“They fill the bottom with nuts and whatever else monkeys like to eat. In the night, a monkey climbs out of the trees and slips his hand down the long neck. He grabs the sweets and his hand makes a fist. That means it’s too big to get back up the narrow neck and he’s trapped. In the morning the villagers come around and hit him on the head.” He looked at me for a moment. “It’s a Zen story, of course,” he said, smiling again. “The point is – if you want to be free, all you have to do is let go.”
