You're stuck in traffic. It’s raining. You just spilled lukewarm coffee on your favorite shirt, and you’re already ten minutes late for a meeting that could have been an email. If someone leaned over and whispered, "Every day is a good day," you’d probably want to deck them. Honestly, it sounds like the kind of toxic positivity you'd find on a dusty Pinterest board or a cheap motivational mug.
But the every day is a good day koan isn't about pretending things don't suck.
It’s a Zen riddle—a koan—that comes from a very real, very blunt encounter over a thousand years ago. We’re talking about Case 6 of the Hekiganroku, or the Blue Cliff Record. It involves Yunmen Wenyan, a heavy hitter in the Chan (Zen) tradition of Tang Dynasty China.
Yunmen didn’t live in a world of air conditioning and high-speed internet. He lived in a time of political upheaval, physical hardship, and constant uncertainty. When he sat his students down and asked them what happens after fifteen days, he wasn't looking for a weather report. He gave the answer himself: "Nichi nichi kore ko jitsu."
Every day is a good day.
The Brutal Reality Behind Yunmen’s Words
Most people misinterpret this. They think it means you should find a "silver lining" or look for the "blessing in disguise." That’s not Zen. That's just coping.
Zen is about reality, stripped of your preferences.
When Yunmen spoke about the every day is a good day koan, he was challenging the human tendency to categorize life into "good" and "bad." We spend almost all our mental energy trying to keep the stuff we like and push away the stuff we hate. We want the sunshine; we hate the rain. We want the promotion; we hate the layoff.
If you only have a "good day" when things go your way, you’re a slave to circumstance. You've basically outsourced your happiness to the universe's whims.
Yunmen is saying that the "goodness" of the day doesn't depend on the quality of the events. It depends on your presence within them. A "good day" is simply a day where you are fully awake to what is happening, without the internal commentary of this shouldn't be happening. Think about a professional athlete. They don't just enjoy the wins. To be truly great, they have to find a way to be fully "in" the grueling practice, the injuries, and the losses. The experience is the point.
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Breaking Down the Blue Cliff Record
The Blue Cliff Record is one of the most respected collections of Zen literature. It’s dense. It’s poetic. It’s frequently confusing. Case 6 starts with Yunmen asking: "I don't ask you about before the fifteenth day. Try to say something about after the fifteenth day."
None of the monks could answer.
The "fifteenth day" refers to the full moon, representing enlightenment or a peak experience. Yunmen is essentially asking, "Okay, you've had your big realization. You’ve had the mountain-top moment. Now what? What do you do when you’re back in the mud?"
His answer—every day is a good day koan—is a reminder that the ordinary is where the practice lives. It’s easy to feel spiritual at a retreat. It’s hard to feel that way when your kid is screaming or your boss is being a jerk.
Why Our Brains Hate This Koan
Evolutionarily, we are wired to be "bad-day" detectors. Our ancestors survived because they were hyper-aware of threats. If a tiger is chasing you, it is objectively a bad day for your survival. Our brains haven't quite caught up to the fact that a snarky comment on social media isn't a tiger.
We label. We judge. We resist.
When we say "this is a bad day," we create a secondary layer of suffering. There is the primary pain (the event) and the secondary pain (our resistance to the event).
- Primary: The car won't start.
- Secondary: "Why does this always happen to me? I can't afford this. This week is ruined."
The every day is a good day koan suggests we can drop the secondary layer. The car doesn't start. That is the reality. If you engage with that reality without the "ruined week" narrative, you’re just a person fixing a car. It’s just another day of being alive.
The Difference Between Positivity and Presence
I want to be clear: this isn't about being a doormat.
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If someone is treating you poorly, "every day is a good day" doesn't mean you stay and take it while smiling. It means you see the situation clearly, without the fog of "why me," and you take the necessary action. Sometimes a "good day" involves a very difficult conversation or a radical change in direction.
Expert Zen teachers like the late Charlotte Joko Beck often talked about "nothing special." Life isn't a series of peaks; it's a flow. When we stop demanding that the flow look a certain way, we find a weird kind of peace.
It’s sort of like watching a movie. You can enjoy a tragedy or a thriller just as much as a comedy. Why? Because you aren't identifying with the character's pain as your own existential failure. You’re just witnessing the story.
Zen asks you to do that with your own life.
Real-World Application: The Hospital Room
Let's get heavy for a second. Can a day spent in a hospital room be a "good day"?
In the framework of the every day is a good day koan, yes. Not because being sick is "good," but because the day is an authentic part of the human experience. There is a profound intimacy in facing illness or loss. If you are there, fully there, not wishing you were anywhere else, there is a quality of life that transcends "happiness."
Kodo Sawaki, a famous 20th-century Zen master, was known for his rough, no-nonsense style. He spent much of his life traveling and living in poverty. He didn't have "good days" by any standard metric. But his life was "good" because it was undivided. He wasn't split between where he was and where he wanted to be.
How to Actually Practice This
You can’t just think your way into this. It’s a practice of the body and the breath.
When you feel that "bad day" narrative starting to spiral, you have to catch it. You have to notice the physical sensation of resistance—the tight chest, the clenched jaw. That resistance is you saying "no" to the present moment.
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The every day is a good day koan is an invitation to say "yes."
Not "yes, I like this," but "yes, this is what is happening."
Once you accept the "is-ness" of the moment, the "goodness" follows. It’s the goodness of being a conscious being capable of experiencing anything at all.
Common Misconceptions to Avoid
- It’s not a mantra: Repeating "every day is a good day" while you're grinding your teeth is just lying to yourself.
- It’s not apathy: You still care. You still work. You still love. You just stop fighting the weather.
- It’s not for the elite: You don't need a shaved head or a meditation cushion. You need a grocery store line and a bit of patience.
Actionable Steps for the "Bad" Days
If you want to move beyond the theory of the every day is a good day koan and actually live it, you have to start small. Don't try this first when your life is falling apart. Try it when you're stuck in the "fifteenth day"—the mundane, slightly annoying parts of life.
Drop the Adjectives
Next time you're about to describe your day as "hectic," "terrible," or "stressful," stop. Describe the facts instead. "I have five meetings and the laundry is piling up." The facts are workable. The adjectives are heavy.
Locate the Resistance
Where do you feel the "bad day" in your body? Usually, it's a physical contraction. Breathe into that spot. Just acknowledge it. "Oh, there’s that feeling of being overwhelmed." By observing it, you move from being the emotion to being the person watching the emotion.
The Three-Breath Rule
When a situation goes sideways, take three breaths before you label it. In those three breaths, look around. Notice the light, the sounds, the feeling of your feet on the ground. This anchors you in the "now" before your brain can build a "bad day" skyscraper.
Practice Non-Preference
Pick one hour today where you decide you have no preferences. Whatever happens, happens. If someone cuts you off in traffic, that's just what happened. If you get a compliment, that's just what happened. See how much energy you save when you aren't constantly sorting events into piles.
Study the Source
Read the Blue Cliff Record (Case 6). Don't try to "understand" it like a math problem. Read it like a poem. Let the imagery sink in. The more you familiarize yourself with the radical acceptance of the Zen masters, the less radical it will feel in your own life.
Every day is a good day because every day is an opportunity to be awake. The "goodness" is the wakefulness itself. It’s the only thing that doesn't change when the circumstances do. Stop waiting for the perfect day to start living. The one you have right now—with all its flaws and frustrations—is exactly the one Yunmen was talking about.