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==The Origin of Morning and Evening Rites==

Morning and Evening Rites are one of the main forms of religious practice for Daoists at temples. The " Rites" refer to reading aloud Daoist scriptures, one of the routine assignments. They require the Daoists to read aloud the texts of the scriptures in the hall of the temple both in the morning and in the evening. No record was left about Morning and Evening Rites in early Daoism. In the Northern and Southern dynasties, Daoists at temples practised the Rites of Routine Practice ( 常朝儀 Changchaoyi ), as mentioned in ''On Conducting the Pervasive Mystery Numinous Treasure Three Grottoes Rituals and Commandments for Worshipping the Dao'' ( 《洞玄靈寶三洞奉道科戒營始》Dongxuan Lingbao Sandong Fengdao Kejie Yingshi ): "The rites and commandments of the Four Assemblies and Three Grottoes can be practiced daily, so they are called the Rites of Routine Practice." The core of the rites is to be courteous to the Ten Directions, which differs from the Morning and Evening Rites at later times, which mainly consist in reading aloud Daoist scriptures, exhortations, and incantations. But the forms of the two were quite similar to each other. No scriptures mentioned the Morning or Evening Rites in the ''Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era or in the Supplementary Daoist Canon of the Ming Dynasty''. In the [[Essential Books of the Daoist Canon]] ( 《道藏輯要》Daozang Jiyao ) compiled in the Qing Dynasty, there are two scriptures about them. One is the ''Pristine Subtlety Daoist Rites of the Great Discipline'' ( 《清微宏範道門》 Qingwei Hongfan Daomen Gongke ), the other is the ''[[Book of the Supreme Daoist Rites]]'' ( 《太上玄門功課經》Taishang Xuanmen Gongke Jing ). From the title we can see that it was handed down from the Daoists of the Pristine Subtlety sect, and was probably written before the Qing Dynasty. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that the system of Morning and Evening Rites was formed in Buddhist temples. And then the temples of the Complete Perfect Tradition followed suit. So it can be estimated that the Morning and Evening Rites of Daoism came into being in the middle or late Ming dynasty. Until the end of the Ming Dynasty or early Qing Dynasty, the main temples of Daoism adopted Morning and Evening Rites as a form of practice.