The Karma of Happiness: A Buddhist Monk Looks at Positive Psychology (extract)

"What the Buddha taught about karma is this: Your experience of the present moment consists of three things: 1) pleasures and pains resulting from past intentions, 2) present intentions, and 3) pleasures and pains resulting from present intentions. With reference to the question of happiness, this teaching has three main implications.
• The present is not totally shaped by the past. In fact, the most important element shaping your present pleasure or pain is how you fashion, with your intentions in the present, the raw material provided by the past.
• Pleasures and pains don’t just come floating by of their own accord. They come from intentions, which are actions. This means that they have their price, in that every action has an impact both on yourself and on others. The less harmful the impact, the lower the price. If your search for happiness is harmful to others, they will fight to undo your happiness. If it’s harmful to yourself, your search has failed.
• Your search for pleasure or gratification in the present has an impact not only on the present but also well into the future. If you want a long-term happiness, you have to take into account the way your present actions shape future events. And you have to pay careful attention now, for you can’t come back from tomorrow to undo any careless mistakes you had made today.

Taken together, these observations about the connection between action and happiness show the need to be skillful in your pursuit of happiness. If you want your happiness to last, you have to look for pleasure, gratification, and meaning in ways that are harmless. You have to carefully choose which skills to develop that you’re sure to need in the future — strengths of character that will enable you to be happy in the midst of aging, illness, separation, and death."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Happiness: A Buddhist Monk Looks at Positive Psychology"

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