06/20/2026
In the Small Heavenly Circulation (⼩周天, xiǎo zhōu tiān), Fire Phases (⽕候, huǒhòu) are “most crucial” precisely because the practitioner’s natural spiritual awareness (⾃然神觉, zìrán shénjué) is not yet continuous and complete. At this stage, the work still alternates between clarity and dullness, integration and dispersion, numinous responsiveness and mechanical effort.
When the text says it may be “numinous or not numinous” (或灵、或不灵, huò líng, huò bù líng), it is pointing to the unstable threshold-condition of early alchemy stages: the Spirit (神, shén) can sometimes guide the process effortlessly, but at other times the acquired mind intrudes, and then timing is lost. That is why the classics “explain it in detail”: not because the Dao is complicated, but because beginners are easily pulled into subtle deviations that feel like progress.
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Excerpt from the Book “Daoist Cultivation, Book 34 - Oral Formulas of the True Transmission of the Great Dao” translated and commented by Vitaly Filbert.
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