we long for happiness....yet...

Dharma, a Sanskrit word for which there is no adequate English equivalent, refers to the understanding and behavior that lead to the elimination of suffering and its source and to the experience of a lasting state of happiness and fulfillment....

Shantideva, a seventh-century Indian Buddhist sage, writes:

Although we wish to cast off grief,
We hasten after misery;
And though we long for happiness,
Out of ignorance we crush our joy
as if it were our enemy.

We wish for happiness, yet frequently we fail to identify its source. We wish to be free of suffering, frustration, and grief, but we do not correctly identitfy the sources of our unhappiness. So, although we wish to be free of misery we hasten after it, all the while destroying the causes of the happiness we could have.

~ B. Alan Wallace, in Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up