Decoding multimodal resources in the master–disciple interactions of Chinese Zen Buddhism

1 Introduction

Studies of Buddhist language centering on traditional philology focus more on the Buddhist text itself or take the Buddha classics as the material to analyze the history of the Chinese language (e.g. Anderl 2012; Wang 2003; Zhou 2009). The study of Zen language is an essential part of Buddhist language studies and has traditionally placed more focus on verbal and literary work such as Buddhist poetry, chants, and hymns, and very rarely on Zen-related nonverbal behaviors (Kang 2010; Zhou 1999). Therefore, some scholars suggest integrating the Buddhist doctrines into language analysis and excavating any connotations through interdisciplinary research (Zhou 1999).

Zen stands apart from other religious denominations in the sense that it adopts a unique method of enlightenment that achieves personal understanding through indirect communication. A widely accepted definition of Zen Buddhism is that it is a religion that seeks enlightenment through meditation. Some scholars believe that Zen Buddhism is “interpersonal and social in nature,” just like any other cultural or spiritual human activities (Ogawa et al. 2017: 86). In this sense, discourse or interaction plays a crucial role in the interactions of Zen Buddhism. However, the discourse or interaction between disciple and master is far more than verbal exchanges. Zen masters deliver Buddhist doctrines to Zenists through a variety of signs or resources (including striking, roaring, gesturing, silence, and images drawings), rather than only the transmission in linguistic form.

Generally speaking, communication in religious discourse involves many “modes” in the process. Evola (2008), for example, investigates how people relate to certain metaphors transmitted by their faiths in religious discourse and finds that each semiotic mode (speech, gesture, and drawing) has its own characteristic affordances and limitations. However, when used together, they can paint a more complete picture of religious meaning and how people represent their faiths. In linguistics, multimodal studies is a new approach to investigating the interactions between people and the outside world, as well as the communications between people, among which multimodal discourse analysis (henceforth referred to as MDA) attaches great importance to various semiotic channels in direct and indirect communication. Therefore, this paper adopts MDA as a novel perspective for analyzing Zen enlightenment processes and Buddhist doctrines to see how Zen masters and disciples communicate and learn religious connotations.

2 Multimodal phenomena and the perception of ancient Chinese

In modern brain studies, the term modality refers to the general sensory organs and their interconnected neural networks (see Kolb and Whishaw 2005: 135), while social semiotic studies regards mode as the semiotic resource for meaning construction. Interactions between a physically and mentally healthy person and the outside world, as well as person-to-person communication, are multimodal in nature, which is associated with, in Gu’s term, multimodal semiotic pragmatics (Gu 2019). In ancient Chinese Buddhism, “Liu Gen^[1]” (literally ‘the six roots’) are referred to as the six sense faculties: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and intellect. The six faculties receive six sense objects, called “Liu Chen” (the ‘six dusts’), which are sight, sounds, smell, taste, tactile sensation, and Dharma, and then initiate the processes of distinguishing and memory called “Liu Shi,” or the six consciousnesses. They are visual consciousness, auditory consciousness, olfactory consciousness, gustatory consciousness, tactile consciousness, and intellect consciousness. This process is how interactions and communication are made in the authentic world.

In ancient China, people had already realized the importance of other modal semiotics in addition to language to deliver meaning and to pursue a sense of beauty in daily life. For instance, the ancient Chinese inscribed paintings, played instruments while chanting poems, and conveyed cultural, religious, and political meanings through art, utensils, sculptures, and sounds, which are all about applying multimodal semiotics and the process of multimodal analysis. Interestingly, many classics of Buddhism in China write that multimodal interactions are necessary to understand the Buddhist doctrines. It is said in The Surangama Sutra that one single modality can stimulate the functions of other modalities, thus creating synesthesia. In this sense, the six sense faculties are no longer separate, and the synesthesia stage will be reached if the practitioners have enough practice.

