Sun Deng (recluse)

Sun Deng (孫登; fl.230–260 CE) was a Daoist sage-recluse, a zitherist, and allegedly the last master of transcendental whistling. Chinese literature has various anecdotes about Sun Deng refusing to teach the musicians Ji Kang (223–262) and Ruan Ji (210–263), two of the iconoclastic Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.

The moral of the story about Ruan Ji visiting Sun Deng, who preferred supernatural whistling over traditional master-disciple dialog, is the ineffability of the Dao (as explained in the opening of the Daodejing). The Chinese poetry of the Six Dynasties and Tang dynasty developed this narrative into the "absent recluse" genre, expressing the unfulfilled desire to obtain wisdom by entering into conversation with a sage-recluse dwelling in the mountains.