When I was 15 I met this Zen monk who was a student of Bernie Glassman, in the school of Meazumi Roshi who founded ZCLA Zen Center of Los Angeles. Through him I started attending workshops and retreats at this Zen monastery in the catskills. After highschool I went there for a year work scholarship, I didn't want to go to college yet since I had no clue what to study. It was a great experience. I realized quickly that a lot of people were there with some very deep motivation, and I was probably more just curious. I did a lot of meditation, a lot of which was just focusing on the breath and letting go of that string of mental dialogue we have running that makes us "us". Over the years I will meditate regularly then stop for a year or so. I find that if I meditate in a disciplined way, I am more able to let go of excited emotions while trading. I also better notice shifts that let me know perhaps my emotions might soon start affecting my trading judgement.
this threads has me imagining a buddast monk chanting mouuullaaaaww moooooooolaaaaawww. daooooowwwwww... muullaaaaww.
LOL Look up the word cult. Then go there ( http://www.dhamma.org/ ). You might be wise enough to perceive the difference. Or you might not?
Still think you have free will? More like free won't: http://dericbownds.net/2006/07/free-will-free-wont-or-neither.html http://www.consciousentities.com/libet.htm
The free will debate is mostly semantics. This, on the other hand, is intriguing stuff: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1580394,00.html An especially thought provoking excerpt: A SECOND REASON THAT INFORMATION MAY BE SEALED OFF FROM consciousness is strategic. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers has noted that people have a motive to sell themselves as beneficent, rational, competent agents. The best propagandist is the one who believes his own lies, ensuring that he can't leak his deceit through nervous twitches or self-contradictions. So the brain might have been shaped to keep compromising data away from the conscious processes that govern our interaction with other people. At the same time, it keeps the data around in unconscious processes to prevent the person from getting too far out of touch with reality.