Certainly, the six sense faculties contain religion; therefore the individuals’ understanding of sensory organs is also extended from physiology to religious study (Zhou 2011). Buddhists have interactions of the six sense faculties, namely multimodal interactions, not only in their practice but also in their daily meditation, which yielded great influence for the scholars and Buddhists of the Song Dynasty. For example, a poem by Su Shi,^[2] which praises another scholar’s (Wang Wei’s) talents for writing poems and creating art, reflects the multimodal interactions. The poem describes how “味摩诘之诗，诗中有画; 观摩诘之画，画中有诗。” [You can discover pictures when tasting Mo Jie’s poems and discover poems when looking at his art]. Here, “味” (wei) means ‘taste’; and “观” (guan) means ‘looking with one’s eyes.’ In this poem, Su Shi tastes the painting displayed in Wang Wei’s poems and looks at the poems described by Wang Wei’s art. This is an exact example of a process in which one mode stimulates the other and both interact with the outside world.

After the middle period of the Northern Song Dynasty, more scholars, officials, and Buddhists were aware of the importance of synesthesia and no longer confined themselves to a single way of reading scriptures to obtain enlightenment in Zen. They started to have multimodal interactions with the outside world, such as reciting poems, painting, burning incense, tasting teas and food, enjoying flowers, etc., and then they would be enlightened in Zen through the process of so-called “poetry-Zen,” “painting-Zen,” “incense-Zen,” and “tea-Zen,” among other enlightening practices. The practitioners lifted themselves to the spiritual world through these methods, realized the Buddha-nature doctrine, and developed synesthesia in their aesthetic activities and literary creation.

In MDA, the modes are defined as semiotic resources in the social world of culture (Kress 2010). All forms of discourse are multimodal in nature, and the study of MDA enables people to have a further and more comprehensive knowledge of interpersonal communications (Scollon and Levine 2004). According to multimodal semiotics, several modes, including verbal and nonverbal behaviors, are developed into a system in which people communicate meaning.

3 Nonverbal, multimodal, and irregular enlightenment processes in Zen

This section, starting from the nonverbal communication process in Zen, will discuss multimodal semiotics representation and choice of modes for religious meaning.

4 MDA in the cases of the Zen masters’ enlightenment process

This paper takes the first ancestor of the Zen masters, Mahākāśyapa, as an example to further illustrate the previous discussion. The case is about “拈花微笑” [picking up flower with a subtle smile], and the records are as follows:

相传世尊一日在灵山会上，拈花示众，时大众皆默默不得要领，唯有大迦叶尊者破颜微笑。世尊曰：“吾有正法眼藏，涅槃妙心，实相无相，微妙法门，不立文字，教外别传，付嘱摩诃迦叶。” [ It is said that one day Śākyamuni Buddha held up a white flower and showed it to all his disciples; no one in the audience understood the Flower Sermon except Mahākāśyapa, who smiled. Then Lord Buddha said: “I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the authentic form of the formless, the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa.”]

The semiotic mode of a hand gesture, which is holding up a flower, is to transmit the Buddhist doctrines. Evidently, the silent transmission of Buddhist truth between the master and the disciple is “a special transmission outside the teaching” (Welter 2010: 75). Mahākāśyapa smiled, a semiotic facial mode expression, to show that he understood the Lord Buddha’s intention. This flower represents purity, peace, and a clear mind, and the Lord Buddha wanted to communicate the ineffable nature of suchness by holding up the flower. Mahākāśyapa’s smile, a semiotic mode, signifies the direct transmission of wisdom without words. So holding up a flower and smiling are both semiotic modes, not frequently used, through which the Buddha-nature doctrine has been successfully transmitted in the interaction between Śākyamuni Buddha and Mahākāśyapa.

Another classic enlightenment approach and commonly adopted semiotic mode is roaring, which is characterized by rhythm. The roaring of Master Yixuan of Linji Lineage is the most typical. Zen masters adopted this semiotic mode to break disciples’ conventional way of thinking and allow them to have an individual understanding of the Buddhist doctrines. The examples are as follows:

初参石头，头问：“那个是汝心?” 师曰：“见言语者是。”头便喝出。[When (Master Baotong) first visited Master Shitou Xiqian, the Master asked, “Which is your heart?” Master Baotong answered, “The one speaking now is.” Master Shitou Xiqian roared and drove him out.]

