How Sweet It Is...Or Is It?

I was reading through some of my old notes today and came across this great little teaching tale that I'd almost forgotten. I thought I'd share it because it is such a great visual of something that we all do mentally...The story I read was told by Joseph Goldstein.

In India, people have a unique way of catching monkeys. They make a hole in a coconut and hollow it out. The hole they make in the coconut shell is large enough to allow in a monkey's hand if it is open, but small enough that a monkey's balled up fist will not go through it. Then they place a sweet inside the hollowed-out coconut shell, place the whole thing in a tree and wait. The monkey comes along and wants the sweet, sticks her hand in and grabs it, but finds that she can't remove her hand when it is closed around the treat. The monkey will stay there trying to get her hand out while holding the sweet -- refusing to relinquish it even to the point of being captured because of it.

I was just saying to a group of yoga students last night that I hoped they would leave the class with open hearts, minds, bodies, hands. I asked them what would happen if they just let go? Stopped holding onto people, things, ideas so tightly? For the monkey in the teaching tale above, letting go is the way to freedom and holding on is the way to captivity -- seems to me that it's the same for us humans who've got ahold of so very many sweet treats...