Letting Go of the Banana– The Way of Phi in Practice –

The ape cannot let go of the banana. What about you?

Dear friend,

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that man is a rope between beast and superman. I understand this metaphor as a bridge between an ape and a fully realised human. And that bridge I call Phi or Dynamic Balance. For sometimes we are more apelike and in other situations we are more elevated. Thus play our lives out.

One way to catch an ape (or perhaps a monkey) is supposedly to present them with a banana that is inside a cage. The spaces between the bars of the cage are wide enough to allow the ape to put his (or her) hand inside and grab hold of the banana. However, the space between the bars is too narrow for the hand holding the banana to be withdrawn. Unwilling to relinquish the banana, the ape is thus trapped and can be caught.

As humans we might laugh at the pitiful ape, but we often behave in similar ways. For even when we are not physically grasping, mentally we are often attached to whatever it is we are currently craving. Aversion works in similar ways. And therein lies the predicament that traps most humans. And exactly this was what the Buddha addressed and found a way out of. What an extraordinary gift!

The problem with the Buddha's teaching is that while the method – which leads to letting go of craving and aversion – is sound, the underlying philosophy is fundamentally unsatisfactory. For if the purpose of life is merely to be liberated from the suffering of being alive, then what was the point of life to begin with?

To me that is like spending tremendous amounts of time, money and energy to prepare a feast only to cancel it, tell all the guests to go home and throw away the food. To understand this metaphor, the preparation is all the work of cleansing the mind, living a moral life, letting go of craving and aversion. All the countless hours of meditation. The feast, then, is the reward that would come after the work is done.

For the 'feast' in this metaphor is the real life that is possible only when we have integrated our traumas and become liberated from our suffering. This is the life of the superman, to use Nietzsche's terminology. The life that is possible when we have done the inner work so that we can live without attachment, without projecting on others, without "sin" if you will. A life that is not merely about survival. A life that is fun and rewarding in a very real sense.

The danger that the Buddha warns against is real: if we approach the feast as yet another thing that we crave, well, then we're back in the wheel of rebirth and suffering (samsara). However, there is another level of existence possible, which I call Playosophy.

Playosophy means to live without attachment. To play for the sake of playing. To commit to living to the best of our capacity while letting go of the outcome.

My song (Don't) Hold On from the album Playosophy explores this theme. The song contains the following lyrics:

Letting go of the thought of it all

And surrender control

The surrender is imperative.

Surrendering to something that is bigger.

To God. To the universe. To everything that is, has been and will be.

To live fully means to surrender to each moment as it is. As it is. Whether it does our way or not. Whether we feel happy or sad. Whether we are rich or poor. To accept it completely. Letting go of everything that is not reality. Letting go of our thoughts of how things "should" be.

This doesn't mean to stop wishing for things. We can still set goals and strive for things. Doing what we are here to do. This is the Linear side of things.

However, we also accept reality as it is. The outcome is not in our hands. That is the Circular side of things.

And the Dynamic Balance lies in this dance. The bridge between the ape that wants and the superman that flies.

Thus we enjoy the banana when it is there, and when we cannot have it we simply let it go.

Listen to (Don't) Hold On by clicking here. Now with lyrics included.

With grace, 

Christopher