If the disciple understood his master, both of them would roar to show the agreement (Kang 2010):

问：“僧近离甚处？”僧便喝，师亦喝。僧又喝，师又喝。僧曰：“行棒即瞎，”便喝。师拈棒， 僧乃转身作受棒势。[(Master Huiran) asked, "Where did you come from recently?" The disciple roared and Master Huiran roared back. The disciple roared again, and Master Huiran roared too. “It is useless to strike with a stick,” the disciple said, and then roared. When Master Huiran went to get a stick, the disciple turned around and assumed the position of being struck.]

Here, “喝,” which means ‘roaring,’ is a semiotic mode that means agreement; through this nonverbal behavior, communication is carried out between the master and his disciples.

Like roaring, “棒,” which means ‘striking,’ is also a nonverbal behavior that helps disciples understand the Buddha-nature doctrine. Both have become widely adopted enlightenment approaches by Zen masters. In response to questions about the doctrines raised by their disciples, Zen masters rarely answered using speech, but by striking them a blow along with a roaring, aiming to bring about the moment of enlightenment.

In body pose, Zen masters also taught using hand gesture, foot poses, and body contact, including slapping, nose twisting, foot dropping, treading, hitting, holding up or laying down calamagrostis, circle moving, standing, and so on. These are all semiotic modes that Zen masters applied to communicate with their disciples and transmit the Buddhist doctrines. Just as recorded in Zutangji, a book recording the history of Zen, “因僧侍立次，师竖起拂子，僧便礼拜，师便打之。后因僧侍立次，师竖起拂子，其僧并不顾，师亦打之。” [When the disciple stood by, he worshiped after seeing the master hold up the calamagrostis, and then the master hit him. Another time when the disciple was standing by, the master held up the calamagrostis but the disciple did not respond, the master also hit him]. In this record, the Zen master hit his disciple twice. The first hit is to criticize the disciple for failing to bear the present commitment, and the second is because the disciple learned by his experience but not through instant intuition. The Zen master adopted two semiotic modes, holding up calamagrostis (“竖起拂子”) and hitting (“打“), to enlighten his disciple.

Sometimes, Zen masters interacted with their disciples through body pose, which was assisted by verbal language. The records in Volume Nine of Summary of the Five Lamps (《五灯会元》) state that:

师一日在法堂上坐，见一僧从外来，便问讯了，向东边叉手立，以目视师，师乃垂下左足。僧却过西边叉手立，师垂下右足。僧向中间叉手立，师收双足。僧礼拜，师曰：“老僧自住此，未曾打著一人。”拈拄杖便打。僧便腾空而去。[One day, while sitting in the Dharma Hall, Master Yanghan Huishi saw a disciple come in from outside. After inquiring, the disciple stood with his arms crossed to the east and gazed at Master Huiji. Master Huiji dropped his left leg. Then the disciple went over to the west side and stood with crossed arms. Master Huiji dropped his right leg. The disciple again stood with crossed hands toward the center. Master Huiji pulled his legs back. The disciple then bowed in worship. Master Huiji said, "I have never struck a person in all my time here." After saying that, he picked up his staff and struck the disciple, who then took flight and left.]

If the disciples had not understood the meaning of the semiotic modes above, like dropping the left leg (“垂下左足”) and dropping the right leg (“垂下右足”), or if they hadn’t had a deep foundation in Buddhism, the multimodal communication couldn’t have been carried out and the Buddhist doctrines would have failed to be transmitted. Another record in Summary of the Five Lamps describes how Chen Zunsu, a Buddhist, asks a chief monk about the classics:

问：“座主讲甚么经?”曰：“讲涅槃经。”师曰:“问一段义得么?”曰：“得。”师以脚踢空，吹一吹。曰:“是甚么义?”曰：“经中无此义。”师日：“脱空谩语汉！五百力士揭石义，却道无。”[(Chen Zunsu) asked, “What sutra do you preach?” The chief monk answered, “The Nirvana Sutra.” Chen said, “May I ask you the meaning of one passage?” The chief monk agreed. Chen kicked into the air with his foot, blew on it, and asked, “What is the meaning of this?” The chief monk answered, “There is no such doctrine in the Sutra.” Chen said, “Your words are empty! This is the purport of the five hundred mighty men carrying stones, and you say it is not in the Sutra.”]

