Let Go of the Banana!

{1:51 minutes to read} Let Go or Be Dragged – Zen proverb

The minute I read this proverb, I laughed with recognition. Don’t we all know the truth of this? Of course we do, but how very difficult it is for us to do it.

I’ve been pondering this proverb for some time. Why, despite the wisdom of the concept, do we still hold onto whatever it is we know is going to drag us under, behind or somewhere else we don’t want to go?

Why don’t we let go? Perhaps the reason is that we think if we let go, we lose. But, lose what?

• Control
• Autonomy
• Access
• Power
• Ourselves

Pick one, any one. We just don’t want to lose, no matter what the cost. And oh, the cost!

In mediation, it is not about winning or losing. And yet, even though we may come to the mediation table with the intention of coming out with a win/win scenario, somehow we sense that duality of win/lose dancing in the ether, and nobody wants to be on the losing end.

It’s the “what if” game.

• If I give this up… then what?
• If I let go of that… what more will be expected?

We can’t always know the outcome for sure. So when uncertain, we tend to hold onto what is familiar, what we know or what we think we know, despite the feeling that we are being dragged down by it.

Another way of describing the “let go or be dragged” phenomenon is a parable explaining how they capture monkeys in the jungle. A huge, clear-glass globe with a 3-inch hole at the top is set on the jungle floor. That huge, glass globe is filled almost to the top with loads and loads of bananas. One by one, the monkeys put their slim arms into the hole to reach for and pull out a banana. The hole is too small for the banana to get through, yet the monkeys keep trying to pull that fruit out of the tiny hole, until Bam! The net comes down and captured they are. Moral to the story:  “Let go of the banana.”

Sitting on my shelf is a little stuffed gorilla clutching a banana. I look at her every day.