Attachment to pleasure and ultimately to life itself is our inborn survival instinct. We necessarily attach ourselves to food, shelter and clothing to sustain and protect our lives. The trouble with attaching to life or pleasure or other people means we cling to suffering instead of living in love and light. Life ends, pleasure is fleeting and our relationships with other people begin and end, too.
A clever and very telling illustration of attachment trouble is the story of A Monkey Trap:
In the south of India, people used to catch monkeys in a very special way. Actually, they let monkeys catch themselves. What they did was cut a small hole in a coconut, just large enough for a monkey to put its hand in, and then, fix the coconut to a tree and fill it with a sweet. The monkey smelled the sweet and squeezed his hand into the coconut, grabbing the sweet. When he tried to take the sweet, he found that his fist did not fit through the hole. Time after time, the monkey refused to let go of the sweet and held himself prisoner until he was caught. (Chodron)
Our very survival depends on grasping and letting go: think of a little baby learning to feed herself as she reaches with her open hand and grasps a crisp green bean with her tiny fist, puts the food in her mouth and reaches out with her open hand to grasp another bite.
Love and pleasure and material possessions and a whole host of other things in life can only provide us with well-being and life satisfaction if we learn how to grasp and let go. We experience deep and loving hugs from our sweethearts or close friends by holding tightly and letting go, enjoying affirmation in a loving embrace. If I cling to someone I love, I smother my freedom to give and receive. If I cling to my material possessions and define my worth by the quantity and quality of my “stuff,” I smother my freedom to give and receive and crush my ability to truly esteem myself.
A few years ago, my little girl had become a woman and was engaged to marry a kind and handsome young man. My little girl I’d watched with love and adoration as she learned to eat her green beans and shine at her dance recitals and march in graduations with her honors class was getting married and moving from my home forever. What was my unattached and loving heart to do? I held her closely and kissed her cheek and let her go, smiling through and through as she walked confidently toward her new life and her own expanding joy.
My Monkey Ways? Believe me, I’m not perfect. For a fleeting moment when my daughter announced her engagement, I thought: My “sweet” is stuck in that coconut, and I must take her and keep her. But how could I? She was never mine, and my detachment was the most loving thing I could do for both of us. In life’s most spectacular passages and the smallest ones day-to-day, I aspire to be the best me I can be—and limit my monkeying around for times of pure pleasure.
With a Deep and Loving Hug,
Dr Mell
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Chodron, P (2007). Always maintain a joyful mind. Shambhala. http://pemachodron.org
