Besides blabbering here like some spiritual idiot, part of my time these days is spent trying to learn how to swing trade stocks.
I love this exercise. I am constantly amazed that trading presents spiritual principle after principle.
So, I have just completed my third trade.
And once again, I am trying to learn from my mistakes.
Stopped out within the first 3 minutes of today’s trading even when the pre-market quotes showed the stock was trading up, I was out my $50, just like that.
It was a bit of a stunner. I'd convinced myself the stock was going up, when right there in front of me, I can now see quite plainly that I should have stayed out. The stock's chart did not have the pattern that I search for and want to trade... a chart pattern I originally chose because of its inherent simplicity and easy recognition.
I can see that now, but I couldn't see that yestareday. Instead I was driven by what I thought: murmuring emotions, hopes, desires confused my eyes. There was all that going on beneath the thoughts I loudly heard.
I wrote out a detailed plan prior to the trade and appeared to be following the rules all the rules for trading wisely. And still, I failed to see my blindness
I made an amateur mistake!! I broke a premier principle, I had heard many times and whole heartedly advocate:
Trade what you see, not what you think.
And, I am blown away by how simply the mind overthrows the senses! Subtle mind even over throws loudly thinking, reading with your lips moving, following a check list mind.
Trade what you see, not what you think.
Can I do that?
It’s simply a material version of Fierce Freedom yelling the spiritual directive at me: Don’t think! Look!
But, can we do that?
What I love about trading – worth the $50 I just lost – is to see the incredible subtlety of just how difficult it is to quiet the mind and simply go with what you see… because we do think. We have to think. So, even when you have been told the principle of freedom and it makes sense and you agree… still to actually do it!
That is something else.
So here is a cartoon, in celebration of dear, dear (and costly) imbecility, aka “being human.” They're talking about trading, but don't let that fool you. As seekers we do this all the time.
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3 comments:
Oh, and just to add a detail. The stock I traded here was DANG. Isn't that just perfect? :) That's the symbol for the company, Dangdang (even better)- the Chinese Amazon.com. Just further underlines the silliness and perfectness of it all to me.
DANG!
I'm sure with the right frame of mind you can make a spiritual excerise out of any possible activity (see tantra and the martial arts) "the fool who persists in his folly will eventually become wise" as Alan Watts was often fond of saying.
I find that internet commenting and all the hostility and troll baiting that inevitably follow in it's wake to be an exellent method of cultivating detachment from the opinions of others for example. :)
Thanks for the take from a different angle - my mistake felt so physiological to me I was focused on that mainly...
And that's Alan Watt's! I love it. I think of it often and never knew the source. That's nice!
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