Daoist School Zhen Dao Pai

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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Among Fire Phases, those of the Small Heavenly Circulation are the most crucial. By the time one reaches the Great Heavenly Circulation, natural spiritual awareness is already complete, so there are fewer errors. But in the Small Heavenly Circulation it may be numinous, or it may fail to be numinous, and so one must watch and manage it step by step; this is why the alchemical classics all explain it in detail.

The Wuzhen Pian says, “If there is the slightest hairbreadth of deviation, the Elixir will not be formed,” and from this one can know that the Fire Phases absolutely must not be mistaken. Yet because the descriptions are so detailed, students instead enter side paths—such as speaking of using nine, using six, or “Qian stalks” and “Kun stalks.” In fact it is not like this; it is only that there is such a principle, and so such images are established. If one follows the book rigidly, one becomes attached to appearances.
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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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The phrase natural spiritual awareness (⾃然神觉, zìrán shénjué) is the heart of the instruction. It is not merely “be relaxed.” It means the Spirit is allowed to be naturally numinous (灵, líng): not pressed down, not excited upward, not split into competing intentions. This is why the text insists that heavenly naturalness (天然, tiānrán) is the basis of correct Fire Phases.

The classics describe “rules and measures,” yet the author warns that these are ultimately pedagogical: they point to patterns that can be recognized after the fact, not formulas to be imposed from the start. There is the deeper principle here: Doing is the foundation of Non-Doing. One does establish conditions—steadiness, virtue, simplicity, quiet sitting, guarding the heart—yet once the basis is set, the decisive movement is Non-Doing (⽆为, wúwéi): not meddling, not chasing sensations, not “manufacturing” circulation. Hence the line, “naturally one is in Non-Doing, yet nothing is left undone” (⽆为⽽⽆不为, wúwéi ér wú bù wú wéi).

The work completes because the interference stops, not because control increases.
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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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Fire Phases (⽕候, huǒhòu) are not a method of forcing heat, pushing Qi, or “making something happen.” They are timing (候, hòu)—the recognition of when the inner process ripens of itself, and when it should be left alone. That is why the text emphasizes living Zi time (活⼦时, huó zǐ shí) and living Wu time (活午时, huó wǔ shí).

These are not clock-hours. They are inner “moments” that arise in practice: Zi symbolizes the birth of true Yang within extreme Yin, and Wu symbolizes the birth of true Yin within extreme Yang.

In other words, they point to the spontaneous reversals and renewals within Kan–Li dynamics that a practitioner can actually feel and verify. “Living” means it is not scheduled by the mind; it is detected by awareness.
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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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What are the Fire Phases of the Small Heavenly Circulation? “Phases” means timing. One waits for the timing of the living Zi time and the living Wu time; when the time arrives, one raises the Fire—therefore it is called the Fire Phases. Fire is Li: it is the Spirit within the heart. All uses of Fire are the wondrous functioning of the heart’s Spirit, and its wonder lies in awakened awareness.

Using natural spiritual awareness, one cultivates the Fire Phases of heavenly naturalness to refine the Great Medicine; within this there are definite rules and measures. The alchemical classics all speak according to rules and measures, yet in reality it is entirely spontaneous and natural: there is no need to force effort with deliberate intention—naturally one is in Non-Doing, yet nothing is left undone.

These Fire Phases all emerge by cultivating the sequence of heavenly naturalness, and they can be verified by direct experience. Yet one must cultivate what is natural; only then does spiritual awareness arise. If there is even the slightest lack of naturalness, the Spirit is not numinous—because of attachment to appearances and the stirring of thoughts—and then the Fire Phases will also, from time to time, produce errors.
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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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Oral Formulas of the True Transmission of the Great Dao (大道真传口诀) is a rare Daoist inner-alchemy manual presented in the direct voice of oral instruction—and accompanied in this edition by clear, practice-oriented commentary that helps modern readers navigate the text’s dense symbolic language without turning it into rigid technique.

Orally transmitted by Wèi Yáo (魏尧) and recorded by Chén Wēigōng Mèng (陈威公孟), this work preserves a 1924 lecture manuscript—practical guidance shaped in real time for serious cultivation.

Within its vivid, compressed instruction, the text lays out a complete internal roadmap: the stages of Small Heavenly Circulation (小周天, xiǎo zhōu tiān), the crucial transitional period of warming and nourishing (温养, wēn yǎng), and the approach to Great Heavenly Circulation (大周天, dà zhōu tiān). It addresses “fire phases” (火候, huǒhòu), timing, refinement, sealing and safeguarding, and the traditional sequence of verification signs—while repeatedly warning against the most common error: mistaking symbols, numbers, and “scenes” for literal mechanics.

