**4. Conclusions**

Pei Yue is a lesser known poet during the Late Tang and Five Dynasties. Despite having a scholarly reputation, he has not attracted the attention of academics because he does not have many political achievements or outstanding extant poems. The historical literature documents Pei Yue's life briefly, and there is no record of his religious beliefs or his relationships with religious figures. However, roughly one seventh of Pei Yue's extant poems were written to monks, which shows that Pei Yue closely associated with monks. These poems narrate Pei Yue's discussions of Buddhist theories, poetic skills and the art of calligraphy with monks. They also reveal Pei Yue's feelings for monks: he sincerely eulogized devout monks and sorrowfully mourned a dead monk. Although these poems cannot exactly prove that Pei Yue was himself a devout Buddhist, they express his understanding of Buddhism, to a certain degree.

Pei Yue's poems for monks are full of admiration for the pure land and express helplessness in being unable to escape from an earthly life. This attitude was common among scholars at that time, many famous scholars, such as Wang Wei (700–761), Bai Juyi and Li Shangyin (fl. 812–858), expressed their desire to convert to Buddhism and their pains brought by the secular world through their poetry. Most of them, on the one hand, tried their best to achieve a good result in the imperial examination and reach the peak of their official careers; on the other hand, they expected to seek liberation in a hermit life or by their religious beliefs because they were tired of chasing fame and wealth. This feeling might have been exacerbated by dynastic changes and wars, which filled the scholars' poems with sadness. In addition, Pei Yue also conveyed his infinite pity and sympathy for those who would become monks. This kind of emotion is difficult to find in the poems of other scholars in the Tang Dynasty. The expression of this complicated and contradictory feeling makes Pei Yue's poems for monks more unique, typical and of more research value.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Y.H.; supervision, Y.H.; writing—original draft preparation, L.W.; writing—review and editing, Y.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by National Social Science Fund of China, gran<sup>t</sup> number: 21AZJ005.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
