American Buddhist Net

Friday October 6, 2:30 pm ET
By Sinan Koray

What has the market done so far? Where is the market now? Where is the market going? As a trader, you look for answers to these questions. Are you finding the right answers or are your opinions and judgements clouding your vision?

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Here is a wonderful story. There was an expert on Buddhism and Far Eastern religions. He was a professor at a university and he had written many books on the subject. Although he was considered an expert, he had always wanted to meet a particular Zen saint who lived in India. So he travelled there with all of his books. When he got there, he finally had a chance to meet the guru. The guru had a loin cloth on and was very simple, very peaceful, and very old. The university professor introduced himself and began talking to the master about all the things he knew about Zen and Buddhism. The master stopped him and asked: “Would you like a cup of tea?” The university professor said: “Yes that would be very nice.” So the master took a teacup, put it in a saucer and began pouring tea back in the cup as the man continued to talk about all the things he knew about. The cup was full, but the old man continued to pour. The tea spilled out of the cup onto the saucer and as the professor talked, the master still kept pouring the tea into the cup. The tea was now going on the floor, and onto the professor’s pants. Finally, he stopped the master and said: “Excuse me, but the cup is full.” The master stopped and said: “You are like the cup. You are so full of everything that you know that you do not have room to let anything else new in.”

So many of us are just like that teacup. We are so full of all of the stuff that we have learned; that there is no more room to let anything else in. All the information we need is going past us. If you can see that metaphor in yourself, you can begin to see that, in the eyes of the beginner there are millions of options. In the eyes of the expert, there are only one or two. So the suggestion to finding your answers to the questions about the market is, to always be a beginner. Never become an expert.

You can get so clogged up with what you know and with all the rejection that goes with all that knowledge (i.e. you have to reject other points of view in order to make sure that yours is the only one that gets heard or gets used). You do not have any room inside of you for something new, something exciting or something different. You don’t expand yourself and your knowledge of what the market is capable of doing.

Be cautious of experts, especially if you are one yourself. Be wary of yourself becoming one—because then you limit yourself. By limiting yourself, the answers which are there can’t find you. Like an artery that is clogged up, nothing can flow through. The way you unclog yourself is by opening yourself up to new information, new ways of looking and new ways of perceiving. Let’s ask again: What has the market done so far? Where is the market now? Where is the market going?

Note: The article I wrote in Trading Tutors Issue 104 – Listen to the Market has more information on this subject.

Believe, achieve

Sinan Koray
Trading Tutors