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Zen would have us reflect upon the simple things in life, especially the natural world, for an appreciation of the beauty and perfection inherent in things just as they are. Remember I suggested earlier walking outside during the trading session for periodic breaks? I walk in my backyard garden and listen to the waterfall. Sometimes I skim the leaves out of the small pond that the water cascades into. I look at the stone Buddha statue sitting next to the waterfall and use the lush garden setting to clear my head of the quotes on the monitor, the talking heads on CNBC, and the Wall Street money-is-everything mentality. |
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I close my eyes and meditate on the sound of the water falling into the pond. And sometimes, Zen-like phrases come to mind: |
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Searching between a rock and a hard place
to find the Tao in the Dow
even my 15-year-old nephew knows
it isn't hiding in Alcoa |
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Fortunes come and go in lickity 2 for 1 split mind moments
oh look! there goes JDS Uniphase blasting off to the second
uniphase of the moon |
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Riding high in the saddle on Redback Networks,
I enter the consulting room smiling. |
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Zen would remind us that no matter how successful we are as traders and investors, ultimately the most important thing we can do is to know our own deepest essence. It would instruct us to ask, just as we are feeling excited, skillful, and prosperous after a winning trade, "Who is it who feels giddy with satisfaction over making some money?" "Who is it who lets his whole attitude and demeanor for the day be conditioned by a rise or fall in the Dow or the NASDAQ?" |
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Looking for a rise in the Tao this morning,
the shimmering vibration of the hummingbird to my left
reminds me not to look any further. |
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The search for one's Buddha nature in Zen means the same as finding one's own deepest self-nature. It is to find the essence of who we are behind the online trading that we do. Can we possibly find our own highest nature through the process of online trading? Or, to state it another way: Can online trading teach us something about ourselves that takes us beyond ourselves to something larger? |
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