The Karma of Pleasure
November 29, 2008
A couple years back, when the psychology of happiness was beginning to become popular, I was asked to review a book on the topic to give a Buddhist perspective on the issue. I said one of the things the book was missing was an understanding of karma, that in your pursuit for happiness, you do things that have an impact on other people, and have an impact on yourself. And so you have to weigh the happiness that you get from those actions against their long-term results. And the editor of the magazine that I wrote this for said he was surprised that I had focused on that as the Buddhist issue, while I was surprised that he was surprised.