The Taoist Trader: Tao Te Ching (Chapter 11) Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore benefit comes […]
The Taoist Trader: Evil
The Taoist Trader: Tao Te Ching (Chapter 2) Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other; High and low rest […]
Seeing through the Trading Matrix: Taming the Ox (Zen Ox-Herding Picture 5)
The fifth Zen Ox-herding picture or the fifth stage on the road to enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is called “Taming the Ox.” Hixon writes: “With the rising of one thought, another and another are born. Enlightenment brings the realization that such thoughts are not unreal, since even they arise from our True Nature” (Coming Home: […]
Trading Bitterness, Trading Wisdom (Part 2)
How will the trader be transformed? In important ways. The trader will see his failed trading experiences from a larger perspective, through the eyes of God. The trader wasn’t being punished by his losses; he was being asked to expand his consciousness, to live beyond his ego. A Higher, Larger Perspective I am paraphrasing Carl […]
Trading Bitterness, Trading Wisdom (Part 1)
In my article “How to Save a Trader’s Life,“ I talked about a trader being “lost in the bitterness.” Then I briefly explained how transformation of the bitterness is possible. Bitterness or Wisdom In alchemy, salt symbolizes bitterness or wisdom. Carl Jung writes: “Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in […]
Into the Burning Cauldron: Trader Transformation
My last article “Is Trading My Vocation or a Money-Driven Obsession?” ended with the neophyte trader symbolically sitting in the alchemical cooking pot. The aliens who come from the trader’s unconscious (symbolized as outer space) do the bidding of the Self by cooking the ego, thus purifying it and making it ready for transformation. Alchemy […]