Above, Chen Zunsu kicked his foot (“以脚踢空”) to describe that in The Nirvana Sutra (《涅槃经》), the Buddha can use his big toe to lift a heavy stone that five hundred Hercules would even fail to lift; then he blew on his foot (“吹一吹”), which signifies emptiness. Only if one understands the emptiness of self can one gain enlightenment. In this case, the chief monk didn’t understand the meaning contained in the semiotic modes that Chen Zunsu adopted, so he said there were no such doctrines in The Nirvana Sutra (“经中无此义”).

Another case in Records of Transmission of the Lamp describes how, in the Tang Dynasty, Puyuan, a Zen master, enlightened his disciples. Here is the record:

师因入菜园见一僧，师乃将瓦子打之。其僧回顾，师乃翘足。僧无语，师便归方丈。僧随后入，问讯云：“和尚适来掷瓦子打某甲，岂不警觉某甲？”师曰：“翘足又作么生？”僧无对。[When Master Puyuan went into the vegetable garden and saw a disciple, he hit him with a tile. The disciple looked back, and Master Puyuan crossed his legs. The disciple said nothing, so Master Puyuan went back to the abbot. The disciple then followed him in and after the salute asked, “You just threw a tile and hit me, are you enlightening me?" Master Puyuan said, “Then what does crossing my legs mean?" The disciple was speechless.]

“翘足” means ‘crossing legs,’ which the Zen master did. By this, the master wanted to teach disciples that they should be diligent in consulting with eminent monks from various branches to enrich their knowledge and learn Buddhist doctrines. However, the disciple failed to understand the implied meaning of the master crossing his legs and kept silent in response to the master’s question. Thus, he didn’t gain enlightenment.

Apart from the body gestures mentioned before, Zen masters also resorted to teaching objects such as the calamagrostis. Take as an example Huineng, a supposedly illiterate peasant without access to written documents and Zen Buddhism’s sixth patriarch. He often conveyed Buddhist doctrines using semiotic modes like holding up or throwing away the calamagrostis. However, the disciples shouldn’t have been obsessed with the gesture of holding up the calamagrostis itself, as it is just a semiotic mode and an enlightenment approach promoting the “mind-to-mind transmission” of the ultimate truth in Buddhism. This can be seen from Volume Fifteen in Summary of the Five Lamps:

师问岭中顺维那：“古人竖起拂子，放下拂子，意旨如何”顺曰：“拂前见，拂后见。”师曰：“如是，如是。”[Master Wenyan asked the chief monk, “Ancient Zen masters often hold up the calamagrostis to those who come, and then put it down. What does this mean?” The monk answered, “The enlightenment is understood both before the calamagrostis is held up and after it is put down.” Master Wenyan said, “So it is, so it is.”]

In the cases of the Zen masters’ approach to enlightenment, images are to guide the disciples toward understanding the Buddhist doctrines. Master Zhizhao of Linji Lineage, in the Southern Song Dynasty, said in Volume Four of one Zen classic, Ren Tian Yan Mu, that ensō, a hand-drawn circle, was put forward by Master Zhongguo of Nanyang, a city in Henan province. Furthermore, ensō becomes the defining feature of Weiyang School, one of the five houses of Zen, which has a total of 97 types of ensō. Zen masters greatly favored ensō during the enlightenment process, as the circle in Chinese culture means perfection and harmony, and in Zen, it represents absolute enlightenment without emptiness. Zhou (1999: 87) considers that ensō is an attempt made by the Zen masters to change the expression of Buddhist texts, and it is the same as other localizations of Zen language. Ensō was frequently used by Master Mazu Daoyi, a patriarch of the Hongzhou School, and was gradually enriched in the enlightenment process in the middle and later period of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties Period (Kang 2010: 166). Other shapes or characters are added to the ensō. Master Huiji of Weiyang School preferred to adopt ensō in his teachings to express his individual understanding of Buddhist doctrines, and his disciple Pushun systematically developed the ensō into a unique semiotic mode to transmit the Buddha-nature doctrine.

