Zen and the art of trading
The goal of life is not merely to become rich as a trader of cryptocurrency or other assets, but to become self-realized. “Know Thyself” is the aphorism taught by philosophers both east and west, ancient and modern. I have discovered that trading and self-realization are not mutually exclusive, and that the one can be a tool toward attaining the other. You could call it “zen and the art of cryptocurrency trading”.
All we really have to begin with are the tools of our body and mind. The link between these two realms is the brain. It’s all in the mind, as the saying goes. Well, on the path of self-realization, the goal may be transcendence but the tool in the material vehicle in which we live right now. So getting to know how your own personal mind works will aid you in becoming a successful trader – thereby attaining the goal of riches – as well as becoming an insightful transcendentalist. After all, everything is connected on the cosmic blockchain.
Both traders and yogis benefit from getting to know the way the brain works. They both need to understand the tendency toward hankering and lamenting, what traders label FUD and FOMO. Both need to be mastered on the path to success.
Besides that, the yogi understands that he or she has both masculine and feminine sides to the brain, yin and yang. Physically the left hemisphere of the brain is logical, mathematical and analytical, which is great for trading. But trading is not simply a science, it’s also an art. And it is in the right hemisphere of the brain that we can cultivate intuition, pattern recognition and split second timing based thereon.
To be a successful yogi we need to find the balance between our two hemispheres, or the Ida (yin) and Pingala (yang) channels of energy that rise up the spine from the base chakra toward the third eye center. With years of practice and meditation one can raise the kundalini serpent power or “shakti” so that it activates our higher centers of skill and power. The result is a purified body and mind, as well as the by-products of heightened intuition.
Now the trader is in a very similar situation, where they also need to learn the art of intense concentration, along with decision making based on both logic as well as intuition. I have found that applied meditation can actually improve the trading abilities, among all the other benefits for the mind and consciousness.
We all have and use both hemispheres of our brain at all times, and the corpus collosum is the bridge of fibers that links them together. The goal of life can be achieved by strengthening the overall balance and thickening the bridge so that both hemispheres can communicate more efficiently and thereby give us the bigger picture of what’s going on. So we need to cultivate both our mathematical as well as our intuitive pattern recognition skills to be a good trader.
Some traders are more calculating and logical in their analysis of the charts and conversely others are more intuitive in their application of entries and exits in their trades. It depends on which hemisphere is more predominant in your personality. Neither is better than the other and, as I said, the balance of both together is the real goal.
So by taking time to center oneself, and practice some type of mediation, we can improve our overall trading performance on a daily basis as well as in the long run. You might think that having a greater left hemisphere focus on analysis and math might be an advantage. However, this is not necessarily always the case because it can also lead to becoming too rigid, or overthinking your trading strategy.
Have you ever made an analysis, opened a trade, but then gone back and readjusted your trade, only for your original strategy to play out? But due to making too many adjustments, you miss the actual profit. Trading is as much an art as a science, which also relies on quick intuitive action.
Conversely, the right hemisphere dominance can lead to overly emotional trading, which can be disastrous too. So both sides have their strengths and weaknesses. It’s the balance of the two that really produces the best results. The synthesis of both hemispheres of the brain leads to a whole brain experience, which is what we also see in meditators when their brains are linked up to EEG monitors which read the electrical impulses of the brain. A whole brain experience produces Gamma waves or frequencies, and could be labelled a peak experience, compared to say normal Beta brain waves or relaxed Alpha brain waves.
So the secret to success in trading is to know yourself. Know what your nature is and how your mind generally works overall, and by doing so, you can observe which style of trading is best for you. Learn to be self-reflective, or mindful of how your default patterns of behavior manifest themselves. Become conscious as opposed to acting unconsciously or out of habit and conditioning. And then cultivate the weaker side of your brain so that both can function nicely together in full force.
You may have intuition, but you will also then need to learn the skills of TA (technical analysis) based on patterns found in the charts. In this way you are becoming a master in the art of zen trading, so to speak. Know yourself and you will know the world around you, and how to harness it. Master fear and greed. These are also crucial for the aspiring yogi. Ironically crypto trading can be your temple or your dojo, where you wrestle with yourself, while using the charts to test your strengths and weaknesses.
As with anything in life, practice over months and years is required to really master the art – of living and of trading. You will need perhaps 10000 hours of dedicated time invested in your trading to become even somewhat qualified to make reliable and repeated profits overall. Most of all, we merely need the desire, if we want to achieve our long cherished goal of self mastery and trading mastery. With the right desire, accompanied by the right focus, we can achieve the goal of this human form of life...and make some money on the side.
In the end, of course, we also need to learn how to let go, and become detached, whether from our wealth or our very lives, as we prepare to transcend the body altogether at the time of death, so keep the bigger picture in mind. Life in not only about short term profits and wealth accumulation. It’s also about becoming self-realized and self-sufficient in consciousness, regardless of whether the external facilities are actually there or not.
The wealthiest person is one who has conquered greed, and who sees the abundance in life of the best things of all – those that are absolutely free – like friendship, health, time, wisdom, self-awareness, and such intangibles mentioned only by philosophers and mystics. There are certain things that no amount of crypto profits will necessarily bring you, and yet they are there for the claiming – if you have the eye to perceive them.
(image pixabay)
Posted on NaturalMedicine.io
