In koan #6 from the Blue Cliff Record, Yunmen says, “Every day is a good day.” I explore this koan, including the way we sometimes imagine our real life is going to happen after something, and the various ways we can experience “good.”
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Koan #6 from the Blue Cliff Record: Yunmen’s “Every Day Is a Good Day”
Before and After
What Is a Good Day?
Loving Each and Every Day
Koan #6 from the Blue Cliff Record: Yunmen’s “Every Day Is a Good Day”
Here is a koan number 6 from the Blue Cliff Record:
Yunmen gave a teaching, saying, “I’m not asking you about before the fifteenth day of the month. Why not say a word about after the fifteenth day of the month?”
He answered himself, “Every day is a good day.”[1]
The translator, Matthew Sullivan, explains the significance of Yunmen’s question about the day of the month. He writes:
In the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, the first of each month begins with the new moon. The fifteenth is the night of the full moon. Since the full moon is often used as a metaphor for the awakened mind, it is tempting to think Yunmen (864–949) is asking his students to describe the experience of enlightenment. What happens after the full moon?[1]
Another translator, Katsuki Sekida, says:
The days before the fifteenth of the month. These, you might say, are (1) the days before today, (2) the days before you were born, (3) the days before your enlightenment, and (4) the days before your coming out of absolute samadhi. In short, Ummon is saying that he is not asking you about what has already happened but about the things of this moment and to come.[1]
Before and After
I don’t know whether Sullivan or Sekida are right, but it’s clear that “the fifteenth of the month” is meant to indicate a significant time or event. What, in your experience, divides your life into a “before” and “after” in your personal spiritual narrative? Maybe that event has already come – embarking on the path of practice or achieving an insight that resulted in greater liberation. Maybe – more likely – it’s an event you imagine is still to come. Enlightenment-with-a-capital-E, or finally making peace with yourself, or learning to inhabit your life with full authenticity. Maybe the event is understanding this koan and being able to give a satisfying response to it.
When Yunmen says he’s not asking about before this pivotal event, but after it, what is he getting at? Most koans, if you stop and think about them for a while, seem to make sense. At a basic level, it sounds like Yunmen is saying that after you achieve your spiritual goal, you reach a state of permanent satisfaction: “Every day is a good day.” No bad days, no stress, no depression, no anxiety. Who doesn’t think that sounds like a worthwhile goal in spiritual practice? Who doesn’t, at some level, secretly hope that such a state will be the result of our efforts in practice? Or at least, we hope, more days will be good days, or most days will be better.
At the outset, though, we should question our easy interpretation of a koan. Noticeably, Yunmen says he’s not asking about before our pivotal event. So, he’s not interested in your transformation. He’s not interested in how you used to be stressed and now you’re less so, or how you used to imagine you were separate from others but now you recognize your oneness with all being. He’s not asking you to prove your enlightenment or demonstrate the understanding you have gained.
Yunmen is asking about after. What is after you achieve your heart’s desire? Can you imagine it? What conditions would need to be met? Human beings are notoriously fixated on achieving goals and then notoriously dissatisfied after having achieved them. This isn’t a spiritual flaw, it’s part of human nature. In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt describes what research psychologists call “the progress principle.” He says:
Richard Davidson… writes about two types of positive affect. The first he calls “pre-goal attainment positive affect,” which is the pleasurable feeling you get as you make progress toward a goal. The second is called “post-goal attainment positive affect,” which Davidson says arises once you have achieved something you want. You experience this latter feeling as contentment, as a short-lived feeling of release when the left prefrontal cortex reduces its activity after a goal has been achieved. In other words, when it comes to goal pursuit, it really is the journey that counts, not the destination. Set for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had along the way, with every step that takes you closer. The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than the relief of taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike.[2]
I can’t know for sure, and there are probably many ways to interpret this koan, but perhaps Yunmen is asking us, “When you reach after, what then?” What is the nature of your existence, what is the flavor of your life? Whether you are ambitious or fairly content with the life you have, you are likely to live with a pervasive sense of anticipation. You might be anticipating the attainment of a formidable goal or the enjoyment of an evening’s dinner with friends, but in any case there’s a sense – obvious or subtle – that the time when you will be completely and utterly at ease and satisfied will come later. After.
This is why we sit zazen. Zazen is the practice of joyful ease, as Dogen says. We aim to settle into the present moment of our life with no sense of anticipation whatsoever. No after – not even in terms of our meditative experience or our spiritual insight. Ironically, as we settle, there is an after. In the very act of surrendering our ambition, we achieve what we’ve been seeking all along.
What Is a Good Day?
Then we come to Yunmen’s “every day is a good day.” What does he really mean?
We don’t arrive at the true teaching of koans by intellectually analyzing them, of course. But part of the process is exploring the language, questioning our assumptions, and guessing at the significance of the words and interactions. A talk like this isn’t meant to explain a koan to you, it’s meant to open it up for you to explore further, to invite you into its dreamlike space. If you want to go deeply with a koan, at a certain point you have to drop everyone else’s words about it and see what it evokes in you. Some of what you need to explore are you own limited ideas about whatever topics the koan touches on.
