The metal detector analogy I shared had the following purpose:
I was not so much interested in the person who was looking for value inside the metal (although that is also a good point), but about this:the metal never had any effect on the engine of the detector. The reason the engine cooled down was because it was hot and also it “stopped producing heat”. The metal cannot really “do anything” to the motor.
In the case of the mind, the engine starts running once attachment to a rupa happens and then that produces heat or tapa mentally. The attachment happens due to believing that “outside things can affect me and give me pleasure”. That view lead to ghe engine started and lead to heat. Then, once we find what we hold as pleasurable, we stop looking for it and then, the engine stops producing heat and therefore, it cools down. So, it was a whole internal process. But in our ignorance we would say “my friend made me so happy when I saw her”, which is analogous to saying “when the detector came close to the metal, the metal cooled down the engine”.
Here is another example :
A boy meets his “crush” every friday for a date. The evening is very nice and they enjoy being with each other, going out and having anice meal, or going to cinema, etc.
This is why the boy is always disappointed to say goodbye to her (thereby producing further mental heat ) and also looking forward to her during the other days when he can’t be with her. So, he produces a lot of heat as time moves on from Saturday to Friday, in search of the next time when he can see her, believing that it will make him happy.
When he meets her next time, it will give him that happiness (momentary), not because she gave it to him (the sight of her) but simply because he stopped looking and hence the engine cooled down (he misattributed that to and gives credit to her).
So, he starts to prove his own assumptions that she is the source of his happines and then he starts to create this following idea:
Having more of her= more of happiness, since “her=happiness”, so there is a direct link (proportiobality). So he starts dreaming of marrying her.
Once he is married, however, he sees her everyday. So now the time to “run the engine” is much smaller, so therefore the “cooling of the engine” does not take long and is not very intense.
So, he married her because he linked the “pleasure” (relief from heat) to “being received by seeing her” she makes me happy) but this was never what really happened. Then he becomes irritated that now when he has “her for himself all the time” there is not much of that pleasure in everyday life. Because they see each other every day after work and hence there is not much time when the engine is running and “heat is produced”.
So, I hope my example shows the irony and also, why. So if someone would want his “crush” to make her happy (give him pleasure), the least thing he should do is to marry her, because then he would not be “away from her much” and hence no relief and pleasure. However if he would stay away from her, he would also suffer as long as he is attached because he thinks “seeing her makes me happy”<!–/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_230430_172029_577.sdocx–>
