age of fifty, and Yamaoka Tesshū, who reached his understanding in the thirty-seventh year of his training, and it warns that Conceit or laziness are chains that impede our advancement [4]. In the kendo manual where the phrase first stands, the same words name a rule of practice: think and devise, then try what you hit on in the bout [5].

The words. The twenty precepts are written in the formal Japanese of their day: 先づ with づ, 而して, 放たん, 要す. 常に, always. 思念, thinking: the 精選版日本国語大辞典's first Japanese example is in the 日本霊異記, and the 字通 gives the word from the Chinese 国語 [2]. 工夫, devising a way: the 精選版's first example of that sense is in the 沙石集 (1283); its second sense is giving oneself to practice, above all to zazen in Zen, first found in the 正法眼蔵; and the 世界大百科事典 adds that the Song and Ming Confucians used it for the whole effort of self-cultivation [3]. せよ is the imperative of する. The compound 思念工夫 is not found in the Buddhist canon at CBETA or in Wikisource's Chinese texts [6][7]. As words: always think and work it out.

The text in English. The precept comes into English in the karate books. The earliest rendering in the Internet Archive's full text is Always think and devise ways to live the precepts every day, in a list of the twenty printed at the back of John van Weenen's Advanced Shotokan Karate Kata, a book first published in 1987, in a printing after 1990, and in Randall Hassell's Karate Ideals (1995) [8][9]. What a rendering must keep is the imperative and both verbs, thinking and devising.

The historical record

1885. A Japanese commentary on the 文章軌範. The earliest book in the National Diet Library's full text that carries the compound is an annotated edition of the Song anthology of prose, 『文章軌範注釋』, where a note on taking thought says that one who does as he pleases, without reverent 思念工夫, becomes a madman even if he was a sage; the library serves this book behind its transmission service, and it was read at the snippet only [10][11].

1893. 隈元実道, 『武道教範』 (A Manual of the Martial Way), 第二篇, 振氣館. The second part of a fencing school's manual, printed for its own pupils and not for sale (非賣品), with the colophon 明治二十六年三月廿一日出版, published 21 March, Meiji 26 [12]. Under the running head 振氣館劍士試合心得, rules for the swordsmen of the Shinkikan in bouts, a paragraph opening on a poem about practice heaping dust into a mountain says that the root of skill is more bouts than others, the wish to win, and thought in the bouts: 試業ニ交ヘルニ思念工夫ヲ以テセサル可ラス, to the bouts you must join thinking and devising [12]. It is the earliest sword use of the compound in the library's full text [11].

1920. Takano Sasaburō 高野佐三郎, 『日本剣道教範』 (A Manual of Japanese Kendo), 朝野書店. In the third chapter, 修行の心得 (the mind in training), the third section is headed 其三 思念工夫の要, third, the need for thinking and devising, with the rule 一、思念工夫觀察實驗すべし, think, devise, observe, test [5]. The text: 劍道の理論と技術の練習とは何れを先にし何れを後にすべきにあらず, theory and practice in kendo are neither first nor second; note your own habits in every bout, ask your seniors your faults, watch others' practice, and 常に思を凝らし工夫を積み、思ひ附くことあれば之を實地に試み, always think hard and pile up devices, and whatever you hit on, try it on the floor; it ends 常に思念工夫し實地の練習と相俟ちて蘊奧に到らんことを心懸けざるべからず, you must always think and devise, and together with practice on the floor aim to reach the depths [5]. Here the phrase 常に思念工夫 first stands in the library's full text; kendo books of the 1920s and 1930s repeat Takano's sentence nearly word for word [11].

1928 to 1930. 思念工夫せよ as a kendo rule. In the library's snippets, a kendo lesson in アルス's 『アルス運動大講座』 (1928) has a numbered heading 思念工夫せよ, think and devise, over a paragraph that begins by granting that practice matters more than theory in kendo [13]. In 1930 Takano's own 劍道稽古の心得 (on kendo practice), printed under his name in the publisher Kōdansha's 『武道寳鑒』, sets out numbered articles, and the sixth is headed 思念工夫せよ, on whether theory or practice should come first [14]. Both books are behind the library's transmission service and were read at the snippet only.

1934 to 1938. The list and its commentary. The list of twenty is in print in 『空手研究』 第1輯 (December 1934), and the library's snippet of that page carries this precept as the last, after the nineteenth on strength, the body and the pace of technique [15]. It is again the twentieth in a Keiō University karate club's book of 1936 [16]. In 1938 Nakasone Genwa printed the list with a commentary on each article in 空手道大観; his preface, in the 2003 translation, says The following text is comprised of short commentaries I have written on the twenty principles. Master Funakoshi has read and approved their content [17][4]. The library's snippet of the commentary on this article says it may be seen as the conclusion of all twenty, from the first article to this one [17]. The English of 2003 says the same, This principle encapsulates all the principles that come before it. Whether from a spiritual or a technical standpoint, the practioner must "be constantly mindful, diligent, and resourceful," then quotes Musashi's Book of Five Rings on his sixty bouts and his realization around fifty, and tells of Yamaoka Tesshū, who at forty-five said I have just now attained a wondrous understanding; it closes: Karate practitioners must constantly examine and chide themselves, never failing to be mindful and diligent, until they can penetrate the innermost levels of karate-do [4]. The 2003 book prints the precept in brush on the page facing its chapter [4]. Both Japanese books are in the National Diet Library behind its transmission service (pids 1027727 and 1104139), and the precepts are Funakoshi's in every source opened [1].

