The Monkey’s Fist: Thoughts on the 5th Degree

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguishes one man from another.”

-Ernest Hemingway

In this degree the lodge is no longer in mourning but is still in deep sorrow which is symbolized by the black altar cloth with silver tears and takes place on the anniversary of the passing of Master Hiram.

This degree again reminds us that our time here is short even for the wise and the just man and that we should not cling to worldly things but rather to measure our age not by years but by our deeds.

“While we think a thought we die…Death is the portion of every man.”

-Albert Pike

Many of us are so worried about collecting and keeping what we have that we forget, in reality, we really own nothing. Everything is simply borrowed…even our own bodies are borrowed from the earth and will be return there soon enough.

We tend to slave away at jobs we hate and buy cars we can’t afford in an effort to look good at a stoplight to a stranger we’ve never met and will likely never see again. In short, the things we own and covet, if not careful, tend to own us.

I once was told a story that explained this coveting perfectly. It is called The Monkey’s Fist:

Hunters in third-world countries will take a coconut and cut a small hole just big enough for the monkey to fit their hand through. Inside the coconut they will put a peanut or something the monkey craves.

Sooner or later a monkey will come along and smell the treat, put their hand in the hole, grab the peanut, and won’t be able to pull their hand out. The hole is small enough to put their empty hand in, but not big enough for a hand clutching a fistful of peanut to be removed.

At this point you would think the monkey should realize, “Hey, I’m stuck” and drop the peanut. But they don’t. They want the treat and are unwilling to surrender it. So they pull and pull, refusing to drop the peanut, and the hunter walks up on them with a club… and now the monkey is dinner.

If the monkey would just have surrendered that single peanut they would have been free. But because they coveted the peanut so much they lost their ultimate freedom.

I wonder how many of us would be caught by the hunter if we found our cell phones in a coconut that only our open hand would fit in, but when we grasp our cellphone we were unable to remove it.

The moral of the Monkey’s Fist is that we must constantly be looking at those things in our lives that we are unprepared to let go of and ensure that those precious things are worthy of our love and devotion. Because if they are not, then they are a vice and can cause us harm mentally, physically or spiritually.

Finally, Freemasonry… like all great philosophies, teaches us to remember and contemplate our own mortality.  We don’t beat the grim reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well with the time God has given us.  Death comes for us all….what matters is the love that we’ve shared, the compassion we’ve shown and the suffering we’ve eased during our time on this earth.

Larry Roberts 32° KCCH, Portland Valley Personal Representative. Member of Modesto Lodge 206, Esoterika Lodge 227 and Research Lodge 198