Chapter Eleven: The Pine Valley Daoist

Send us Fan MailXiaoyao discovers an ancient and enigmatic inscription in a hidden alcove of the monastery, and learns the difficult technique of stone rubbing.The fat monk and the boatman instruct him in the art of duàn jù: "breaking the sentences" for pieces of writing that have no punctuation and look utterly incomprehensible. (See the transcript for the original piece in Chinese).Later, the Abbot joins them as they parse through the text written by the Pine Vally Daoist, and the fat monk finally learns his lesson.SHOW NOTES:Xiaoyao Xingzhe, the self-styled carefree pilgrim, has lived and worked all over the world, having crossed the Gobi in a decrepit jeep, lived with a solitary monk in the mountains of Korea, dined with the family of the last emperor of China, and helped police with their enquiries in Amarillo, Texas.FAN MAIL is. a new feature now available to leave feedback on episodes, love or hate them.  Look for the button in the top ribbon when you click on “Episodes.”Visit the Fat Monk Website: https://thefatmonk.net/for pdfs of all recorded chapters and a few more, as well as other bits of interest on Daoism, Buddhism and Neidan, with an emphasis (but not a limitation) on pre-twentieth century authors such as Huang Yuanji and Li Daochun.If you would like to support the production costs of  this podcast, you may do so at Ko-fi. Check out the wonderful Flora Carbo and her music:https://floracarbo.com/