What is not a source. 正法眼蔵 is named in the dictionary for the word 工夫, not as a source of the precept. No source opened says where Funakoshi took the words; the commentary he approved explains the precept from two swordsmen, not from Takano.

The precept in English

1995. Randall G. Hassell, Karate Ideals. 20. Tsune ni shinen kufu seyo. (Always think and devise ways to live the precepts every day.), in the Internet Archive's full-text snippet [9]. The same English stands in the list at the back of van Weenen's book, in a printing after 1990 [8].

1995. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, p. 82. Stevens's own numbered paraphrase of the twenty, Funakoshi summed up his views on the art in his "Twenty Principles of Karate.": 20, Continually polish your mind. "Polish" here connotes constant research into the nature of things [18].

2001. David E. Jones, Martial Arts Training in Japan. 20. Devise at all times, with the gloss i.e., be creative beside it in square brackets, in the Internet Archive's full-text snippet [19].

2003. The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, by Gichin Funakoshi and Genwa Nakasone, translated by John Teramoto, Kodansha International. The first English of the 1938 commentary, Nakasone's, which Funakoshi approved. It heads this precept Be constantly mindful, diligent, and resourceful in your pursuit of the Way [4].

Today. The two web lists give Be constantly mindful, diligent, and resourceful, in your pursuit of the Way and Think of ways to apply these precepts every day [20][21]. The first is the Kodansha translation's own heading [4].

A reading

The precept is Funakoshi's in every source opened, and its words were the language of sword practice before they were a karate rule: a fencing school's manual of 1893, Takano's chapter of 1920 with 常に思念工夫 in its last sentence, and Takano's own rule of 1930, 思念工夫せよ. The list's wording is those two together, 常に from the sentence of 1920 and せよ from the rule of 1930. The commentary Funakoshi approved makes that place the point: the last rule gathers the other nineteen, and the swordsmen it names, Musashi and Tesshū, are men who kept at it for decades. I read the precept as the kendo rule widened: in Takano it is the habit of a student in the bout, turning over what went wrong and trying it again; at the end of the karate list it becomes the habit of a life. That is my reading; no source opened says that Funakoshi took the words from kendo.

References

  1. 「船越義珍」, § 松濤二十訓, Japanese Wikipedia, citing 仲宗根源和『空手道大觀』 (1938) 口絵写真. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/船越義珍
  2. 「思念」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/思念-522556
  3. 「工夫」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/工夫-484821
  4. Gichin Funakoshi and Genwa Nakasone, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, translated by John Teramoto, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2003, the preface and the chapter on the twentieth principle, pp. 110–114, read on the house's shelf; the record at Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN4770027966
  5. 高野佐三郎, 『日本剣道教範』, 朝野書店, 1920, pp. 78–79, scan 52, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964519/1/52
  6. CBETA, full-text search for 思念工夫, 10 October 2026. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=思念工夫
  7. Wikisource (Chinese), full-text search for "思念工夫", 10 October 2026. https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?search=%22思念工夫%22&ns0=1
  8. John van Weenen, Advanced Shotokan Karate Kata, Vine House, first published 1987 (the copy in the archive is a later printing), snippet view, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/advancedshotokan0000john
  9. Randall G. Hassell, Karate Ideals, Focus Publications, St. Louis, 1995, snippet view, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/karateideals0000hass
  10. 謝枋得 著, 千田一十郎 注釋, 『文章軌範注釋 : 鼇頭』, 1885, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11582181
  11. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 思念工夫, oldest first, 10 October 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=思念工夫
  12. 隈元実道, 『武道教範』 第2編 振気流剣術, 振気館, 1893, pp. 16–17, scan 11; the colophon, scan 50. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860494/1/11
  13. 『アルス運動大講座』, アルス, 1928, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/988538
  14. 大日本雄辯會講談社 編, 『武道寳鑒』, 1930, 高野佐三郎「劍道稽古の心得」, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1207395
  15. 空手研究社 編, 『空手研究』 第1輯, 興武館, December 1934 (the month from the library's catalogue record), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027727
  16. 慶応義塾体育会空手部 編, 『空手道集成』, 1936, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1144879
  17. 仲宗根源和 編著, 『空手道大観』, 東京図書, 1938, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1104139
  18. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1995, p. 82, read on the house's shelf; the record at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/threebudomasters0000stev
  19. David E. Jones, Martial Arts Training in Japan: A Guide for Westerners, Tuttle, Boston, 2001, snippet view, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/martialartstrain0000jone
  20. "Nijū kun", Wikipedia (English). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijū_kun
  21. "The 20 Precepts of Karate", Chiltern Karate. https://www.chilternkarate.co.uk/about-karate/philosophy/20-precepts/

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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations (an earlier version)

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 常に思念工夫せよ (tsune ni shinen kufū seyo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/tsune-ni-shinen-kufu-seyo.