Pacing the Void

Introduction

Pacing the Void stanzas go back to the fourth century and still open Daoist rituals across China

Pacing the Void is the Daoist ritual chant of the buxu stanzas, sung to melodies known as buxu tunes. According to Kristofer Schipper, the stanzas date back to the fourth century and were soon taken into the liturgy of the Lingbao school; in the fifth century Lu Xiujing described reciting them during the Lingbao retreat while practising visualisation. Orthodox Daoist music is led by the Lingbao tradition, whose retreat rites were created in the Ge family and developed by Lu Xiujing into a full system of liturgy and music. Guo Maoqian's Song-dynasty anthology Yuefu Shiji still preserves dozens of buxu poems from before the Song. Today these hymns open the rituals of temple clerics and household Daoists across China, and they also appear in the daily services of the Quanzhen school. Melodies vary from place to place, and the ritual music of Mount Qiyun counts a buxu tune among its main pieces.