In addition, the original text does more than give methods; it explains key classical sources that practitioners often cite but rarely understand in practical terms. Throughout the lectures, it interprets core Daoist and classical works of Patriarch Qiu Chuji (丘處機) from Longmen Secret Essentials 《龙门秘旨》:

* “Verses and Oral Formulas of the Small Heavenly Circulation 《小周天歌诀》
* “Song of the Great Dao” 《大道歌》
* “Rhapsody on Gathering the Great Medicine”《采大药赋》
* "Rhapsody on Obtaining the Great Medicine" 《得大药赋》

Like many authentic Neidan (內丹, nèi dān) teachings, it transmits through classical imagery—medicine and fire, furnace and cauldron, the River Cart (河车, hé chē), Lead and Mercury (铅汞, qiān gǒng), Dragon and Tiger (龙虎, lóng hǔ), bridges and gates—not as ornament, but as a precise language of inner process. The accompanying commentary clarifies how these symbols function as instruction, highlights key principles such as naturalness (自然, zìrán) and Natural Spiritual Awareness (自然神觉, zìrán shénjué), and points out common misreadings that lead practitioners off course.

This edition offers a complete English translation with guided commentary, making an important oral-lineage style text accessible without diluting its depth. For serious students of Daoist cultivation—whether long-time practitioners or careful readers of classical internal alchemy literature—Oral Formulas of the True Transmission of the Great Dao is a concentrated transmission: direct, uncompromising, and quietly profound.

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The line “with unlike kinds, cleverness cannot be worked; true work is real work” is the master cutting off a very specific mistake: trying to use postcelestial means to obtain precelestial results.

“Unlike kinds” does not only mean using the wrong technique; it means using the wrong basis. If the practitioner is still operating from the Conscious Spirit (識神, shí shén)—calculating, grasping, seeking signs, forcing timing—then even if he borrows alchemical vocabulary (Wu–Ji, Kan–Li, true Yin–Yang), the work remains “unlike in kind.” It cannot match the true mechanism because the operator is not aligned with it.

So “true work is real work” is a blunt standard: what counts is not the brilliance of your interpretation, nor the intensity of your internal sensations, but whether the work is rooted in the actual center—Wu and Ji as living balance—and whether it is governed by heavenly naturalness (天然, tiān rán) rather than by contrivance.
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Excerpt from the Book “Daoist Cultivation, Book 33 - The Secret of the Golden Flower: Questions and Answers Clarifying the Hidden” translated and commented by Vitaly Filbert.
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Zi time (⼦時, zǐ shí) is traditionally midnight, the turning point where Yang begins to be born within the depth of Yin. In alchemical usage, it is not merely a clock time; it is a state-time: the moment when, within extreme quiet, a subtle life-pivot turns and the first true movement appears. Calling it “living” emphasizes that it is not a conceptual idea and not a dull trance. It is a precise inner sign: the stillness is not stagnant; it has become the womb in which true vitality stirs.

In this sense, the master is gently correcting the student’s framing. The student is trying to identify Kan–Li joining by naming the results—light, emptiness, tranquility—while the master points to the mechanism: an uncontrived, spontaneous turning in the depth of quiet that is both “not-knowing” (no contrivance) and “returning-to-life” (a genuine arising).

Taken together, the teaching is practical and protective. It tells the practitioner not to chase the joining as a sensation, not to force it with deliberate intent, and not to mistake blank quiet for realization. The true joining is verified when stillness becomes naturally luminous and, within that luminosity, a subtle, spontaneous vitality begins to move without being stirred by postcelestial emotion or the Conscious Spirit (識神, shí shén).

That spontaneous movement—born from quiet, aligned with Heavenly Naturalness, and operating without interruption—this is what the master is pointing to when he says Kan and Li join where there is “not-knowing and not-awareness,” and why he seals it with the image of the living Zi time.
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Excerpt from the Book “Daoist Cultivation, Book 33 - The Secret of the Golden Flower: Questions and Answers Clarifying the Hidden” translated and commented by Vitaly Filbert.
______
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“Kan and Li join in a place of not-knowing and not-awareness” is not praising ignorance. It is pointing to the level at which the true joining happens: beneath deliberate intent, beneath contrived attention, beneath the postcelestial mind’s habit of “doing something” in order to produce a result.

If you try to make Kan and Li join through conscious manipulation—forcing stillness, pushing Qi, chasing heat and coolness, fixing attention on a point—you move the operation into the realm of “having a mind to do it.”

The master insists that the authentic joining is more like the Dao of Heaven itself: it “shifts and turns” without ever stopping, and its marvel is that it accords without being planned.
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The moment you try to replace Heavenly Naturalness (天然, tiānrán) with the mind’s strategizing, you substitute a small “human mechanism” for the great mechanism and inevitably drift into side effects and imbalance.
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Excerpt from the Book “Daoist Cultivation, Book 33 - The Secret of the Golden Flower: Questions and Answers Clarifying the Hidden” translated and commented by Vitaly Filbert.
______
You can buy a paper book on Amazon.
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Most ebooks are available in Spanish, French and in German. Go to the author page, click filters, and select language.

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