Zen Words in Japanese Language

In terms of demographics, Zen in Japan never reached the mass appeal that the Pure Land and Shingon sects ever did,¹ but it has had an unusually large influence on the culture. When people think of this, they usually think of things like sand gardens, tea ceremonies, or certain temples in Kyoto, but the language includes many words originally borrowed from Chinese-Zen (a.k.a. Chan) terminology imported into Japan.

This is not unusual, as it happens in English and other languages too: religious terminology gradually become increasingly widespread and lose their original religious context. The English word “goodbye” evidentially derived from “god be with ye”, for example.

So, let’s look at a few examples in Japanese.

The word aisatsu (挨拶), meaning customary greetings, was originally from the back and forth questions a Zen teacher would ask a student to test their grasp of the Dharma. Back then it was called ichiai-issatsu (一挨一拶), so the word has shortened over time.

The verb ganbaru (頑張る), which you see all the time in Japanese and means to “hang in there” had a somewhat different meaning in the past. It’s original meaning was the tendency for people to cling to their egos and assert their viewpoint even in the face of reality. The word has changed to a more positive meaning over time.

The word shujinkō (主人公) meaning the main character of a story (or drama) originally comes from a famous collection of Zen koan called the Mumonkan, wherein a certain monk would talk to himself and say things like “hey you, stay awake [don’t be fooled]”. The “you” here is where shujinkō comes from.

The phrase ichi-go-ichi-é (一期一会) normally means a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but in a Zen or tea ceremony context it means that this moment is like no other, never to be repeated.

The word kanben (勘弁) which my wife sometimes yells at me (kanben shite yo! “use your head”, “be reasonable!”) originally described a teacher thoroughly investigating a student’s grasp of the Dharma.

Finally, the word genkan (玄関) is a very common word in Japanese, meaning the front entry way, where you take off your shoes, etc. Originally this was limited to the area near a temple’s gate, but during the Edo Period the usage became more popularized to mean the entryway of a home.

There are other, more obscure terms as well, often in the form of phrases and idioms.

The phrase nichi nichi kore kō nichi (日日是好日) means “every day is a good day”, and I talked about it in this older post. This is directly taken from Chinese, but pronounced in a Japanese way.

Similarly, another famous Chinese-Zen phrase is kyakka shōko (脚下照顧) which loosely translated means something like “watch your feet!”. More specifically, it means to observe one’s self carefully, using the example of your feet. If your shoelaces are untied, your walking gets sloppy, or your shoes get messy, or you trip and fall. So, if you notice this, and tie your shoelaces, then you are catching the problem early, and avoiding future issues.

So, that’s a look at Zen-Buddhist words in Japanese language. Thanks for reading!

¹ According to one of my books, the Rinzai Zen sect has about 1.1 million registered followers, while the Jodo Shinshu sect has 11 million (10 times that number) and Shingon sect about 7 million. Soto Zen has about 3.5 registered followers, so somewhat larger, but not that much.