Letting Go – The Monkey Cage

Sometimes we find ourselves struggling to cope with our everyday life and, when we do, we look around us to find something or someone to blame for our suffering.

But there is another place that we could look for answers, and that is inside of ourselves to see what we might be able to let go of – when it is no longer any use to us.

There is a folk story about ‘letting go’ as a way to ease suffering – it’s about a monkey that gets caught in a bamboo trap.

A hunter set a monkey trap by putting a banana inside a bamboo cage. The bars on the cage were set apart at a distance just wide enough for a monkey to reach inside with a flat hand, but not wide enough to pull that hand out again holding the banana. This trap was remarkably effective because the monkey wouldn’t drop the banana once he had gotten hold of it, so he remained trapped even though freedom was as simple as releasing his grip.

Is there something that you are holding onto, just like the monkey?

What purpose does it have in your life now?

How can you loosen your grip and put it down?

Do you need to keep hold of all or just a part of it? – do you know what to keep and what to let go?