There are many other examples in Summary of the Five Lamps describing the interaction between masters and disciples using ensō. For example, “问: ‘如何是顿？’ 师作圆相示之。” [The disciple asked, “What is epiphany?” Master Guangmu drew an ensō for him to see]. It means that one day a disciple asked how to become enlightened, and the master just painted an ensō to show that once an individual completely understands the nature of self, he can understand Buddhahood; moreover, the hand-drawn circle symbolizes perfection and a harmonious self (Kang 2010: 166).

In Volume Two, “师见僧来，以手作圆相，相中书日字。僧无对。” [When Master Huizhong saw a disciple coming, he drew an ensō with his hand and wrote the word “ri” (sun) in the circle, but the disciple could not understand.] means that one day the master drew an ensō and wrote a “日” (sun) in the circle, but the disciple failed to understand the master’s intention. And in Volume Nine:

“问：“以字不成，八字不是，是甚么字？”师作圆相示之。有僧于师前作五花圆相，师画破作一圆相。”[The disciple asked, “Which word is difficult to express its original form in any way?” Master Shunzhi drew an ensō for him. A disciple drew a circle of five flowers in front of Master Shunzhi, which Master Shunzhi broke into one ensō.]

Above is also an example of how the master tried to enlighten his disciple through ensō. Although masters of the Weiyang School widely used ensō, they pointed out that an ensō itself is not Zen, but an enlightenment approach beyond language. So, Zenists shouldn’t cling much to the ensō itself (Pi 1994).

The previous interaction between master and disciple is established as a complete discourse (obviously with multiple semiotic resources) when the involved parties share some implied background knowledge and the disciple is prompted to be fully aware of the teaching. However, if the disciple cannot understand the master’s intention and fails to have an “aha moment” of enlightenment, the discourse is then illogical and the teaching purpose has not been realized.

In a word, Zen masters interact with their disciples to enlighten them using various semiotic modes such as body poses, roaring, striking, holding up the calamagrostis, and drawing images, etc. This illustrates that Zen uses a multimodal approach to achieve enlightenment and a thorough analysis has to be made to understand the Buddha-nature doctrine implied in these semiotic modes.

5 Conclusions

This paper aimed to apply MDA as a novel perspective to analyze the meanings of other semiotic modes apart from language and to reveal the significance of other semiotic modes in the Zen enlightenment process. From the perspective of MDA, only when people realize the connection between different semiotic modes can they gain a deep understanding of the real meaning in multimodal discourse. In the same way, when disciples figure out the relations of various semiotic modes and have the related background knowledge of Buddhism, they can understand the Buddhist doctrines and finally gain enlightenment. Although MDA is a new focus in linguistics, many eminent monks already held this knowledge over a thousand years ago and could flexibly adopt multimodal semiotics to transmit Buddhist doctrines. This discussion aimed to provide an understanding of how multimodal resources symbolize the interpersonal nature of Zen Buddhism, and the interaction mentioned above further confirms that Zen is “interpersonal, and it is in a communication between two individuals” (Ogawa et al. 2017: 91).

Enlightenment in Zen consists in leading disciples to gain ultimate wisdom and to understand the Buddha-nature doctrine. Whether disciples attain this goal depends on their knowledge of Buddhism, comprehension, wisdom, luck, and intuition. This paper analyzed the enlightenment process from a novel perspective to develop a deeper understanding of cases illustrating the approach to enlightenment employed by the Zen masters. A future area of investigation worth considering is whether the newly studied multimodal metaphor (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi 2009; Huang 2015) can be applied in analyzing the semiotic modes in the enlightenment process of Zen and in studying the relations between sayable and unsayable things in Buddhist transmission (Wang 2013).