What, to you, is a “good” day? Usually, we say a day has been good if we’ve gotten a lot done, been able to relax, or had enjoyable experiences. If we’ve done some spiritual practice, we know we should never label a day as entirely bad, so most of our days may fall vaguely under the category of “good” as long as they aren’t marked by calamity. We may feel some pride that, for the most part, we think every day is a mostly-good day. Alternatively, we may feel angst if most of our days feel rather bleak and miserable.
Just as Buddhist monks in ancient times meditated on corpses to help loosen their attachment to – and identification with – their bodies, practitioners in modern times can study psychology to loosen their attachment to – and identification with – their minds. We tend to assume our positive or negative outlook on life is the result of our willful effort, but it turns out that someone’s “affective style” is deeply influenced by genetics. Again, I turn to Jonathan Haidt’s Happiness Hypothesis, and he cites research by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin:
A person’s average or typical level of happiness is that person’s “affective style.” (“Affect” refers to the felt or experienced part of emotion.) Your affective style reflects the everyday balance of power between your approach system and your withdrawal system, and this balance can be read right from your forehead. It has long been known from studies of brainwaves that most people show an asymmetry: more activity either in the right frontal cortex or in the left frontal cortex. In the late 1980s, Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin discovered that these asymmetries correlated with a person’s general tendencies to experience positive and negative emotions. People showing more of a certain kind of brainwave coming through the left side of the forehead reported feeling more happiness in their daily lives and less fear, anxiety, and shame than people exhibiting higher activity on the right side. Later research showed that these cortical “lefties” are less subject to depression and recover more quickly from negative experiences. The difference between cortical righties and lefties can be seen even in infants: Ten-month-old babies showing more activity on the right side are more likely to cry when separated briefly from their mothers. And this difference in infancy appears to reflect an aspect of personality that is stable, for most people, all the way through adulthood. Babies who show a lot more activity on the right side of the forehead become toddlers who are more anxious about novel situations; as teenagers, they are more likely to be fearful about dating and social activities; and, finally, as adults, they are more likely to need psychotherapy to loosen up. Having lost out in the cortical lottery, they will struggle all their lives to weaken the grip of an overactive withdrawal system. Once when a friend of mine with a negative affective style was bemoaning her life situation, someone suggested that a move to a different city would suit her well. “No,” she said, “I can be unhappy anywhere.”[3]
I cite this long passage because I know many people who struggle with a sense of inadequacy because they don’t feel like “every day is a good day.” I also cite it because it invites us to question whether our feelings about whether a day was good or not might be less indicative of the state of our life or our spiritual practice, and more indicative of, as Haidt calls it, the result of our “cortical lottery.” Your odds in that lottery, Haidt explains, are profoundly influenced by genetics, as evidenced by research on identical twins separated at birth.
What might Yunmen’s “every day is a good day” mean if it’s not just about experiencing a positive affect about your day? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) What is “good?” If you know you have little time remaining in your life, chances are you will see every day as a good day, even if by some measures it is miserable. This kind of goodness lies outside the realm of our common evaluations. It’s good to feel your heart beating in your chest. It’s good to freely draw another breath. It’s good to be able to give, be patient, and appreciate the simple things. It’s good to have the strength to endure, and good to find ourselves supported when we break down.
The liveliness of Zen practice doesn’t let us just adopt an “every day is a good day” outlook, though. If it’s not a reality for you, if you can’t stand up and answer Yunmen, then there’s still more to be explored. Every day isn’t good in theory. What does the goodness of this day look in your life, right at this moment? How would you show it to Yunmen? How would you show it to a good friend? How do you show it to yourself?
Loving Each and Every Day
Although Yunmen’s “good day” isn’t about evaluating your day or necessarily experiencing a positive mood about it, there is a quality of love or fondness implied by the Chinese character that is translated as “good” in this koan. According to my research (which might be wrong, relying on the internet), the character translated as “good” in this koan is 好 which according to the online Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms by Soothill and Hodous can be translated as “Good, well; to like, be fond of, love.”[4]
Isn’t this interesting? Apparently, Yunmen wasn’t lecturing his students about being grateful for each day even if they were miserable. This wasn’t an exhortation to be a good spiritual practitioner and stop complaining or hoping for anything better. This was an invitation: When you are no longer waiting for “after,” you will find that you love each and every day.
As pleasant as that may sound, it’s important not to set a mindset of loving each day as an ideal and then judge yourself as lacking. That’s just creating another “after.” The love you experience for each day will not look like anyone else’s love. It may not feel like you expect or hope it will feel. It may be a quiet, subtle love as opposed to a gushy, Pollyanna kind of love. That doesn’t make it a lesser love in any way.
Endnotes
[1] Sullivan, Matthew Juksan. The Garden of Flowers and Weeds: A New Translation and Commentary on The Blue Cliff Record (p. 74). Monkfish Book Publishing. Kindle Edition.
[2] Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (p. 118). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
[3] Ibid, pp. 55-56
[4] A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms by William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous. https://mahajana.net/texts/soothill-hodous.html#body.1_div.1
[5] Sekida, Katsuki. Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records (p. 162). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
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