“Why is trading considered a form of cultivation?” This is a profound question. After engaging with numerous market cases and trading philosophies, I realize that comparing trading to “cultivation” is because, on the surface, it involves playing with numbers, but essentially, it is a deep磨练 about human nature, cognition, and mindset.

This is not metaphysics, but the experience gained by countless traders exchanging real money. I have summarized the following core dimensions to explain why trading is a brutal yet genuine practice:

🧘 1. The Core of Cultivation: The Battle with Human Nature’s Instincts

The most dangerous enemy in trading is never the market itself, but the human instincts hidden within your own genes.

* Conquering Greed and Fear: This is the most fundamental lesson. When profitable, greed makes you reluctant to take profits, resulting in profit reversal; when losing, fear makes you reluctant to cut losses, leading to deeper entrapment. Cultivation teaches you to adhere to discipline even when your heartbeat accelerates.
* Overcoming the “Impatience for Success”: Many enter the market wanting to get rich overnight. This mindset causes you to be indiscriminate, treating every fluctuation as an opportunity, ultimately falling into the trap of frequent trading. Cultivation teaches patience, understanding “knowing what to do and what not to do.”
* Breaking the “Illusory” Obsession: Many beginners are always searching for the “Holy Grail” indicator, wanting 100% certainty of rise or fall. The process of cultivation is about accepting uncertainty, understanding that the market is always right, and that losses are a necessary cost of trading, not a disaster.

🔍 2. Ways of Cultivation: “Inner Observation” and Self-awareness

The market is like a high-definition mirror; your personality, strengths, and weaknesses of human nature are all reflected clearly in your account’s profit and loss curve.

* Know Yourself: Are you suited for value investing or short-term speculation? If you are impatient, forcing yourself to “lie down and stay still” like Buffett is a form of torture; if you lack patience, high-frequency decisions in short-term trading can overwhelm you. The first step of cultivation is honest self-assessment to find a trading system that matches your personality.
* The “Observer” of Emotions: An advanced state of cultivation is being able to stand behind yourself, calmly watching your actions, observing your greed and fear rising, but not being controlled by them. Like the Buddhist concept of “Prajna wisdom,” viewing reality from a void perspective, maintaining objectivity and calmness.

📈 3. The Path of Cultivation: From “Technique” to “Tao”

Many traders initially indulge in learning various technical indicators (KDJ, MACD, moving averages, etc.), but these are just “techniques.” True cultivation is ascending from “technique” to “Tao”—that is, realization of cognition.

* Unity of Knowledge and Action: You know you should cut losses, but you can’t do it. This is a disconnect between cognition and behavior. Cultivation involves countless repetitions and reviews, embedding correct trading logic into the subconscious, forming “muscle memory.”
* Accepting Probabilistic Thinking: Even with a high win rate, you cannot win every time. Cultivation makes you understand that single wins or losses are not important; what matters is maintaining a system with a positive long-term expectation. Like farming, you cannot dismiss the entire agricultural technique because of a storm destroying the crops; what you need is long-term cultivation and patience.

🎯 4. The Ultimate Goal of Cultivation: Spiritual Freedom

The ultimate purpose of trading is often not wealth freedom, but spiritual freedom.

* Not Being Bound by External Factors: When you can face account drawdowns calmly, without anxiety over temporary losses or euphoria over sudden gains, you become your own “Dinghai Shenzhen” (a metaphor for stability and calmness).
* Living in the Present: Cultivation helps you no longer regret past mistakes nor worry about future trends. You only need to focus on the current trade, whether it conforms to your rules.

📌 Summary: The Three Stages of Trading Cultivation

To help you better understand this process, I have organized the following table:
| Stage | Description | Core Challenge | Cultivation Outcome |
|---------|----------------|------------------|---------------------|
| Beginner | Blindness and Pain | Relying on luck, no discipline, frequent losses, complaining about the market. | Recognize losses as tuition, start establishing rules. |
| Intermediate | Struggle and Refinement | Knowing the rules but unable to follow, emotional trading, account oscillation. | Achieve unity of knowledge and action, strictly follow the system, control risk. |
| Advanced | Calmness and Clarity | Trading becomes a habit, inner peace, no joy in gains nor sorrow in losses. | Attain spiritual freedom, cognition aligned with market laws. |

My advice is: If you regard trading as a form of cultivation, then each loss is not a failure but a “passage through tribulation.” Don’t just focus on the K-line chart; look more into your inner self. When you can control your hands and your mind, profits will naturally follow.